The American Airlines plane was still boarding when I caught that last glimpse of Manhattan through Newark’s windows. Funny how the city looks so peaceful from up here – you can’t see the guy who almost knocked me over rushing for his Uber or smell that weird mix of pretzels and exhaust. Just buildings reaching up like they’re trying to escape too.
Sweden in January. My friends thought I’d lost it. “Why not wait until summer?“ they kept asking. But here’s the thing – I didn’t want postcard Sweden. I wanted the real deal. The kind where your eyelashes freeze together and locals look at you weird for taking photos of snow plows at midnight.
The Journey North: Trading Skyscrapers for Snow
Somewhere over the Atlantic, dinner service ended and most people knocked out with their eye masks on. Not me. I had my face pressed against that freezing window watching the world change below. First came Iceland – just a dark mass with scattered lights. Then nothing for what felt like forever.
When Swedish airspace hit, everything turned white. Not regular white. That specific Nordic white where you can’t tell where the frozen lakes end and the land begins. Trees looked like tiny matchsticks scattered by some giant kid. The flight attendant – Anna, I think – noticed me gawking and leaned over. “First time?“ she asked in that melodic Swedish accent. “You picked the coldest week of the year.”
Perfect.
Stockholm Arlanda Airport was weirdly calm for an international hub. None of that JFK chaos. Just… efficiency. Grabbed my bags (they actually showed up!), hopped on the Arlanda Express and 20 minutes later I’m standing in Stockholm Central Station wondering why their 7-Eleven sells reindeer wraps.
Stockholm: Not Your Average Capital
That first hotel room hit different. Scandinavian minimalism isn’t just an Instagram aesthetic – it’s a whole vibe. Clean lines, that specific shade of gray that somehow feels warm and windows that actually insulate. After NYC apartments where you hear your neighbor’s Netflix choices, this silence was almost unsettling.
Stockholm in winter is a weird paradox. It’s a major city but feels like a village sometimes. You’ve got:
- Businesspeople in serious coats power-walking to meetings.
- Tourists (like me) stopping every five seconds for photos.
- Locals who’ve mastered walking on ice without looking down.
- That one guy in shorts because apparently -5°C is “not that cold”.
The Gamla Stan (Old Town) was my first proper stop. Cobblestones covered in that compressed snow that turns into ice-cement. Nearly ate it three times before I learned the Swedish shuffle – tiny steps, weight centered, dignity optional. The buildings lean into each other like they’re sharing secrets from the 1200s. Everything’s painted in these muted yellows and oranges that somehow pop against the gray sky.
But I wasn’t here just for city stuff. The real adventure was waiting up north.
Luleå and the Swedish Lapland: Where Winter Gets Serious
The overnight train from Stockholm to Luleå? Should’ve been romantic. Reality: snoring businessman in the next compartment and a heating system that couldn’t decide between sauna and freezer. Still, waking up to see the landscape completely transformed was worth the neck crick.
Luleå in January is basically living inside a snow globe. The sun – when it bothers showing up – stays low on the horizon all day, creating this perpetual golden hour that photographers would sell their grandmother for. Except it’s -22°C and your camera battery dies in about twelve minutes.
My hotel here was different. Less design magazine, more “we understand you need to survive.” Triple-glazed windows, heated floors and a breakfast spread that assumed you’re about to go wrestle a bear. Filmjölk (kind of like yogurt but tangier), knäckebröd loaded with everything and coffee strong enough to raise the dead.
The Arctic Bath Experience
Okay, THIS was why I came. The Arctic Bath Hotel isn’t just a hotel – it’s a floating, circular piece of insanity on the frozen Lule River. The architecture looks like someone asked, “What if we made a building that’s also a statement about humanity’s relationship with nature?“ and then actually built it.
Getting there involved a driver named Magnus who treated icy roads like suggestions and told me about his daughter’s hockey team the entire hour-long drive. The hotel materialized out of the forest like something from a fairy tale. Those logs jutting out from the central structure? They’re meant to represent a jam of timber floating downriver. In person, at night, with the Northern Lights threatening to appear, it feels more like nature’s middle finger to conventional architecture.
The room setup was bonkers. Six cabins on the river ice, each one tilted at weird angles like they’re drunk. Mine faced west, which meant sunset lasted about three hours. The interior was all blonde wood and black steel, with a window positioned perfectly for lying in bed and contemplating existence while watching the frozen river.
But the main event? The ice bath and sauna ritual. Here’s what they don’t tell you in the brochures:
First round, I lasted maybe eight seconds in that ice bath. Your body just nopes out immediately. The Finnish couple next to me were casually discussing grocery prices while neck-deep in frozen death. The sauna after felt like being hugged by God himself.
