Best places to go in Scandinavia?

Associate
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Trying to plan a week-long trip with my friend to scandinavia sometime in early january. I don't really know anything about the countries.... only that Stockholm looks really nice, the Norwegian fjords look cool and it'll be cold. Can anyone recommend some good places to go, things to do/see? Or give any relevant anecdotes of trips you've spent there?

Thanks in advance :)
 
Don
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Helsinki and Tallin are well worth a visit. (Finland and Estonia) there's a ferry that connects the two.

Tallin has an 'old town', lots of great little bars and restaurants. Plus the huge concrete 'statue' of stairs. I forget the name of it, it's an art project iirc, a hilarious waste of concrete :D

Highly recommend using hostels instead of hotels.

We did those two places, Stockholm (lovely place) and stayed with random people in uni halls in Uppsala, we used couchsurfing.com to find people to stay with in halls for a few nights.
 
Soldato
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If you're dead set on going in winter (the locals will think that you're mad), you could check out the ice hotels in Sweden. Expensive but awesome.

Scandinavia is a lot more accessible in summer.
 
Associate
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I wouldn't recommend Oslo. I lived there for 8 months and it is sooo expensive. There are hardly any sights to see (apart from a few parks and museums). My parents visited and I showed them everything in about 2 hours - think they were quite disappointed :/ If you want to visit Norway I would suggest somewhere else such as Bergen - that's a beautiful place :)
 
Soldato
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I can speak for Norway a little bit as I live here. If you're going in January then you are probably best doing a proper 'winter wonderland' sort of trip. Although Bergen is indeed a lovely place, that time of the year you'll just have cold miserable weather and nobody around. It's a place much better appreciated in summer. The same could be said for fjord appreciation. Tromsø oop north is a great hub for winter tourism - you can explore the place yourself, go up the mountain railway, etc or sign up for loads of organised activities - northern light chasing, reindeer slegding, snow cave building, trekking, introduction to cross country skiing, ice fishing, snowmobiling, etc etc - you name it. Me and the wife had a great few days up there and were incredibly lucky with the Northern Lights. You're wallet will be absolutely raped though! :) More so in Norway than the rest of Scandinavia - but you didn't choose Scandinavia to save money, right?!

Iceland would also be worth a visit. Very beautiful surreal scenery and cool stuff to do like glacier hiking, hot springs, volcanoes etc etc. Pretty cheap there too relatively.

Otherwise, if you dont fancy all that winter stuff just spend the whole time daarn sarf in Stockholm, Copenhagen etc and consider it a city break. I'd agree not to bother making a particular effort to go to Oslo.
 
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Man of Honour
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I wouldn't recommend Oslo. I lived there for 8 months and it is sooo expensive. There are hardly any sights to see (apart from a few parks and museums). My parents visited and I showed them everything in about 2 hours - think they were quite disappointed :/ If you want to visit Norway I would suggest somewhere else such as Bergen - that's a beautiful place :)

Agreed. I was there for a day either side of a week in Svalbard. The dullest capital city I've ever seen.
 
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