Scandinavia is a great place for unexpectedly luxurious travel experiences, with some of the world’s best restaurants, elegantly designed hotels and some jaw-dropping wilderness landscapes.
From whale watching and husky sledging to Michelin-starred meals, here are seven of the best bucket-list experiences in Scandinavia.
Stay in an Arctic igloo
Fancy a wilderness experience exploring the Arctic, but don’t want to forego your home comforts? Then try a stay at the luxurious Arctic Fox Igloos https://arcticfoxigloos.com, up near Ranua in Finnish Lapland, just a stone’s throw from the Arctic Circle.
These are no ordinary igloos, however. Instead of ice, your snug, cosy igloo is made of glass so you can lie in bed and look out over the waters of Lake Ranuanjärvi.
There’s no light pollution, so you’ve got a great chance of being able to watch the northern lights from your bed. Each igloo has its own sauna too, so you can warm up after a dip in the lake or a day out in the snow.
They also organize plenty of activities here, from snowmobiling to husky and reindeer safaris, kayaking to fishing trips.
Sailing the Stockholm Archipelago
With some 30,000 islands, the Stockholm Archipelago is best explored by boat. And what better way to do it than on a luxury yacht?
You can either go in a small group or push the boat out and charter your own private yacht with skipper to sail you through the maze of islands and waterways.
The captain will point out the island’s wildlife – look out for grey seals in the water – and may even let you have a go at steering the boat yourself. This is a great way to check out pretty uninhabited islands, swim wild, and have a tasty picnic lunch.
For more on exploring the islands, check out this guide to the best places to visit in the Stockholm Archipelago.
Luxury foodie tour to Denmark
The culinary capital of Scandinavia, Denmark is a foodie’s dream destination. With 17 Michelin-star restaurants in Copenhagen alone, it’s great place to sample innovative cooking by some of the world’s top chefs.
New Nordic cuisine is constantly evolving, and its reliance on local, seasonal and ethical ingredients doesn’t come cheap. But if you’re going to push the boat out, why not go the whole hog and take a culinary tour?
Lots of foodie tours are available, including options that let you spend the night at an eco-friendly hotel in Copenhagen, with dinner with wine-pairing at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant Kadeau.
You can also enjoy cooking courses run by top chefs, plus foraging sessions, picnics and workshops in all the techniques used in New Nordic cuisine.
Stay at the Icehotel and see the northern lights
Around 200km north of the Arctic Circle, Kiruna is Sweden’s northernmost city, and the surrounding countryside is a great place to head for reliable views of the northern lights playing across dark skies.
Kiruna is also close to the village of Jukkasjärvi, where you can stay in the iconic Icehotel, which is rebuilt each winter out of blocks of ice from the frozen river nearby.
And yes, you really do sleep on beds of ice, though they are covered with reindeer hides (cosy thermal sleeping bags are provided too.) There are also saunas nearby to warm up in if it gets too cold.
So why not combine a once-in-a-lifetime stay in the original ice hotel with some great views of the northern lights? This guide has more advice on when and where to see the northern lights in Sweden.
See Norway’s fjords in style
Norway is famous for its fjords – unsurprisingly, as there are more than a thousand of them – and no trip here is complete without experiencing the dramatic mountainscapes and ruggedly beautiful coastline.
Because of the remote settlements, hair-raisingly twisting roads and steep valleys it can be logistically difficult to visit the fjords so a tour that combines breathtaking train trips with a fjord cruise and top-end hotels is just the ticket.
Hang out in a tree house
For the ultimate luxury experience in Sweden, head to the Treehotel in Harads. These aren’t your usual treehouses; expect quirky, custom-designed structures that are suspended among the pines with amazing views over the nearby Lule river.
The architects behind Treehotel have made each tree house totally different, from a mirrored box that seems to disappear into the forest to a UFO-shaped structure and one that resembles a giant bird’s nest!
A stay here isn’t cheap, but all the rooms are furnished with high-end Scandi furnishings. There’s also a sauna and a cosy restaurant on site. For more amazing and unusual accommodation, check out this round-up of the best places to stay in Scandinavia.
Take a cruise
They may have started out as supply ships servicing remote and hard-to-get-to settlements along the Norwegian coast, but the new generation of Hurtigruten https://www.hurtigruten.co.uk/ boats are more like luxury cruise ships.
Rooms come with balconies, the restaurants serve up top-quality local fish and seafood, and some ships even have outdoor hot tubs, so you can sit in the steaming water watching out for whales or spotting the northern lights.
And since the boats travel daily from Bergen up to Kirkenes in the Arctic Circle, you get the best views of the stunning Nordic scenery drifting by your window.
The older boats are more basic with fewer facilities, so make sure you book one of the newer ships to get the full luxury Norwegian cruise experience.
