This is a packing report for my recent trip (3 weeks in July) to the three countries in the title. We spent 7 nights in Iceland, 3 nights in Stockholm, and the remaining 11 nights in Norway. For what it's worth, Iceland was chilly, Norway was moderate, and Stockholm was hot.
Checked Bag: I brought my TravelPro Maxlite 5 carry-on spinner. It's always been a great bag, and I still love it. I checked it on every flight since all my checked bags were free, including the Wideroe flight from Alesund to Bergen. And that bag handled those cobblestone streets in Norway like a trooper. I don't think I've ever seen or walked on so many cobblestone streets in my life. I did worse than the bags did, as I was constantly trying to stop myself from falling when they got slippery after it rained.
Carry-on Bag: I still have my 28L Blast Quick Access Backpack that I bought over two years ago, and I have a feeling that I will keep using it as long as it holds up. For those who aren't familiar with it, it is a clamshell style and holds a lot, has a laptop compartment, plus a pocket for shoes and a top pocket you can access quickly. So it held all my tech and toiletries bags along with some miscellaneous stuff. It has a water bottle holder on the side, but I kept my Yeti 10 oz. coffee mug in there. I love being able to fill it up with coffee from the hotel breakfast room to take back to my room.. There is an expandable version, but I have the 28L non-expandable and it works well for me. I especially like being able to get to just about everything without having to dig.
Personal Bag: I had a new bag to use as I bought the Bagsmart expandable tote bag that Kirstin posted about on this thread. I wasn't sure how I would like it as it is very floppy and sort of big, and I was afraid it would turn out to be a big black hole. But it actually worked well for this trip. It's not all that deep, and it was nice to just throw stuff in there. I know it sounds weird, but it worked being floppy and big. It was also easy to carry. It had a big long shoulder strap, two short straps and a trolley sleeve. It also has a bottom part that when you unzip it, makes it super expandable. However, I never unzipped it because I didn't need that much space. I don’t think I will use it on every trip but for this one, with the road trips we took in 2 countries, it was great.
For my day bag, I bought an Osprey waist pack (in pale green) because it was deeply discounted. The rest of the waist packs and other colors on Amazon were around $48 to $65. Mine was $11, so I snapped it up and I liked it a lot. I like the way it opens. There's no zipper. You just tuck part of the bag into the other part, and fold it over and the magnetic snaps then close over it.
Extra Bag: I brought one packable backpack with us; a G4Free 20L packable backpack that I had bought about a year ago, but didn't use it. The gifts that I bought fit in the personal bag or my suitcase, and my daughter didn’t need it either. Luckily, it didn't take up much space, but I wish I wouldn't have brought it.
Clothing: One of the problems I had on this trip was that we had a lot of one-night stands with hotels. Because there was so much that we wanted to see, we spent only one night in a lot of hotels. There were a few longer stays: 2 nights in Vic, Iceland, 3 nights in Stockholm, 2 nights in Oslo, 2 nights in Alesund, and 3 nights in Bergen, but everything else was one night. I needed wrinkle-free clothes and didn't have the luxury of taking natural fibers like linen along.