Stockholm – Mini FAQ

Thanks for your questions and emails, so I will answer a couple of questions for you. Bear in mind I have only been to Stockholm once so I am hardly an expert, just writing what I found 🙂

It is expensive?

I should say so! Being in the UK we always hear of Scandinavian countries being expensive, I always thought it would be, but did not expect it to be that expensive. I have been to London and Amsterdam, I found Amsterdam to be really expensive, and Stockholm is more than that! Hotels are average for a capital city, but the general living expenses are high;

Eating out, drinking, and so on. Taxi to the airport was around £40. My general rule was that most things were around twice the price than the UK (check the beer/alcohol below). Even buying the usual souvenirs I ended up spending around £30 which was a lot considering I only got a few small items.

What about bars, are they expensive?

Yep! A bottle of beer was just over £5, everywhere I went including the hotel bar in Stureplan.

If you want anything extravagant then expect to pay a lot more; For example vodka and Redbull was anywhere from £10-15, cocktails anything around the £12 and upwards mark. This was around the Södermalm area in a few different places.

Strange rules?

You can only buy alcohol from designated places and only at certain times! For example these are closed on Sundays, so you cannot buy alcohol at all! (unless you go to a bar/club/restaurant). The places which sell alcohol are called Systembolaget.

Other places might sell it but it’s weak like 2% ABV or something. So if you plan on buying alcohol for a party or for your hotel don’t leave it until Sunday or you will be disappointed.

I HAD to take my jacket off in one bar. This was weird. It’s like a cloakroom but mandatory, you have no choice. I am not sure if this was just that particular bars rule or not, I guess it was. And you have to pay for the privilege too. This is actually much better, because everyone has to do the same, so people seemed more chilled and danced much more without big coats and jackets on 😀

How do you get from the airport to Stockholm centre/back

There is a bus, a taxi too, but I got the Arlanda Express, a train which goes from the airport terminal straight to Stockholm Central Station. This costs around £26 and is the quickest way to get to the centre of Stockholm, taking around 20 minutes.

I got a Taxi back from my hotel to the airport which was a lot slower, that cost £40.

How do you get around Stockholm? Is it big?

I don’t think it is too big. If you like to walk then you can walk around a lot to different places and they are not too far. I got the Stockholm Metro aka tunnelbana from Stureplan to Gamla Stan, but walked back.

The Tunnelbana is probably the best and easiest way of getting around, depending on where you want to go, much like the Tube in London. There are also buses and trams, but boats are also used a lot since there are many islands.

What is the airport like?

I flew to and from Arlanda, the biggest (and “main”) airport for Stockholm. It’s pretty decent size, not huge and not tiny. Arrivals you are sort of upstairs and have to go down to baggage claim and through passport control then you are out to the terminal and there are a few shops.

Departures there is a very large departure style shop with all the usual things in it, and places to eat etc. I did notice it was really really clean.

What is the money like?

Strange at first. The current exchange rate is around 10kr/£1 so if you have 100kr (which you will have a lot of) that is around £10. It is just odd when you buy stuff and it costs x-hundred kr and you are thinking it’s a huge amount for just a drink.

On the plus side it is easy once you get over that, because you just knock the ‘0’ off. They only seem to have 500kr and 100kr notes and nothing in the middle (there are 20 and 50 notes too), which is not good. They need a 200kr note, like our £20 note (I think they are getting this in the future?)

Snacks and drinks – Are there places to get these?

Yeah, Stockholm has 7Eleven’s everywhere! This was sort of a novelty for me since I am from the UK and we don’t have them here, and they are so popular and famous in America it was cool to go to one. Like everything else they are quite expensive in comparison to the UK counterparts. McDonalds is also not too cheap, over £2 for large fries 😛

What culture of people are around?

In terms of tourists I found that I heard so many Americans, they seemed to be everywhere! I did not hear much British English being spoken, maybe only by two or three people over the whole weekend. There were some German speaking people, maybe some other Scandinavian too, but mostly Swedish people enjoying Stockholm 🙂

Do many people speak English?

I spoke to a few people in stores, restaurants, bars, random Swedish people and everyone speaks English, and pretty good too. Most of the time their English is so good you’d forget you were talking to someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language 😀