Second round, made it to fifteen seconds. Started seeing colors that don’t exist.
Third round, something clicked. Thirty seconds. The cold stops feeling cold and becomes something else entirely. Like your nervous system gives up and decides to just vibe with it. Magnus later told me this is “när du blir svensk” – when you become Swedish.
The Culinary Plot Twist: Sweden Can Actually Cook
Let me address the elephant (or reindeer) in the room. Swedish cuisine has a reputation problem. Before this trip, I thought it was all pickled fish and sadness. I was catastrophically wrong.
That first proper Swedish dinner changed everything. The restaurant at Arctic Bath doesn’t mess around. We’re talking locally sourced everything, prepared by chefs who apparently made a deal with flavor demons. The reindeer (yes, I ate Rudolph) came out looking like art. Perfectly pink inside, served with some kind of lingonberry reduction that I’d honestly bathe in and these tiny potatoes that tasted like butter made a wish and became a vegetable.
The fish course? Arctic char with this yellow sauce that our server explained contained cloudberries, brown butter and “Swedish forest magic” (pretty sure she was joking but honestly who knows). Those little green dots of herb oil weren’t just decoration – they added this bright, almost electric flavor that cut through the richness.
Even breakfast became an event. Forget continental breakfast’s sad croissant and old fruit. Swedish breakfast is basically them saying, “You might die of cold today, so eat like you mean it.” Tables groaning with:
- Five types of bread (including this dark rye that could double as a weapon)
- Gravlax that melts on your tongue
- Cheese that ranges from “mild” to “fight you”
- Eggs prepared every way humans have figured out
- Müesli that actually tastes good (what sorcery is this?)
- Coffee that could power a small city
Ice Driving: When Swedes Give You a Rally Car
“Have you driven on ice before?“
Karl, my instructor, asked this while handing me keys to a BMW that cost more than my apartment. We’re standing on a frozen lake that’s supposedly thick enough to land a plane on, though I’m trying not to think about that too hard.
The ice driving experience in Swedish Lapland is basically them saying, “Here’s an expensive car, there’s a frozen lake, try not to die.” The course was marked with little orange cones that I immediately destroyed. Karl just laughed. “Everyone kills the cones. That’s why we buy them in bulk.”
First lap: terrifying. The car slides even when you’re going straight. Second lap: still terrifying but now I’m giggling like an idiot. Third lap: I’m Ken Block (narrator: he was not Ken Block).
Karl taught me the Swedish art of controlled chaos. “The car wants to slide. Let it. Just suggest where it should go.” By lap ten, I was actually getting it. Throwing the car sideways into corners, controlling the slide with throttle, feeling like an absolute legend until I spun out and ended up facing backwards. Karl: “That’s also a technique… just not the one we’re learning today.”
Lost in the Forest: When GPS Becomes a Suggestion
The morning started innocent enough. “Just a quick walk,” I told myself, bundling up in everything I owned. The hotel had these marked trails – blue for easy, red for moderate, black for “you better know what you’re doing.” Guess which genius decided blue was too boring?
Twenty minutes in, the red markers disappeared. Or maybe they were covered in snow. Or maybe I’m just an idiot who can’t follow basic directions. The path split three ways and my phone – my trusty New York survival tool – showed one bar, then none. Battery at 43% and dropping fast because apparently iPhone batteries hate negative temperatures more than I hate Times Square on New Year’s.
Swedish forests in winter aren’t like those cute woods you see in movies. They’re dense. Silent in that oppressive way where you hear your heartbeat. Every tree looks exactly the same – tall, covered in snow, judging you for your life choices. I kept walking, figuring I’d hit something eventually. A road. A house. A Swedish troll who’d give me directions in exchange for my firstborn.
The Panic Sets In
Forty minutes. No markers. No people. Just me and about ten million identical pine trees.
Here’s what goes through your head when you realize you’re properly lost:
- “This is fine, I’ll just retrace my steps”
- “Wait, which way did I come from?“
- “Okay, sun sets at like 2 PM here, I have time”
- “Do bears hibernate in Sweden?“
- “My obituary is going to be so embarrassing”
I tried the old “moss grows on the north side of trees” thing. Every tree had moss. Everywhere. Swedish moss doesn’t follow rules apparently.
Then I heard it. Machinery. Distant but definite. I basically ran toward the sound, tripping over hidden roots, face-planting into snow drifts, dignity abandoned somewhere back at marker number whatever. Burst through the tree line to find… a guy on a snowmobile just chilling, eating a sandwich.
His name was Erik. Didn’t speak much English, but understood “lost tourist” well enough. Pointed me toward the hotel – apparently I’d walked in a massive circle and was only about 500 meters away, just through “that obvious path there.” (It was not obvious.) He offered me some of his coffee from a thermos. Best coffee I’ve ever had, probably because it meant I wasn’t going to become a Swedish forest statistic.
