Best Of

My wife and myself, who are both 80, have been caravanning for many years, went to visit one of our sons who lives in Sweden. We have done this trip before but a bit longer this year.

We left Bristol on Friday 19th August and travelled to Bourton on the Water club site. Only 50 miles from home but a useful stop to make sure all is well and not too far from home should we have forgotten anything important! All was well so the following day we went across the country to stay for a couple of nights on a CL near Harwich, where the ferry goes from. Stayed at Kahana in Manningtree for a couple of nights.

On Monday morning we left Kahana at about 7.15 am to check in for the ferry which left at 9. We had a nice smooth crossing. It is a long crossing, about 7 hours, but cheaper than the tunnel and saves mileage. We also have a cabin, as my wife doesn’t travel on the sea too well. Our first stop, for 2 nights, was at Resort De Arendshorst, nr Ommen which is about 120 miles from the Hook of Holland. We booked this site through the club. A lovely site with loads of room and on the banks of the River Vecht.

Our next stop was at Kluthseecamp and Seeblick, in Klein Ronnau, Germany, which we also booked through the club. It was OK for just a stopover. This is where the club sites ended, there are none listed in Denmark or Sweden.

So just after 9 the next morning we moved on to Denmark. A very easy journey and about 170 miles to our stop at Bogense. The site is called Kyst Camping and is right on the coast and next to the marina. We had a couple of days here but unfortunately the weather was terrible; wind and rain so were not able to explore the town or marina. We know from a previous visit that it is a lovely small town. We left there on Friday morning to go to Sweden. During this day we crossed two large bridges. Great Belt Bridge is first and is within Denmark and the second is the Oresund Bridge. Both are expensive but made much cheaper with a tag and registration no recognition. Both are amazing bridges and well worth seeing.

Sweden is a lovely country known for its lakes, there are almost 100,000 and many sites are on the edges of lakes. Also known for the forests. According to Google there are 87 billion trees. Our first stop in Sweden was at Ringsjostrand in southern Sweden. This was quite a busy site, and we enjoyed a meal in their restaurant which overlooks the lake.

We had one night there and the on to Lovsjobaden which is near Jonkoping. This is a smaller site and again overlooks a smaller lake. It slopes down to the to edge of the lake and our pitch was on the edge. We had two nights here and explored the local area but mostly we enjoyed the peace and the Magnums!

After two nights here we moved on to Bredang Camping which is close to Stockholm. We wanted to have a boat tour of the Archipelago, and this seemed to be a good place to stay. The information on the site’s website stated it was 300m from the lake. My wife is waiting for a full knee replacement and cannot walk very far, their idea of 300m must have been on a different scale as it was way beyond what she could manage. We had planned to use a lake cruiser into Stockholm but in view of the long walk we decided to use Uber instead. This worked very well both ways.

We found our cruiser and joined the very long queue to board. This was a fascinating afternoon to see the islands and the houses that have been built on them. The owners then commute to Stockholm by boat. Apparently, there are 30,000 islands of which we only saw the inner ones. We did not linger in Stockholm afterwards as it was so hot and extremely busy, so we booked our Uber and returned to the site. We had planned to stay for 3 nights but decided to move on after 2. The site was ok, and facilities were good but being a city site it was quite cramped.

The following day we moved north by about 170 miles to Vintjarn where our son lives. He lives on the edge of a very quiet village and forest.  We spent just over three weeks with him, with our caravan in his garden. This was most enjoyable as there is plenty to do and see in the vicinity. We even visited Ikea which was a joy with probably no more than 50 people in there!

All too soon it was time to make our way back home. Our first night was at Harge Bad Camping and this is on the northern shores of Lake Vattern. This is the second largest lake in Sweden and is about 81 miles long and 19 miles wide, about 740 square miles. It does look as though it is the sea.

After this stop we mostly repeated our stays at the same sites as we did on the way.

We had an amazing trip and hope to be able to do it again. My wife doesn’t drive any longer but I have always loved driving and especially in Sweden where the roads are very quiet. Obviously busy around towns and cities but you soon find yourself back in the countryside. The drivers were very polite and forgiving for the odd mistake I made! Altogether we did just under 4000 miles, with great help from Google maps which never ceases to amaze me.

I booked all the sites online and we found, without exception, that we had a warm welcome everywhere and English was spoken everywhere. Sweden is thought to be expensive, and some things are pricey but the sites were all cheaper than sites in the UK. The fuel prices were about the same as the UK in all the countries we travelled through.

I took loads of pictures and have picked out 5 to attach here to give an idea but none of them really do the country justice.