Itinerary Scandinavia June 2027

Anyone have suggestions or feedback? I am looking to start booking hotels and flights.
Thanks!

lisafjord,
I haven't been to Scandinavia so no advice from me, but your reworked plans look good. Once again, congrats to the graduate! Have a wonderful trip!

Thanks Judy! So excited about our trip, and more excited that our little girl has grown up to be an amazing woman who will graduate with a chemical engineering degree from an amazing university! So proud of her. One more year, and only 1 more college payment : )

To be honest, the plan looks a bit odd with a lot of back tracking. What do you want to see and do?

Can you tell me the odd part? We can fly into and out of these places more affordably than others flights so this made sense to us.

I've looked at your plan for a while and tried to make sense of it. But I'm not sure what you want to see and do and if there is a special reason for choosing those stops. And the way it looks at the moment you are wasting a lot of time backtracking.

E.g. going to Tallinn in the middle of your stay in Finland is not how I would do it. Start in Finland, then take the ferry to Tallinn, spend the last days there and fly home from Tallinn. That way you gain half a day extra for sightseeing. And your time in Sweden is not in the order I'd suggest. My recommendation would be that after you land at Arlanda, take the train to Tällberg. After two nights there, take the train to Stockholm. If you feel that you want a car in Tällberg, you can rent it in Dalarna. And flying from Ålesund to Stockholm would not be my choice. I'd recommend that you continue to Trondheim and fly from there. Either by car or Hurtigruten overnight. Trondheim is an underrated city, and has direct flights to Stockholm. Or you can take the more interesting route from Trondheim to Tällberg by train. Regional train from Trondheim to Östersund, spend the night there, and continue on Inlandsbanan to Mora the next day, and then to Tällberg. Also, is there are reason you are staying both at Siljan and Saimen? Nothing wrong with that, but they are not that different and choosing one will reduce travel time. Those are a couple of my comments.

Thank you so much for your questions and thoughts. It is so helpful. I was able to see that Flying out gf Tallinn is possible, so that does make a lot of sense. As for the things we are interested in seeing: Norway: the Atlantic Road, some of the fjord landscape (but not one in particular-we focused around Alesund), some hikes (not too strenuous-couple hours at best, but beauty of natural landscape). Sweden: Mid-summer festival in Tallberg (so need to be there on the specific dates I have chosen), Abba Museum (for my daughter), Finland- our friends said they liked Helsinki very much and the Saimaa region looked beautiful. I got interested in the ringed seals and relaxing on the lake. Tallinn: someone on this forum recommended it and after some research, it looks lovely and a place we would like to see.

We like nature and hikes, but also gardens and city parks. We are less museum focused, although a history focused museum (like the Vasa museum) is definitely on our list. We probably would like to learn a bit about the Viking history (although we are not going for that reason and have never watched any of the streaming shows related to the topic). We like exploring cities (the cobble stone streets in old towns, the architecture, the culture of an area etc. so doing Rick Steves walks that point out interesting things that occur at various corners or in the buildings that surround us are always on our lists). We typically indulge in good meals (doing a lot of research in this area prior to travel), but given the cost of eating out in this region, this may be on the back-burner for us.

I am very open to any thoughts given what I have shared, so would be happy to hear your feedback. I will say the overnight cruise between Stockholm and Helsinki sounded like a good opportunity to be on a boat in the archipelago which seemed silly to miss.
Thanks again!

Not a bad plan.
We have visited all the places you mentioned except those in Finland.
We did a wonderful six port cruise up the Atlantic coast of Norway that went all the way to the North Cape. It avoided driving on the curvy Norwegian highways that are very mountainous.
Our cruise was in mid June and we were told that a week before a huge snowstorm had blocked many of the highways, most likely the one's you plan to drive on.
We did Stockholm pre-cruise and enjoyed the city, don't miss the Vasa Museum.

We visited the Baltics (all three) on a tour of Ukraine and Russia in 2011. Did two days in each country. All were great.
Norway is big on electric cars, not sure I would rent one of those there.

