A long walk in a long country

I’m going to spend very long hours of daylight walking a very long trail in a very long country.

So I was lying in bed, sipping a mug of coffee, flicking through my Lonely Planet Guide to Sweden, thinking about getting up and actually doing something. I really hadn’t got the use out of my LP Sweden as I only bought it to use for a few days and it turned out there were only a couple of pages dedicated to Malmo where I was planning to go. In fact, so little of the book concerned Malmo I did something I have never done before. After much deliberation I decided I really didn’t want to carry the whole book around, didn’t have time to copy the relevant pages and so, I’m really struggling to say this, I (deep breath) ripped the pages out. Now I was thinking I really should get some more use out of this mutilated book.


Malmo is right at the bottom of Sweden, just over the Oresund Bridge from Copenhagen. It’s a very nice place in what seems to be a very nice and very long country. As I’ve been to one end, maybe I should go to the other end? And, as the other end is in the actual real Arctic, as soon as this idea popped into my head, it seemed like a very good idea indeed. I turned to the Arctic section of the book and the page fell open on the description of a very long walk in this very long country.


The walk is called the Kungsleden Trail (means the King’s Trail or the Royal Trail, depending who you believe) and the whole thing is over 400km through beautiful wilderness. Ok then, that’s my summer holiday planned. My very long walk in this very long country will take place during the very long days of summer (are you seeing a theme yet?)


A few weeks later sitting in brother’s kitchen in Germany I had time to do a bit more research. Apart from a few blogs and the official website and one not very well-known guidebook, there’s very little written on it in English. This is all part of the attraction. It’s something not many Brits either know about or will have done. I’m sold.