Highly Subjective City Guides: Stockholm

These are guides to the cities I have spent a decent amount of time in, and would be used by a carbon copy of me. If you’re not a carbon copy of me, well then, it’s all right. Not all of us can be perfect :).

I spent 2 weeks in this town, and the neighboring islands. In summer, the sun stays up till midnight! Dims itself for a couple hours (seriously, the night sky never goes completely black), and then comes up again at 2:30 in the morning! This is perfect if you’re pulling an all-nighter, but otherwise you better have solid blinds or a good eye mask. I made real good use of my sleep mask here.

This was taken at 2AM of the rising sun!

Since for 9 months of the year the weather is dark and dreary, the Swedes really appreciate the 3 summer months and make full use of it! You will find people on every park, every café, and every place with a half decent view soaking in the Vitamin-D.

Things to Buy for Convenience

• Get the weekly/monthly subway/metro pass (SL Access Card). If you ride the subway more than once a day, totally worth it. Even works on the short Ferries!
• Prepaid Card. Comviq (same company as Tele-2) is the only Prepaid card that works. Expensive, like everything else in Sweden, but the connectivity is amazing.

Things to Know

• Get ready for sticker shock! Everything costs way too much. E.g. a ‘cheap’ meal of a sandwich in a coffee shop is 12-15$. A meal in a sit down restaurant is 30-40$, and that’s just the main course. And in not even a fancy restaurant. I hear the only place more expensive than Sweden is Norway.

Swedish Meatballs. Not easy to find in Stockholm which has more Italian places than Swedish. Most traditional Swedish places cater to tourists and make you pay through the nose for it. I finally found this dish in the Archipelago (on the island of Vaxholm) for the ‘cheap’ price of 14$. If you want it cheaper, go to the Ikea in Emeryville, California. 5.99$ and just as good! 🙂

• Cell phones work in the underground! They even work on a ferry boat out to some godforsaken island! The reception is insanely good.
• Everyone measures distance in metres (hello metric system!). For americans and brits, have some sort of app handy to convert, else brush up on high school math.
• Late night food options in Sodermalm were pretty bad. Don’t have kebabs late night. Your best bet, if you don’t have something at home, is Burger King, or worse yet, Mcdonald’s (I know, I know, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here!).
• People tend to go out on Fri, Sat, and Wed. Wednesday is also called ‘little saturday’ (Lill-Lördag), in other words, another weekend day. Gotta love the Swedes!
• Taxi Fares are unregulated by the government. Which is messed up because a fare can be as low as 199SEK for 10km (fare for 10km is kind of their standard as you see in the sticker below) unto as high as 1999SEK for 10km! I’m not kidding! Talk about highway robbery… So always check out this sticker on the side of the cab. This is the only bit of regulation that the government imposes. If that number is much higher than 199, don’t take it.

Check out the big number. If it is abnormally high, skip the cab.

• The solution for this is to use Uber (the iPhone app). Uber fares are half to a third of taxi fares. And they come really quick. Once I found uber I never too a cab again!

Good Neighborhoods to Stay

is a nice area with a slightly calm vibe, lots of young folk and good restaurants and bars. The swedes say it has a ‘hipster’ vibe, but they got nothing on good ol’ San Francisco hipsters with their tight, torn, black skinny jeans. Oh SF how I miss you.

is a fancy shmancy rich neighborhood, like the Marina in SF, or Chelsea in London.

is good if you have kids and want to hang out with the stroller crowd.

is the old town. Incredibly touristy and expensive. Avoid.

I picked Sodermalm, and was happy about my choice. In Soder (as the Swedes call it), my favorite areas were Mariatorget and Nytorget.

Good Websites/Apps

Accommodation

• http://www.airbnb.co.uk: The Staple. Always good. I found it best to ask for what the closest metro (T-bana as its called here) station is and look it up on google maps. Also, it never hurts to negotiate. If you are staying for multiple nights, most hosts are happy to give you a discount.
• http://www.blocket.se: If you don’t speak Swedish, you better have a lot of patience!

Get Around & Do Stuff

Google Translate: Incredibly helpful at figuring out signs and menus
Stockholm T-Bana: the underground metro app
Google Maps: Amazing at telling you about metros and buses. The only thing it did not work well for were the ferries.
Yelp is completely useless. You find reviews written by 2 people and a moose. Sometime not even the moose.
Waxholmsbolaget: You will need this if you are taking a ferry to visit the archipelago (and you should!)

Places to Go/People to See/Things to do

Other than the standard touristy stuff, here were a few places I liked:

• Archipelago: Stockholm is surrounded by lots of islands. From huge ones like Vaxholm to tiny ones a bit bigger than a toaster. Abba, my favorite childhood band, used to hop over to the Archipelago to compose their music. Most islands (other than Vaxholm) do not have much in the way of restaurants and facilities. A hostel I stayed in the island of Möja did not even have showers! And they ask you to bring your own bed linens, or else you pay extra. So come prepared with food water and sheets. The islands are incredibly quiet, beautiful and serene. I’m typing this one from Grinda right now. Make sure you spend a couple days on a few of the islands. The recommended ones are Vaxholm, Grinda, Sandhamn, and Möja.

Relaxing Island Life

• Abba Museum!: I know I know. So touristy, but this was on the top of my list! You can even sign along to an Abba song and try to mix their song. Loved it!
• Places to dance Salsa: GrönaLund (which is weird because its an amusement park with a salsa club in the middle!), Club Caribe.
• Best Cocktails: Häktet, Linea Tijo. Both in Sodermalm
• Parks!: Stockholm has lots of lovely parks to spend a lazy afternoon in. I want to make a special mention of Skinnaviksberget because for some reason it’s not on google! It has really good views of Gamlastan. I want to thank my friends Lotta and Chris for showing me this place.
• I also really liked this guide to Stockholm that a CouchSurfer posted. They are all a local’s suggestions and everyone I checked out were spot on!. Check it out here.

Good Cappuccino Places

Cafe and KanelBulle. Snack for the Swedes and Crack for me. I think 7 of the 10 pounds I gained in Europe can be attributed solely to this.

The quality of coffee in Sweden is on the average really good. Hence almost any café or kaffe you go to will have a decent Capp. One thing I did like is that, unlike San Francisco, good coffee does not imply snobbish Baristas.

A few of my favorite places:

• Johan Och Nystrom: In Mariatorget, Sodermalm. This cafe is owned by the roasting company, which I fouind to be the blue bottle of Stockholm. Good coffee, good service.

• Café Sempre: Close to Stureplan, Ostermalm. Cool neighborhood. Very Italian place.
• Drop Coffee: Mariatorget again. Good coffee. Terribly slow service. Bring a book to wait, or a witty friend to keep you company
• Coffice: Medborgarplatsen, Sodermalm. Good Coffee, Incredibly fast wifi. Go here to get stuff done, or to download an entire TV series. But the vibe is more of a work place rather than a cafe to chit chat.

One point definitely worthy of note: All Cafes have lactose free milk!!!!