Well this all started on a cold February night when I found $310 airfare to Stockholm from Minneapolis. ***checks-calendar-for-wedding-bookings-and-sees-its clear****boop, boop, boop BAM. Airfare acquired to Sweden for our crew (plus Matt’s lovely mother Carol!) and we had ourselves a trip! Sweden has always called to us, from Matt’s family heritage to the many beautiful weddings we’ve shot at the American Swedish Institute and fun family memories we’ve had at the sweet Chicago Swedish Museum. The simplicity of their design and appreciation for nature…....the sauna culture…..the happy Danes who take Hygge very seriously………or maybe it’s all the weeknight IKEA dinners we do as a family? Regardless, Sweden and Denmark had been on our bucket list for many years and the time aligned.
I spent the rest of the winter researching where to go and what to do from there, and discovered that seeing all we could see would be difficult in just two weeks so we had to make some tough choices! With 3 adults, 3 kids, all spanning the ages of 20 months to mid 70s, we decided to try to keep it as simple as we could while still seeing as much as we were able.
We started in Stockholm, then drove to the Southern region of Sweden (Skane) and then over to Copenhagen in Denmark (thanks to a $70 one-way bridge toll -…yikes!) and a few days south of Copenhagen in the Zealand coast of Denmark. Then back up toward Stockholm. Total driving around 7 hours each way, but we broke it up into 2-3 hour legs throughout the two week journey. Very manageable. Norway will have to be its own trip when our crew can tolerate a longer train ride or more short flights after the long journey.
The funny part about traveling to Europe is seeing the stereotypes we have of Europeans play out in real life. Like, the Italians really eat Italian food every day. And the French eat baguettes like it’s no ones business. The English love their tea time. And the Swedish? Well you couldn’t go two feet without a cinnamon or cardamon bun, or plate of smoked fish! And while you think the locals would get tired of these traditional foods, they absolutely do not and this is to our benefit!
In addition to the deliciously simple fresh food and incredible bakeries, there were clearly some beautiful sights to be admired - and we took that part pretty seriously. Traveling with a camera is a real treat, although I will say that our attention is almost always split since we are also parenting on location and someone always needs something. Balancing that with just being present and taking the moment in can feel like sensory overload, but it’s always in the weeks and months after we get home from this kind of adventure that we truly appreciate the gift of photography. In the moment it feels like a little glimmer to be captured, but we always end up enjoying the photos even more as time passes. It’s not lost on us that we came home with only 900 photos taken, which is LESS than we take in a one hour photoshoot for clients. All to say, we wish we had more time for photos there, but this will have to do.
Anyway - to the photos! These are a mix of Stockholm and Copenhagen architecture, urban allotment gardens, Swedish and Danish countryside, FOOD (but not enough food photos because we were all always so hungry from all the walking), two beautiful UNESCO sites in Denmark called Mons Klint and Svens Klint and some living history museums in both countries. If you’ve known us for any amount of time you know we’re history nerds and taking our kids to living history museums is one of the ways we love to adventure as a family.
Finally, please let us know if you have traveled here before and what you loved (so we can add it to the list for next time!) What a beautiful trip. We’ll be back, Scandinavia!
