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As much as I love traveling, I had never gone on an international solo vacation before. However, because my company closes the week between Christmas and New Years most years and because Austin is a busy surgery resident who is unable to take any time off during that week, I took my first solo international vacation to visit Sweden at the end December 2019/beginning of January 2020. My intent was to hopefully see the northern lights. In this post I will give you an overview of my Sweden itinerary.

Why Sweden?

A little bit about my trip… I chose Sweden as my aurora viewing destination for a few reasons. The first being I had never visited Sweden before and this would be somewhere new. Additionally, when deciding between the Scandinavian countries, I found that Abisko, Sweden had the best microclimate for viewing the northern lights. Lastly, I ended up joining a tour group while I was there called Lights over Lapland.

Lights over Lapland has single night tour options as well as 4-day all-inclusive tours that cover your food, hotel stay, and some additional daytime excursions. To top that off, they let you borrow a nice camera (that I didn’t have) and provide you with a guide to teach you how to use it (also key since I booked this trip a month before I left). Since I was solo traveling, I opted for the 4-day tour to have some of the extra details taken care of.

My Sweden Itinerary

To kick off my Sweden itinerary, I flew from Salt Lake City, UT to Stockholm, Sweden via Seattle and Amsterdam on Delta/KLM. The trip was lovely and I booked the route specifically as I could get a confirmed upgrade into business class using a global upgrade certificate courtesy of my Diamond Medallion Status on Delta.

Pro tip: If I didn’t have status and wanted to fly business, I would have used travel hacking to purchase this ticket with miles. Don’t know what this means? Click here.

Stockholm

I landed in Stockholm right around noon so I had to hurry to my hotel in order to get some daylight. Since I was in Stockholm during December/January there is a limited amount of time that the sun is up and I wanted to take advantage. I took the Arlanda Express train which is approximately 18 minutes from the airport to downtown Stockholm. This is much faster and cheaper than other options with the exception of a large bus. You can book Arlanda Express tickets straight from your cell phone/in advance.

I was on a time crunch to get to northern Sweden so I only had the afternoon to do some sightseeing. Then, I visited the Gamla Stan (Old Town) and got some delicious food. I headed back to my hotel (see which Marriott hotel in Stockholm is the best) and then got up in the morning, took the train back to the airport and flew on SAS airlines to Kiruna, Sweden. My ticket on SAS was booked via my Chase Ultimate Rewards points (this is code for travel hacking).

Northern Sweden

Once I landed in Kiruna, my trip itinerary was turned over to Lights over Lapland. As I mentioned previously, I opted for their 4-day tour. I got on a bus for the two-hour drive from Kiruna to my hotel in Abisko, Sweden. Then once we arrived, I had a short time for a nap and then I got to meet the rest of the Lights Over Lapland tour group at dinner. Lights Over Lapland keeps these tours small with 10 people maximum. However, because this trip was during the holidays, our tour was fully booked at 10 people. There were 4 people from the US (including me), 1 person from Australia, 2 people from India, 1 person from Dubai, and 2 people from Brazil – a diverse and seriously lovely group.

After dinner, we got a quick [camera lesson] from our guide, Chris Hogson, and then got dressed in many layers for our first night out on an aurora hunt. We saw an aurora that night and were delighted with lingonberry juice and cinnamon rolls.

Ice Hotel

The next day during the day, the plan was to head to the Ice Hotel which is basically all the way back at the airport. Because of some crazy weather overnight after we went to bed, the bus to come pick us up and take us to the Ice Hotel was actually about 2 hours late. However, during the downtime waiting for the bus, the most beautiful polar stratospheric clouds were visible. These looked like an incredible daytime aurora display and I was basically giddy the whole time we were waiting as I was outside enjoying the clouds.

When the bus finally arrived, we ended up making it to the Ice Hotel late but with time to still enjoy ourselves. And for real it is a HOTEL. People actually stay there. Crazy people though – ha. If you choose to stay at the Ice Hotel, you can’t actually bring any of your stuff in to the rooms. Instead you sleep on a reindeer skin in a warm sleeping bag and you have to go down the hall to use the restroom. Most of the rooms don’t even have doors – more like a shower curtain. That was not for me although I did a poll on my Instagram and about 40% of people said they would be interested in staying there. Regardless it was definitely worth a visit and some of the rooms were really cool (get it, cool?! Ok bad joke.)

Then we headed back to Abisko after our visit to the Ice Hotel and we went out on another aurora hunt. On this day specifically it snowed and no aurora was seen.

Narvik, Norway

The next day the weather continued. My plan was to head to Narvik, Norway because on the way I was supposed to see some of the beautiful fjords of Norway. The drive is apparently super impressive, however I got a little unlucky with the weather that day and visibility was pretty poor. I did get a few pictures but not exactly what I was hoping for. However, the guide that took me to Narvik was incredibly nice and had even been to Utah a few times!