Back at the hotel, the receptionist just smiled. “Happens all the time. That’s why we have Erik patrol the area.”
Of course they do.
Midnight Adventures and Northern Lights Failure
You can’t write about Swedish Lapland without mentioning the Northern Lights. Every brochure, every website, every Instagram post promises you’ll see them. What they don’t mention is that the Aurora Borealis is basically the universe’s biggest diva. Conditions need to be perfect and even then, it might just not feel like showing up.
Night one: Clouds. Night two: Clouds. Night three: Clear sky! But no solar activity. Night four: Solar activity! But clouds again.
I spent more time standing in -25°C weather staring at nothing than I care to admit. Downloaded three different Aurora apps that kept sending notifications at 3 AM. “HIGH POSSIBILITY OF AURORA ACTIVITY NOW!” By the time I’d get dressed and outside, nothing. The Finnish couple from the ice bath saw them twice. They weren’t even trying.
But here’s what I did see: stars like I’ve never seen before. Without light pollution, the sky turns into this insane tapestry. The Milky Way actually looks like spilled milk across black velvet. Satellites cruise by every few minutes. I saw five shooting stars in one night. Maybe the Northern Lights were just the friends we made along the way. (Nah, I’m still bitter.)
The Luleå Nightlife Experience
Small Swedish cities after dark are their own special breed of weird. Luleå has maybe 80,000 people, but on a Saturday night, it felt like all of them were crammed into the same three bars.
Started at this place called… actually, I can’t remember the name. Something with an umlaut. The bartender, Lisa, took one look at me and goes, “American?“ When I nodded, she poured me something called snaps and said, “We’ll fix that.”
Snaps, for the uninitiated, is basically liquid punishment that Swedes pretend to enjoy. You’re supposed to sing a song before drinking it. Everyone knows the songs except you. The songs are in Swedish. The snaps tastes like someone distilled regret and added caraway seeds. After the third one, you start understanding Swedish. After the fifth, you’re singing along.
Met this group of locals – Thomas, Emma and Big Erik (different from Forest Erik). They adopted me for the night, dragging me from bar to bar, teaching me drinking songs that definitely weren’t appropriate and trying to explain the rules of something called “kubb” using beer bottles and increasingly slurred English.
The night ended at someone’s apartment at 4 AM, eating kebab pizza (yes, that’s a thing, yes, it’s incredible when you’re drunk) and arguing about whether Swedish or Norwegian cross-country skiers were better. I had no horse in this race but defended Norway just to keep things interesting. Almost got kicked out until I admitted ABBA was better than any American pop group. (They’re not wrong.)
The Quirky Obsessions of Swedish Winter
Living in Swedish winter, even temporarily, you notice things. Weird things. Specific things that wouldn’t make sense anywhere else:
The Fika Cult
Fika isn’t just coffee break. It’s a religious experience. Twice a day, everything stops. Doesn’t matter if you’re performing brain surgery or negotiating world peace – fika time is sacred. And there’s always cake. Not good cake, mind you. Swedish cake is often dry and involves marzipan for some reason. But you eat it. You smile. You say “så gott!” (so good!) even when it’s not.
The Temperature Olympics
Swedes LOVE talking about temperature. But not in Celsius. They use this weird system of “minus degrees” where -5°C is “mild,” -15°C is “proper winter” and -25°C is “good for the skin.” They’ll casually mention it was -30°C last week like they’re discussing yesterday’s lunch. Meanwhile, I’m wearing everything I own and still can’t feel my face.
The Shoe Situation
Every building has this elaborate entrance ritual. You take off your boots, put on provided slippers or indoor shoes, carry your boots to a designated boot area and god help you if you track snow past the mat. I watched a grown man get scolded by a tiny café owner for three minutes about wet footprints. He apologized like he’d committed murder.
Personal Space Premium
Swedes would rather die than sit next to a stranger on a bus. The bus could be packed, standing room only, but if there’s a seat next to someone, it stays empty. I sat next to a guy once (American habit) and he looked at me like I’d proposed marriage. Moved at the next stop.
The Food Adventures Continue: Surströmming Didn’t Kill Me
We need to talk about surströmming. Fermented herring. The food that’s literally banned on airlines because the cans might explode. The smell that could violate Geneva conventions. And yes, I tried it.
The hotel restaurant wouldn’t serve it (they valued their other guests), but Thomas from bar night knew a guy. We drove twenty minutes outside Luleå to a shed. A SHED. Where apparently Gunnar makes the “good stuff.”
