Results tagged “Sweden” from Intelligent Travel Blog

JT Blatty, a former Traveler photo intern, has been spending the last month traveling through Sweden, and sends us a dispatch from their swath of national parks.

During an impulsive, two-week road trip through the less populated landscapes of Sweden, it only took a few nights for my friend and I to realize that our spontaneous agenda was becoming quite predictable - but in a good way. A few hours before dusk, a quick look at the map would indicate a picture-perfect location to camp for the night and explore the next morning, whether forest, lake, beach, or mountain peak. In other words, there was no way of avoiding the 7,000 square kilometers of Sweden's 28 national parks.

At the time I didn't realize that 2009 is "Nature's Year" in Sweden, a 100-year milestone celebrating Swedish national parks and the successful measures taken to preserve their diverse ecological landscapes. 

Former Traveler Photo Intern Jenn Blatty files this report for IT from northern Sweden:

The Swedes are ahead of the game when it comes to exploring the outdoors and taking advantage of their natural surroundings. In the northern city of Sundsvall where I've been staying the past few weeks, I have yet to meet locals who don't know how to pick their own berries and mushrooms from the surrounding forests to prepare into jams, wines, or butters in their own homes. And when I say everyone, I mean even the city-dwellers (although the younger generation may not admit it).

But it makes sense: In Sweden, all are encouraged to maximize usage of the outdoors under a common law privilege called the "right of public access," or as the Swedes call it, "Allemansrätten." You won't find a "No Trespassing" sign anywhere around here: Even as a tourist I can wander from the main trail onto someone else's property to pick blueberries, or if I'm driving the country roads I can pull over wherever I see fit to pitch a tent for the night, so long as I follow the few simple guidelines. For example, I can only use branches lying on the ground for a fire and cannot break a live limb, and I should maintain a distance of 70 meters from any house in view--it's really just common sense stuff.

Every trip should have a soundtrack, so we've asked CJ Fahey with Nat Geo Music to select artists from their catalog whose songs will inspire you to get going.

 

Last week a friend took me to a party at the stunning Swedish Embassy in Washington, DC, so I've been feeling in a Swedish mood ever since. And considering its small population, Sweden has made a disproportionate contribution to global music. Most famous are guilty-pleasure groups like ABBA and Ace Of Base, but recently it seems that every other indie rock sensation comes from Sweden. And then there's Stockholm-based producer Max Martin who is responsible for massive hits by Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, and the Backstreet Boys. I took a course on Scandinavian literature in college and the professor suggested that Sweden owes its laudable artistic output to precisely the thing that would inspire me to do nothing: their long, dark winters.

One thing that all famous Swedish music groups have in common is that they sing in impeccable English. It makes sense for two reasons: it opens their music to a wider market and much of the music that inspires these rock and pop groups is sung in English. But the lack of internationally successful native language singers from Sweden is one of the things that makes me love so much the Swedish hip-hop group Snook.
 

Hello city-lovers! Today's city is Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer and travel writer Lola Akinmade has been shuttling between Stockholm and the States for the last couple of years, and is still discovering the cool nooks and crannies of this gorgeous cosmopolitan Scandinavian city.

Stockholm is My City

The first place I take a visitor from out of town is historic Gamla Stan.

When I crave the freshest pastries--especially world-class semlors--I always go to Vete-Katten.

To escape the crowds, I head for a walk around the island of Långholmen.

If I want to "fika" (take a coffee break complete with yummy baked goods), I go to Café 60.

For complete quiet, I sit on rocks along the water's edge (Lilla Värtan) on the island of Lidingö.

If you come to my city, get your picture taken with a sexy Swedish guard at the Royal Palace.
If you have to order one thing off the menu inside IKEA Kungens Kurva, it has to be Gravad lax with Hovmästarsås and boiled yellow almond potatoes.

Åhléns is my one-stop shop for everything from affordable clothes to home décor and DVDs.

Locals know to skip the touristy Drottninggatan (Queen's Street) and head out to the neighborhood of Södermalm ("Söder") instead.

Sweden's tiny, traditional red country houses, called stugas, could reach an audience of galactic proportions.  Swedish artist Mikael Genberg and the country's space program want to put a stuga on the moon.

Says Genberg on the project's website, LunarResort.com,

If one individual person from a small worker's town in a small country in northern Europe can engage enough people to realize such a seemingly far-fetched idea, then anyone can do anything,...Luna Resort is a way of inspiring and giving hope to people all over the world.

German photographer Daniel Weigert captured this image of a stuga on the moon, part of an advertising scheme to promote the program.

"What started as a funny idea became very well known through media, and as an advertisement gag they even created those little 'sand-moons' with little stugas next to Autobahns to advertise the idea," says Weigert.

Genberg told BBC news, "We know where the Americans want to land people [on the moon] in 2020... It would be nice if we had a house for them when they come."

Photo: Daniel Weigert