Top 10 Places to Visit in Sweden in 2026

Sweden’s top places to visit are Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Visby on Gotland, Swedish Lapland and the ICEHOTEL, Abisko National Park, Uppsala, the High Coast, Kosterhavet National Park, and the Stockholm Archipelago. Sweden logged 21.3 million commercial overnight stays in the 2024/2025 winter season, up 2% year-on-year — foreign visitors accounted for 4.5 million of those nights, a quarter of the total, and grew 7% while domestic stays grew just 1%, according to Tillväxtverket, Sweden’s official tourism and regional-growth agency.

1. Stockholm — The capital spreads across 14 islands; the Vasa Museum holds the only almost fully intact 17th-century ship ever salvaged, a 64-gun warship that drew 1.35 million visitors in 2024, a short walk from the medieval old town of Gamla Stan.
2. Gothenburg — Sweden’s west-coast port city, threaded with canals; the Liseberg amusement park anchors the center, and Kosterhavet National Park is a roughly two-hour drive up the coast.
3. Malmö — Sweden’s third-largest city, home to the Turning Torso skyscraper and connected to Copenhagen by the 7.85-kilometer Öresund Bridge, whose 1,092-meter main span is the world’s longest cable-stayed span carrying both road and rail traffic.
4. Visby, Gotland — A medieval walled town on the island of Gotland, UNESCO World Heritage-listed since 1995.
5. Swedish Lapland & the ICEHOTEL — In Jukkasjärvi near Kiruna, the ICEHOTEL is rebuilt every November from harvested Torne River ice and snow across roughly 6,000 square meters, then melts back into the river each spring.
6. Abisko National Park — Established in 1909, about 195 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle; the northern trailhead of the 467-kilometer Kungsleden (King’s Trail) to Hemavan, and a base for both midnight-sun hiking and aurora viewing. Timing your visit for optimal aurora season is critical for northern Sweden trips.
7. Uppsala — Home to Uppsala University, founded in 1477, the oldest in Sweden and the Nordic countries, and Uppsala Cathedral, which at 118.7 meters is the tallest church building in Scandinavia.
8. The High Coast (Höga Kusten) — UNESCO World Heritage-listed since 2000 for the highest post-glacial land uplift on Earth: roughly 285 meters of rebound since the last ice age, still rising about 8 millimeters a year.
9. Kosterhavet National Park — Sweden’s first marine national park, established in 2009; more than 6,000 marine species have been identified there, around 200 of them found nowhere else in the country.
10. Stockholm Archipelago — Just over 24,000 islands, islets, and skerries extending roughly 60 kilometers east of the capital into the Baltic Sea.

Planning note

Swedish Lapland and Abisko sit far enough north that they’re a separate trip from the Stockholm–Gothenburg–Malmö–Gotland cluster in the south — Kiruna is roughly a 90-minute flight from Stockholm, not a rail day trip. Pair the ICEHOTEL and Abisko together as one Arctic leg, and treat the southern cities and islands as a different itinerary rather than trying to connect them by ground transport. For more on planning a multi-region European itinerary, see how to plan a Europe trip.

Sources

• Tillväxtverket (via Mynewsdesk) — Vinterturismen fortsätter att växa
• Wikipedia — Vasa Museum
• Wikipedia — Öresund Bridge
• Wikipedia — Visby
• Wikipedia — Icehotel (Jukkasjärvi)
• Wikipedia — Abisko National Park
• Wikipedia — Kungsleden
• Wikipedia — Uppsala University
• Wikipedia — Uppsala Cathedral
• Wikipedia — High Coast
• Wikipedia — Kosterhavet National Park
• Wikipedia — Stockholm Archipelago

Read the Top 10 Countries to Visit in 2026 roundup for how Sweden compares globally.