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April 30, 2025

Sweden Report: Volume 1

I realized I did an awesome trip to Sweden and then my first blog post is a list of chores.  Sorry world!

Let's try a travel post instead?

Sweden - Why?

When I was 15 I was an exchange student in sweden.  It was my sophomore year of high school.  I lived with a family who had never had an exchange student before, in the small town of Torshalla, which is about 60 miles West of stockholm.  They had two kids, a 13 year old girl and a 9 year old boy. 

The family wanted an exchange student partly to help their daughter with her English.  Instead, I got really good at Swedish really quickly, probably in about 3 months.  I attended "Swedish for Immigrants" classes at the local adult education center, and was basically fluent before Christmas. 

Sweden - Since

I have been in touch with the family on and off since then, sometimes we go a year or two without emailing and sometimes we email more.  Andy and I visited Sweden for 2 days in 2014, and the host parents and brother came to our wedding in 2015 in the USA.  My host sister had twin boys in 2014 and a daughter in 2019 (so she now has 11 year old boys and a 5 year old girl).

Sweden - This trip 

My favourite way of connecting and communicating with people is in-person.  I wanted to see my Swedish family again, and I wanted to take the kids away for a few nights. I also wanted to leave the UK. I wanted to take the big kids on a flight. I wanted to make use of Lily's passport, which has never been used and expires in October.  

5 days - the kids clothes in the small bag, my clothes and spare room in the big bag.
Backpacks of activities for all.
I still packed too much.

Sweden - Transport

I looked into flights and saw that the second week of our Easter holidays was not too expensive. It was £120 per person round trip to Stockholm and back.  I als paid to book seats, which added £30 each ticket.  Next time I won't do this as apparently it's quite likely we will all sit together anyways (I don't think they can seat a 4 year old alone?) but I really wanted a window-middle-isle combo so I did pay for it.

The flight left at 11:30 so we took a 6:30am train from Cardiff, which got us into heathrow at 9am.  We purchased flight snacks, pulled our carryons through the airport (I was not going to check bags since that was an additional £60 each way) and had a leisurely time in the airport.

My host mom met us at Stockholm airport and helped us navigate the train back to Eskilsturna, and then we were driven back to Torshalla.  We had dinner of beef and potatoes (the kids mostly ate potatoes).

At Cardiff Central

At Heathrow Airport

Train to Eskilstuna

Sweden - The Plan

My host mom planned most of our days, and I saw a lot of people I knew 25 years ago.  The kids played at lots of play parks. We ate lots of Fika (swedish cake and coffee in the afternoon).  We stayed at the host families house. We met up with my host sister and her family, my host brother, my host aunt and uncle, my host grandparents.  The kids did great while being dragged place to place.  The weather was cold (10 C/15F, but sunny).  

Amazing park in Eskilstuna

Sweden parks were sooo good.

On the last day we went to Stockholm for the day, before staying overnight in an airport hotel and flying on home on Monday morning.

I can see why travel posts span multiple posts! I'll post again with "what we did, where we went" soon... this is volume 1.

Have you been to Sweden? Do you have any questions about Sweden, planning logistics, this trip, or any of the random things I've put in this post so far?

6 comments:

  1. What a cool relationship you have with Sweden! I love that you've stayed in touch with your host family for so long.

    I went to Stockholm about twenty years ago and LOVED it; it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. My one qualm about Sweden is that I'm not a huge fan of the local food. What are some of your favorite things to eat in Sweden?

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    1. I hear you on the food. I like all the chocolate and all the cake and I think the rest of it I eat from familiarity. I feel like every meal was meat and potatoes, meat and bread, cheese and bread. I did buy 4 bananas and 4 apples for £7 at one point, but I can't really think of any Swedish meals I recommend (sorry host family!)

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  2. This is so cool! I went to Sweden on a day trip from Denmark when I was visiting my brother but really, really want to go back to explore (and take the kids). My husband has been there quite a few times. It looks beautiful and is clearly very well designed for families. The same was true in Denmark. I couldn't get over how incredible the parks were!

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    1. I think you would *love* Stockhom. And I would love reading an Elisabeth travel blog from Stockholm too!

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  3. I would also love to go to Sweden with my kids. It must have been lovely to have people show you around. If you didn’t have your Swedish family, where would you have stayed/what would you have done?

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    1. I think there would be so much to see and do in Stockholm and I'm sure there are airbnbs. The Palace, Skansen open air museum, the Vasa Museum - I could totally spend 5 days in stockholm. But if someone had young kids and just wanted to walk around pay parks in another country then I think any place in Sweden would be lovely. I was thinking I could even enjoy a few days in Eskilstuna (the town I went to school in) - it's not a tourist place but the parks were nice, there were some museums, and it was a short train ride from a number of other towns. It depends on how old kids are and what you want to do on a holiday.

      I did start to wonder if I could have a great holiday to any town if I just set my expectations right.

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