We bought our tickets today and I am so excited! Our itinerary has changed a bit, but we will spend time in Norway, Sweden, Finland and leave out of Tallinn. It will be so great. Now time for the details : ) Can't wait to ask more questions!

It's probably a bit late to comment on the flights then. But if you're going to Tällberg during midsummer, I really want to repeat my previous advice. Do not drive to Dalarna! Traffic to/from/in Dalarna is horrible around midsummer. And whatever your map site of choice says it will take to drive to Tällberg, during midsummer it can take twice that time or more.

And if Viking history is important, you should add a stop in Uppsala and a visit to Gamla Uppsala museum.

So going to Tällberg is part of our plan, actually being there for Midsommer was the origin of our trip planning. Are you suggesting abandoning that altogether? or just not driving. Is there an alternative way to get there. Appreciate your thoughts.

Tällberg is very charming and worth a visit, don't abandon that plan! But take the train instead. Midsummer is the second largest holiday in Sweden after Christmas, and Dalarna is a very popular place to celebrate it. If you want a car while you are there (which is not necessary but can be useful depending on your plan) you can rent it in Dalarna. Probably not in Tällberg, but you should be able to rent a car in Leksand.

This sounds like a good plan Badger. I looked and we can rent a car in Leksand and there are a bunch of trains that go directly there from Stockholm as you suggest. Thank you for this. I am not sure if we will miss what's along the road there, but if the traffic is as bad as you indicate, this may be a much better plan. It sounds like trains book up at Midsommer, so I will be on the lookout for when they open up. I hadn't really considered trains on this journey, but can't be that hard to figure out : ) Thank again!

You will miss a lot of traffic jams along the way… Although you can make stops along the way with trains as well. And my suggestion would be to not leave Dalarna the same day as your boat leaves to Finland. Spending a night somewhere closer to the port reduces the risk of something going wrong. I might be a bit biased, but a night in between in Uppsala is not a bad idea.

Trains do book up as well, so make sure you buy them in advance. The same with hotels. And no, it's not hard to figure out, visit www.sj.se and search for tickets from Stockholm to Leksand and back again.

Uppsala does seem lovely : ) We actually are planning to stay the night in Stockholm before we travel again. Our daughter will head to the airport the next morning, and my husband and I will continue on to Finland via ferry. I too could not travel the same day; too many things can happen to make a plan that tight : ) We have already booked our hotel and will look at trains to make sure I know when the schedule will be released. Thanks again for your help.

Hi there: So I just checked and the enterprise rental car is already sold out for June 24-27. Is that possible? I tried the other rental car places in Leksand, but they are just at gas stations and I can't figure out how to translate their sites to English so am having trouble figuring out if they have cars. Any suggestions? I went with enterprise because I am familiar with the company, but now that we are committed to train travel, we will book go with whatever had a car. Maybe the site just isn't updated? Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks

Maybe you already know this, and are expecting it, but in Norway, your rental car will 98% likely be an electric. The new cars sold in Norway are now almost all electric, and a huge infrastructure of charging stations now exists. Maybe your personal car is electric, too, but it was a learning curve for us three years ago. We rented from Hertz, and they used a specific charging company, Elton, which required downloading their App to use at chargers. I just received an e-mail today from Elton, saying that they have now merged with Uno-X Mobility, but that customers won't notice anything from day to day, and they’ll still use the same Elton charging App. Fast chargers that weren’t Elton wouldn’t work with our car (slow, overnight chargers would), so we had to seek out Elton chargers if we wanted to get charged in less than 25 minutes or so. Our electric vehicle status also got us discounts on car ferries across fjords.

Not sure what the situation is in Sweden and Finland. And Enterprise sold-out already in Leksand? How about Hertz?

Petrol stations are great places to rent a car in Sweden. They are usually closer to you than a rental car company and have much better opening hours. Usually cheaper as well.

But if you're having trouble finding a car in Leksand, consider renting one in Borlänge, or maybe Falun.

thanks for your guidance. Unfortunately, to book with the gas stations we need a Swedish personal number to book on-line, otherwise we have to call and the details are only offered in Swedish, so having trouble figuring out who to call. I will keep at though : ) Update: Borlange is the answer! Thanks so much Badger