Stockholm Guide: Best Experiences & Things to Do

WELCOME TO THE STOCKHOLM TRAVEL GUIDE

I spent five weeks in the summer of 2025 living in Stockholm and had an amazing time exploring this diverse and beautiful city. This comprehensive Stockholm travel guide shares all the best local tips.

Additionally, Scandinavian summer is a truly unique lifestyle that I would love to repeat every year—full of mornings at cafes and afternoons basking in the sun and swimming in the harbor.

Essential Stockholm Travel Information: Need to Know

Currency: Swedish Krona (SEK) – note they do not use the Euro!!

Check conversion here

Language: Swedish, English

Airports:

ARN – Stockholm Arlanda Airport

230 volts and 50 hertz, Type C and Type F electrical sockets.

Stockholm Travel Planning: Accommodation & Transport

Accommodation:

My sister-in-law lives in Stockholm, so we stayed with them while we were visiting. We stayed in Solna, which is just 4 stops from T-Centralen.

Location:

The best thing I’d recommend is prioritizing staying close to any metro stop for easy access to the city.

However, you’ll want to carefully choose your neighborhood. Gamla Stan—meaning “Old Town”—is the most touristy area. I personally wouldn’t want to stay here, but if you’re only in town for a day or two, it’s a good area to be close to the main attractions. The second main hub is T-Centralen; but I also wouldn’t recommend staying right here due to traffic and crowds. I loved the Rådhuset and Odenplan areas for a better local feel.

How to Get from Arlanda Airport (ARN) to Stockholm City:

Arlanda Express: This is the fastest option if you’re going to downtown Stockholm, but it is a little pricey (~$36 per person). The Arlanda Express is the fastest option. However, for two or more people, a taxi might be cheaper.

Public Transit: The public transportation in Stockholm is awesome, but the transit to the airport is limited. Using your SL card or pass, you can take a bus to Märsta station, then take the Pendeltåg commuter train to T-Centralen.

By Taxi: BOLT is the go-to app for ride hailing in Stockholm. You can also use Uber pretty easily.

Getting Around Stockholm:

Trains and Buses: The public transportation in Stockholm is awesome. You can download the SL app on your phone and select the ticket type you want. One key tip here is that the second you active your ticket – your access is timed. So don’t active a single ride ticket until you are ready to go through the turnstile. You need to tag into the station, but usually not tag out. I just bought the physical card and got a month long pass.

By Taxi: BOLT is the go-to app for ride hailing in Stockholm. You can also use Uber pretty easily.

Best Things to Do in Stockholm: Top Sights & Museums

Stockholm’s Must-See Central Landmarks

Gamla Stan: Literally translating to “Old Town,” this is the top tourist destination in Stockholm. This historic area is filled with cobblestone streets, narrow alleyways, colorful buildings, and loads of souvenir shops. The main thing to do here is see the colorful houses, wander the streets, and do some shopping.

Furthermore, Gamla Stan is the cultural heart of the city and home to some of Stockholm’s most popular museums, such as the Nobel Prize Museum and the Royal Palace.

The Royal Palace: The Royal Palace, Kungliga slottet, is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch. The Royal Palace offers great views. In addition, tourists can wander through the accessible grounds. There is an option to go inside through a guided tour. I didn’t bother to go inside when I visited the Palace.

Kungsträdgården: Swedish for “King’s Garden,” this area is a lovely park in Stockholm, famous for its fountains, cafes, and landscaping leading up to the harbor. In the summer, we saw festivals, live music, and locals always hanging out in this area.

Skinnarviksberget: This is a gorgeous little overlook on the island south of Gamla Stan. You climb up a small rock hill and you can see expansive views of the harbor and Stockholm.

Parks, Gardens, and Open-Air Museums

Djurgården: This is a huge park area that is lovely to explore. Within this area you can check out the Prinsessan Estelles Skulpturpark – a lovely sculpture garden by the water, Rosendals Trädgårdskafé – a beautiful garden cafe and plant sheds, and the Prins Eugens Valdemarsudde Gallery – a small art museum of a local historic artist.

Skansen: This is the world’s oldest open–air museum, showcasing the whole of Sweden with houses and farmsteads from every part of the country. Tickets are about $30 per person and the entrances don’t accept cash (card only).

Gröna Lund: This is Stockholm’s iconic amusement park right by the water. The admission fee is $30-40 per person for a lovely day of rides and fun!

Top Stockholm Museums: Vasa, ABBA, and Nordiska Museet

Nordic Museum: (Nordiska museet) This is a beautiful museum on the history and evolution of the nordic region. Admission cost is ~$18 per adult. We spent about 2-3 hours at the museum and then had some incredible meatballs and salmon (both gluten free!!) at the museum cafe.

Vasa Museum: The most popular museum in Scandinavia, you have to check out the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. This museum has a full Hanseatic Trading League ship reconstructed inside the museum. You will learn all about the history and reclamation of the ship. Since the Vasa Museum is very popular museum, I’d recommend going right when it opens or at least avoiding cruise ship times. The cost of adult admission is ~$23.

ABBA The Museum: I’ve been to this museum before but didn’t bring my family here on this trip. It’s a fun museum and definitely good for ABBA lovers, but it is fairly expensive ~$30 and fairly small. I’d recommend checking it out once if you like ABBA!

Other Museums: There are a bunch of other museums in Stockholm that we just didn’t check out. If you have time you can go to the National Museum, The Nobel Prize Museum, Fotografiska Museum Stockholm, The Swedish History Museum, and more! Another pro tip is to see if the museums have any free admission days or times!

7 Must-Try Local Experiences in Stockholm

Swimming in the harbor My favorite part of scandinavian summer was spending the afternoons in the sun and swimming in the harbor. My two favorite swimming spots were Huvudsta beach and Hornsbergs Strandpark.

Take a boat trip to the islands (Vaxholm) Stockholm is actually made up of a bunch of islands and you should get out and explore them! The big day trip we did was taking the ferry to Vaxholm. Check out my blog on planning your trip to Vaxholm.

Kayaking in the harbor Again, you have to spend as much time on/near the water as possible in the summer! You can rent self service kayaks from KAYAKOMAT stalls all over the city. I rented from the KAYAKOMAT at Stockholm Pampas. You just book them online ahead of time and they text you the unlock code!

Thrift Shopping Stockholm is awesome for second hand clothing because thrifting is part of the culture here! Some of our favorite spots were Judits Second Hand, Beyond Retro Zinken, Myrorna, and HUMANA Second Hand. All of these are marked on the map below.

Sauna and a Lake Plunge We took the bus to Hellasgården Bastu and enjoyed the public saunas with the beautiful swimming hole. You need to book a slot online ahead of time, but this is super affordable (~$15pp) and such a relaxing and authentic experience.

Sunset at the Katarina Elevator (Slussen) This is a free elevator to a viewpoint over the city, right outside of Slussen station. This is a gorgeous place to see the sunset - but everyone knows this so sometimes there is a line for the elevator since it only holds about 10 people.

Get a Swedish Massage Swedish Massages are famous all over the world, so you need to get one in Sweden! I went to Carinas Harmoni & Spa and it was so lovely and relaxing.