Camping in Sweden

Everyone told us that the Swedes were really into their camping - what surprised us was how few people we saw using a tent.

This may have been because most Swedes were back at work and school: we arrived on 18 August, and high season for Swedes finishes on 17 August.

Or it may be that Swedish campsites often have lots of little wooden cabins for rent, which look really cosy - perhaps Swedes prefer them to tents?

Anyway, here are some handy facts and tips we discovered:

• from 18 August (at least it was 18 August in 2014 - it's probably the middle weekend of the month), it's low season so many campsites will have closed their shops and cafes
• most campsites, except the big ones, shut on 31 August
• though some campsites ask for the Swedish Camping Card, which costs 150 krona per tent, we never actually had to stump up for one
• most campsites have a kitchen for the campers - we had to buy tokens for one, but otherwise they were free
• all campsites are clean, have decent loos and showers.

Choosing sites

This is the main camping site for Sweden, which is helpful, assuming you more or less know where you're going.

I've described each site we stayed at on the route page.

You can also camp wild in Sweden as long as you're out of sight of houses and only stay one night. The problem we found was that in the region we toured you weren't often out of sight of a house because they're scattered everywhere so we'd have had to have left the road and trekked into the woods. It may be much easier further north.

All photos on this blog (c) Ian Butler