Why Sweden is the perfect place to travel with young children
Traveling in Sweden with a small child made me realize how family-friendly the country is, with imaginative parks, exciting attractions and almost guaranteed highchairs in every restaurant.
Alexander Skarsgård, Ikea, meatballs, Abba and reindeer are not the only reasons to love Sweden, especially if you are the mother or father of a little one. Ubiquitous high chairs, changing tables and playgrounds are a few other things traveling parents can fall in love with the Scandinavian country, as I recently did when I traveled around the heart of Sweden with my husband and our 18 month old daughter.
I knew beforehand that Nordic nations had a reputation for their wonderfully generous – rightfully so – parental leave programs. When I visited Oslo several years ago, I was impressed to see dads calmly walking their babies mid-morning, mid-week, and whole young families hanging out in parks on a Tuesday. IN Stockholmalso, you can’t throw a binky without hitting a pram. But I was still surprised to experience firsthand how well Sweden takes care of the little ones and, let’s be honest, the parents whose lives are made easier.
I thought I was dreaming when I stumbled bleary-eyed off the plane in Stockholm and saw a giant pile of free umbrella carts within 10 yards. I was carrying our 24-pound daughter, Indah, after flying 11 hours overnight from Los Angeles, and this felt like a mirage.
But it was real: Swedavia airports provided us with strollers to use free of charge from the moment we landed until the moment we left the airport. I was so happy that sleepy Indah was in that carriage while we waited almost an hour in the immigration line. (It’s worth mentioning that the 18-minute Arlanda Express train into the city is free for children too.)
During our 10 days on tour in southeastern Sweden, I constantly felt that things were master-planned by attentive parents. We drove through small towns, some with only a single restaurant (often a pizza-kebab restaurant), but practically all had a playground. And these were no ordinary plastic playgrounds; they were original and creative. There were sandboxes with diggers (which my husband shamelessly trashed) and pirate ships, trains and tire swings, colorful houses and massive spiral slides, stilts and play areas carved from trees and, in keeping with the story of a big city called Falun, giant painted goats.
When I visited Sundborn’s beautiful red wooden church, built in 1755, I was shocked to see a children’s playground behind the turquoise pews, complete with small tables and chairs, stuffed animals, dolls, crayons and paper, books and puzzles.
Ditto for the fascinating Torsby Finnskogcentrum museum and Forest Cemetery, a historic cemetery and UNESCO World Heritage Site. There, on a baby-sized stool, Indah happily had a tea party with a stuffed owl and several badgers while we adults looked at the architecture.
From cool pizza places (P-za) to fine restaurants (Bofors Hotel) to fishing cabins by the lake (Antes Hamnbod) there were plenty of highchairs, which made us feel comfortable and welcome to take our toddlers with us everywhere. And at some lunch buffets in small-town restaurants, children under four eat for free. Plus, padded stainless steel changing tables were in practically every restroom I walked into, except for accessibility settings).
In Stockholm we had a gigantic room with European standards in the wonderful location Story Hotel Riddargatan, complete with the limousine with pack ‘n plays (we noticed the travel cots were all super long). Here, Indah had plenty of room to entertain herself by rolling my Away suitcase around the airy, art-filled room. We all enjoyed the breakfast (a standard perk for every resident), thanks to plenty of kid- and adult-friendly options, and Indah looked adorable in the Scandinavian minimalist highchair. At other meals there were, of course, crowd-pleasing Swedish meatballs with sauce, lingonberries and mashed potatoes, a meal she happily wolfed down several times.
Even at the beautiful new one Hotel Reisen (where we parents took turns in the sauna and Tjärn’s forest pond-inspired cold pool while Indah took a nap), they were kind and friendly to their little guest and provided a chic black crib with mini pillow and quilt.
Getting around the city is easy – some of our Uber drivers even surprisingly brought out child seats. All buses, trams and trains allocate space for pregnant women and those with small children, and metro stations are clean and welcoming, each with original murals, art and installations. The cave stations are particularly cool, especially the Kungsträdgården.
Fans of Pippi Longstocking and children with big imaginations will go crazy for Junibacken, an engaging children’s museum that’s like the Scandinavian literary version of Disneyland — with free chocolate milk on the way out. Indah was enthralled and would have happily spent days exploring every inch of the play worlds devoted to author Astrid Lindgren’s theatrical stories. The pets at the family-friendly nature reserve and 18th-century mansion The key bay entertained her too. And we didn’t make it, without the amusement park Green Lund has a ride that toddlers can take without their parents, plus many more tame, fun options with no height limit.
Out in the countryside I appreciated the well-marked walks which meant we always knew the exact length (and difficulty) of each walk. And many of the roads that cut through dense forests had beautiful places to pull over and rest, sometimes even by a lake with a neat outhouse and sandy beach to dig in. But perhaps best of all were the wide open spaces. Indah loved running across endless grass with no traffic in sight, but dozens of fat ducks, picking up “baby” pine cones on a walk through the woods, and munching on apples picked straight from the orchard.
A big highlight came when Indah reached out and twirled a reindeer’s velvety horns while at The shelterthe world’s oldest open-air museum, which also has Baltic Sea Science Center and live exhibits in every part of Sweden, including lots of animals. I realized at that moment that it was the first time I saw a reindeer myself, and I also felt excited. Indah’s joy was contagious.
In Sweden, it felt natural, easy and accepted to be one traveling with our child, which is not always the case around the world. For me, seeing the country through my child’s eyes helped recapture some of the magic of travel that we can lose as we grow up, and that was perhaps the best gift of all.
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Read the original article at Travel & Leisure.