Swedes love their country. But, once in a while, they also love to leave it.
Since Swedes are fed up with winter-darkness (as you can read here) they long for warm sunny days. The rarity of those days in Sweden forces Swedes to temporarily escape from their cold country, in search for a warm place with beaches and sun-shine-guarantee.
The most popular destinations for Swedes
To become more Swedish means that you have to travel to places with either lots of sunlight or English as the national language.
- Magaluf (party place on Mallorca, Spain), if you just graduated from school
- Australia, USA, South America or, well, London, if you have no kids, yet
- Thailand, if you work in an office, or, if you’re an aged newly-divorced man
Before booking a trip
Before you book a trip, you chat with your colleagues and friends about their experiences in Khao Lak, Soho or Machu Picchu.
Then, once you follow their recommendations, you pick a nice accommodation on one of Sweden’s most popular travel agency sites (see below). Finally, you fly to your target place, walk around, and complain that there are too many Swedes present.
Swedes on a plane
Real Swedes are easy to recognize on a plane. The otherwise so alcohol-abstinent folks are – once being liberated from home-pressure and jante-mania (more about that in a later post) – among the first to order a little bottle of wine. Justifying their choice with the words ‘det är ju semester‘, it’s vacation after all.
Popular Swedish traveling sites specialized in Swedish travel-needs
Those sites are trusted according to some of my Swedish friends. The links are pointing to the sites’ Swedish page:
Swedish travel culture
There’s something strange going on with the Swedes. They can’t spend a year at home without getting nervous. It is as if they feel a high subconscious pressure to go abroad, even if it’s just for a weekend.
‘Traveling’, for Swedes, is synonymous with ‘sun, alcohol and sex’
This trait must be inherited from their Viking ancestors, who made a living from traveling around, settling at beaches for a while and later – having explored and exploited enough – to finally come home with their luggage stuffed with cheap souvenirs. A bit like the life of modern day Instagrammers then …
Travel documentation
To become a real Swede, one of your previous Facebook profile picture has to show you with one of the following backgrounds…
- Thailand beach
- Skyline of New York
- Machu Picchu
Travel advice
So, dear new-Swede, talk to Ann-Brit or Åke in your office, or Linnéa or Johan in your class, they can certainly recommend you great hotels and cocktail bars for your trip to a typically Swedish travel destination.