The can opened with a hiss that promised regret. The smell hit like a physical force – imagine if fish decided to become a biological weapon. Gunnar and Thomas were watching me like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. The trick, apparently, is to eat it on thin bread with potatoes, onions and sour cream. Lots of sour cream. All the sour cream.
First bite: My body tried to reject it on principle. Second bite: Still awful but now I’m committed. Third bite: You know what? If you breathe through your mouth and think about literally anything else, it’s… still terrible but manageable.
Thomas filmed the whole thing. I’m apparently Finnish YouTube famous now as “American guy doesn’t vomit from surströmming.”
The Unexpected Luxuries
But Swedish cuisine isn’t all fermented nightmares. Some discoveries:
Kladdkaka – Sticky chocolate cake that’s basically undercooked on purpose. It’s what brownies want to be when they grow up. Had it with cloudberry jam and nearly cried from joy.
Västerbotten cheese – Aged hard cheese that costs more than gold and is apparently worth it. Tastes like what would happen if parmesan and cheddar had a Swedish baby.
Toast Skagen – Fancy shrimp on toast that every restaurant serves but each claims to do differently. Had it eight times. No regrets.
Reindeer everything – Smoked, dried, stewed, grilled. Sorry, Rudolph, but you’re delicious in all formats.
The Journey Home: Stockholm Round Two
The train ride back to Stockholm felt different. Going north, I was a tourist heading to an adventure. Coming back, I was… still a tourist but one who’d been baptized in ice water and fermented fish. The landscape scrolling by didn’t feel foreign anymore. Just Sweden being Sweden.
Stockholm on the return felt almost tropical at -5°C. That’s what Lapland does to your internal thermometer. Suddenly, I understood those shorts guys. Your body just adapts, recalibrates. What felt freezing a week ago now felt balmy.
Spent my last days doing the proper tourist things. The Vasa Museum (a ship that sank immediately because Swedish engineering had an off day in 1628). The ABBA Museum (more fun than any adult should have pretending to be the fifth member). Fotografiska (modern photography museum that made me feel feelings about pictures of trees).
But the best part was just walking. Stockholm in winter, when you’re not worried about freezing, is magical. The Christmas lights stay up through January because why not – it’s dark anyway. Cafés glow warm and inviting. Everyone looks good in winter coats. Even the grumpy people look cozy and grumpy.
The Little Things That Stuck
Swedish Efficiency That Borders on Witchcraft:
- Buses that actually arrive on time. To the minute. In a snowstorm.
- Recycling systems so complex they require a PhD but everyone just knows how to use them
- Card payments everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I saw someone buy a single banana with a card.
- Heated sidewalks in some areas because why should walking be unpleasant?
The Random Observations:
- Swedish kids don’t cry. I’m convinced they’re born stoic.
- Everyone speaks better English than most Americans
- Nobody jaywalks. Even at 3 AM with no cars for miles. The crosswalk light is law.
- Swedish pizza has bananas on it sometimes and everyone acts like this is normal
- They put caviar in tubes like toothpaste and eat it for breakfast
What Nobody Tells You About Swedish Winter:
- Your nose hairs freeze. It’s the weirdest sensation.
- Hand warmers are currency. I could’ve traded them for anything.
- Vitamin D supplements aren’t optional – they’re survival
- The darkness isn’t depressing – it’s cozy. Hygge is real (yes, I know that’s Danish, but Swedes do it too)
- Ice cleats for your shoes are the difference between dignity and YouTube fame
The last sunset from my Stockholm hotel room was perfect. Those particular Nordic colors – pink, purple, orange – painted across buildings I’d never see again but would always remember. My flight was at 6 AM, which in January meant leaving for the airport in complete darkness and arriving in complete darkness. Swedish winter doesn’t care about your schedule.
At Arlanda, buying last-minute cloudberry jam and reindeer jerky (because apparently I’m that tourist now), the cashier asked if I enjoyed Sweden.
“It was cold,” I said.
She smiled. “Yes, but did you enjoy it?“
“Yeah. Yeah, I really did.”
“Then you understand Sweden.”
Maybe I do. Or maybe I just understand that understanding isn’t always the point. Sometimes you just need to jump in ice water, get lost in a forest, eat fermented fish and trust that it’ll all make sense later. Or not. That’s fine too.
Sweden in winter isn’t trying to impress you. It just is what it is – brutal and beautiful, efficient and mystical, modern and ancient. It’s a place that makes you earn it, but once you do, you get it. You get why people choose to live where the sun barely shows up. Why they celebrate the darkness instead of fighting it. Why they figured out 47 ways to prepare reindeer.
Would I go back? In a heartbeat. But maybe in summer next time. Just to see what all the fuss is about when Swedes can actually feel their faces.
