Train routes in Sweden

“We’re going on a rail tour around Östergötland and Småland this summer!” If you’d said that to your friends a few years ago there may well have been some raised eyebrows. These days, though, they are more likely to listen with interest.

Holidaying in Sweden is the latest trend – it feels both different and exciting after all those years of charter flights and globe-trotting. Swedes have also increasingly come to understand that train is the transport of the future. It’s climate-smart and comfortable – and cheaper in the summer too!

The only questions are how you take a rail tour in Sweden and where to go? The answers can be found in a brand new travel book published by Brombergs bokförlag called Längs spåret [Along the track], which describes six different routes through Sweden, including details of exciting stops along the way. Do you know, for example, where you will find Sweden’s Maldives? Where you can ride a family boomerang rebound rollercoaster? Or where Sweden’s clone archive for varieties of apple can be found?

Längs spåret is also packed with clever travel tips, ideas for families with children, hotels with the wow factor... everything you need, in fact, to create your own rail tour this summer.

Train route in southern Sweden

Karlskrona–Ronneby–Sölvesborg–Malmö–Helsingborg–Falkenberg–Varberg–Borås

This tour is impressive from the word go. It begins in the World Heritage City of Karlskrona, considered to be one of the world’s best-preserved naval cities. Here you’ll find castles, fortification towers, workshops, shipyards and magnificent buildings such as the two baroque churches that stand on Stortorget square.

The journey continues through wide-open cultural landscapes and beech forests, along coastlines and by shimmering seas, taking in several beautiful and exciting cities on the way. One of them is Helsingborg, known as the ‘Pearl of the Strait’. Here you can take a stroll around, have a drink in Zoegas, which has been selling coffee since 1901, climb the medieval Kärnan tower and enjoy the view across Öresund. Then dine at the elegant Sillen & Makrillen fish restaurant on the promenade.

The next day you can either take the tour boat to Helsingør and then the local train to the seaside resort of Gilleleje, or explore the dramatic Kullaberg peninsula. Did you know you can go whale-watching here? Porpoises are one of the smallest species of toothed whale and can be found in the waters around Kullaberg.

Then there are the beaches of Halland. Whether your favourite is Tylösand, Skrea strand or Apelviken or one of the more secluded bays, this is a great place for swimming and the children will love it. Lilla Napoli in Falkenberg is one of Sweden’s most acclaimed pizzerias and a family meal here is highly recommended.

The rail tour ends in Borås, which will surprise you with its enormous murals, some 50 sculptures and one of Sweden’s most vibrant cultural museums, the Textile Museum.

Train route in eastern Sweden

Norrköping–Linköping–Nässjö–Alvesta–Växjö–Kalmar–Öland 

Why Norrköping? Well, because the city has one of Sweden’s most interesting city centres, with an impressive and almost completely intact industrial landscape running along the Motala ström river. Or “Strömmen”, as the locals call it. It is a testament to industrialism and a time when Norrköping was known as “Sweden’s Manchester”.

The route then continues to the university city of Linköping, where lunch at Turkish restaurant Cok Najs is highly recommended. Nearby Omberg is a great place for a pleasant Östergötland hike. Here you’ll encounter beautiful virgin forest, one of Europe’s northernmost beech forests, colourful hay meadows, the dramatic slopes of Lake Vättern and magical forest lakes.

Then it’s time for Småland, which may seem like a never-ending patchwork of spruce forest and wet bogs. But it also has a long Baltic Sea coastline, fantastic culture and interesting towns and cities, with a range of restaurants of an increasingly high standard. PM & Vänner in Växjö, for example, is considered to be one of Sweden’s best restaurants and hotels.

One great place to stop off in Småland is Värnamo and its Vandalorum Art and Design Museum, which has a lovely restaurant serving the Småland signature dishes of isterband sausage and ostkaka curd cake. Another is Älmhult, which was home to the world’s first IKEA store, now a museum dedicated to Ingvar Kamprad’s furniture empire.

The final part of the rail tour runs via Kalmar to Öland, where hiring a bike is a must. You should definitely head south to the World Heritage Site of Stora Alvaret, a unique barren plain with its own peculiar light. In the far south are the Ottenby Bird Observatory and the Långe Jan lighthouse, Sweden’s tallest lighthouse at 41.6 metres high.

Train route in the very north of Sweden

Sundvall–Örnsköldsvik–Umeå–Luleå–Jokkmokk–Kiruna–Abisko–Björkliden–Riksgränsen

From Sundsvall in the south to Riksgränsen in the north, via Luleå and Kiruna, this is a route that will take your breath away. Take the High Coast, for example. It’s hard not to be enchanted by its dramatic natural scenery, with mountains and islands that rose, and are still rising, out of the sea after the last ice age 10,000 years ago.

After Umeå, the landscape has a different kind of beauty, one that is uniform and almost meditative. Endless forests stretch to the horizon and you can travel a long way without seeing anything that stands out in the landscape. You’ll sink into a dreamlike contentment by doing nothing more than looking out of the window.

The next stop is Luleå, which is experiencing something of a culinary boom – Food the Luleå Way, as Visit Luleå calls it. It has six top restaurants listed in the White Guide.  If the weather’s nice, you can head out to the Luleå archipelago and its 1,312 islands. A favourite of many people is Brändöskär, with its fisherman’s cottages and boathouses right by the beach.

After visiting the Sami town of Jokkmokk and Kiruna, Sweden’s most magnificent train journey awaits. It runs alongside Torneträsk lake and through a sweeping, undulating mountain landscape and then you see it – Lapporten. Perhaps the most famous landscape silhouette in Sweden.

Many people get off in Abisko to tackle the Kungsleden hiking trail, but the rail tour itself ends in Riksgränsen, which is a small residential community with a collection of hotels and ski lifts. Riksgränsen is one of the snowiest ski resorts in Sweden and you can ski here right up to midsummer.