Rate my Scandinavia Itinerary

Rating needs criteria imo, e. g. interested in history, culture or food or ...
Details are missing, e. g. date of travel.or what you will plan to do at a place.

First of all: you have a wrong undestanding of Scandinavia which is "only" Sweden, Norway and for some people also Denmark. Finland has a different history, culture and language backgound. Initially, the name Scandinavia itself comes from the old Swedish and means something like “dangerous peninsula”, which presumably does not refer to the land, but to the dangerous reef off Skåne. Your itinerary is more "Nordics and a Baltic".

With visiting just a few large cities you will miss a relevant part of the Nordics which is nature / outdoors. True USPs of Scandinavia are not listed.

From structure it is poor because you travel back huge distance.

So far I see plan- and contextless city hopping in Northern Europe. If this inspires you ratings of others with different preferences and ambition levels for traveling play no role.

I understand MarkK's comments, and I opted to travel much more slowly through Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic countries in 2022 and 2023, but I think you've done a good job of distributing what I assume is a fixed number of days available among the capitals. I especially like Stockholm and would be inclined to shift one Copenhagen day-trip day to Stockholm, but I haven't been to Copenhagen since 1972, so I have no fresh memories of that city. With that minor quibble, I think this aligns well with the points of general interest at each destination.

I'm going to assume you'll see some of the secondary cities as well as some countryside on a future trip. Bergen is a very attractive place; maybe you'll decide to revisit it on that future trip. With the present schedule, you may not have much useful time in Bergen. It's one of Europe's rainiest cities, so any outdoor plans for the afternoon of Day 9 could get washed out.

I will point out that if something goes wrong with the Helsinki-to-Bergen flight, you'll be in a bit of a pickle. The Nutshell trips does take a full day, so you really have to get to Bergen on Day 9, or else you'll need to fly to Oslo instead, foregoing the Nutshell.

We could be more helpful if we knew your dates of travel and what you're interested in seeing and doing.

I'm assuming you aren't in a tight budget crunch. That part of Europe (except for Estonia) is expensive; covering a lot of the same ground over the course of two trips will mean higher transportation costs. I found out the hard way that ferry fares can escalate sharply as the travel date approaches. The cheapest cabins can sell out, further increasing the cost.

I think your itinerary is quite good, although you could shift Copenhagen to the beginning since it’s relatively close to Stockholm. I loved Bergen, so I would give that another day, which could come in handy if you have a problem with your flight in as acraven points out. Maybe take a day from Tallinn, although I really liked Tallinn too.

Thanks for all of your thoughtful replies. We are mostly interested in history and culture, and will be travelling in May. We look forward to visiting again in the future at a slower pace to visit smaller centres and experience more nature, but looking to visit the major centres during this trip.

Based on your mentioned focus / criteria I would rate it 5/10 because only Tallinn seems to be the best country's selection for history and culture. Of course you will find museums and some of national culture in the capitals but most of the big cities are neither the oldest nor the ones with purest culture because capitals often show cultures which are mixed by visitors and ex-pats from other countries. One main deficit is that an important culture is fully ignored.

Of course you will enjoy the journey because the destinations are interesting and attractive enough. You likely do not know enough about the countries and their cultures to miss something. So your travel exprience will be much better than a 5/10.

For the mentioned purpose of travel I see the journey planning process and selection of destinations widely inappropriate. Also the times in each country will give you only a surfacial impression of the culture.

Culture tip: try to vist Noway during May 17 because it is their Constitution Day with remarkable celebrations from the morning into the late evening.

Have a good journey and please post a report after your hopefully nice journey.

I think your itinerary is fine. You should enjoy all your ports of call immensely.

"Norway in a Nutshell" trip from Bergen to Oslo

Is this via train? Have not done it but I understand that some consider the Bergen-Oslo train to be one of the most scenic in the world.

You have planned well. The only conceivable alteration would be prolonging the stay in stockholm, at the expense of Copenhagen. Either way, you will be just fine.

It's very rushed and a bit all over the place. And if the focus is history and culture you might want to think about why you are visiting those places. There are better options in my opinion. But maybe the focus is major cities?

a bit all over the place

That's kind of like all my vacations. Everything from golf to pubs to art museums to scenic railways to operas. Don't understand why this is something to criticize.