After heading back from Narvik (and checking off Norway on my “countries visited” list), taking a quick nap, and having dinner with the group, we went out for more northern lights viewing. This was another calm aurora night but still beautiful and we got to take a snowmobile sleigh ride to get to our viewing location that was equipped with a teepee.

Hiking

The next day we went for a nice walk on the King’s Trail until we arrived to the point where there were two moose just off the trail. As there were about 9 of us, our guide decided to route us back and around these animals as to not agitate them. Then we ended up walking out on the frozen lake Torneträsk which was pretty dang fun.

Dogsledding

After a quick lunch, I headed to my next activity – dogsledding! This was a bucketlist item for me, and there is a story involved. Most of the group went dogsledding the day before and I was the only one from our group that ended up dogsledding in the afternoon following the hike. However, there were people who were dogsledding from other tour groups and just visiting. I was placed on a sled with an older couple who had a very hard time getting onto the sled (it sorta feels like you are riding a go-cart). It was tight and I barely had any room (I was in front and they were in the back behind me), but the couple was obviously stiff and they were struggling so I wasn’t going to complain. I mean hey – I’m dogsledding!

So we are in the third (of three) sleds and as we are leaving the kennel there is a hill and then it is flat. As we take off and get to the hill, the woman in my sled starts shrieking saying we are going fast (which we aren’t really). Then we flatten up and our musher (the person driving the sled) says that we need to help her and lean when she tells us to. It’s intuitive. You just lean into the turn. We get to our first turn and it’s to the left so she says “ok lean left” and I lean. My proximity to the couple behind me (ie. we are sitting on top of each other) told me that they didn’t lean.

And our sled almost tips over!

Meanwhile the woman behind me is saying that we are going “too fast” and we need to “slow down”. So quickly we get to the next turn and this time it’s to the right so our musher says “ok lean right” and I lean. But the couple doesn’t lean and we tip over.

It wasn’t really crazy. It was pretty slow and tame. But, nonetheless because no one could lean, the only way we could un-tip is by me getting out and the musher from the sled in front of us getting out and coming over to right the sled with our musher. At this point the woman is saying that we have to go slower and that the sled is going too fast. Both mushers explain that this is the speed and they can’t really slow the dogs down and remind her that we haven’t even gone downhill at this point. Then the woman says that if they won’t slow down then she’s going to “walk back and demand her money back”. And the man with her says “if she’s walking back, I’m walking back”. The mushers asked if I was with them and I said “NOPE”.

Then the two of them proceeded to walk back and I got to do the rest of the 1 hour and 55 minute dog sled ride BY MYSELF with just me and the musher.

It was SO MUCH FUN.

Basically all of the videos that I took while I was on the dogsled have me giggling in them because I was so dang excited and happy.

After dogsledding, I went back to the hotel, changed for dinner, and then we headed out for our last aurora hunt. This one was extra special as it was New year’s eve! After another calm aurora display, we headed back to the hotel and I packed up and got ready to head to the airport in the morning.

Stockholm

I flew from Kiruna to Stockholm on SAS. My ticket on SAS was booked via my Chase Ultimate Rewards points (this is code for travel hacking). I took the Arlanda Express train once again and made my way to my (hotel). For dinner I met up with some friends from my time in Abisko.

The next day I went with those same friends to the Vasa Museum, an absolute MUST if visiting Stockholm. We also visited the Viking Museum as well which was much less exciting. After grabbing some lunch, I parted ways with my friends and grabbed some hot chocolate. Then I decided to check out Central Badet, one of the Swedish saunas. After relaxing there for a while, I visited a burger spot that reminded me a lot of Shake Shack.

I had a 6:30 am flight out of Arlanda (Stockholm’s airport) so I booked the airport hotel for the convenience, not because of the chain. On the way home I flew Stockholm to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Salt Lake City via Delta and KLM.

Changes to my Sweden Itinerary

If I had an extra day for this trip and I had a chance to re-do my Sweden itinerary, I likely would have flown into Stockholm and spent two or three packed days there and then chosen a different city to visit after I went to northern Sweden. But because of the Lights over Lapland itinerary and the fact that I wanted to spend Christmas at home I didn’t have much of a choice. Just a note if you are thinking about doing a trip like this yourself.

Have you been to Sweden? I’d love to go back. Give me details of your Sweden itinerary in the comments.

If you want a packing list for viewing the northern lights and trying to figure out what to wear, check out this post here.

You May Also Enjoy These Posts:

• Abisko Weather in January
• Stockholm Weather in January
• Abisko Weather in December
• Stockholm Weather in December
• How to dress for viewing the Northern Lights in January
• Northern Lights in December: How to Pack
• Packing list for viewing the Northern Lights in December

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