First trip overseas to Sweden, advice please.
Hello,
We are new to caravanning and are planning a trip to northern Sweden this year. Does anyone have any advice on which routes/ferry crossings to use and anything else that would be useful to know. I have researched the legal requirements so feel reasonably
confident with that but have been told that the Camping Key Europe is different in Sweden to the rest of Europe. Also, what are the roads like? Any advice would be much appreciated.
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It's been many years since we were over there, but we found the main roads were fine. When overtaking you will notice that it's the responsibilty of the car in front to pull over, onto the hard shoulder, to allow the overtaking car to pass. Don't forget
to get ACSI discount card and purchase Camping Cheques for your campsites.Don't know how far north you intend going or where you are sailing from, but there's a bridge from Denmark to Sweden and from N.Norway to North Cape. We found that the roads deteriorated when we pass from N.Sweden into Finland.
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Roads are very good, so no worries there.
Camping Key is not different as far as use goes, but if you order it direct from Sweden you may get some discount deals. Check out Camping.se and visit Sweden.
Camping.se also have a good online booking facility if you want to book.
No passenger ferries to Scandinavia from UK these days, we usually use Hull/Rotterdam or there is a ferry from Harwich to Holland.
Once you get to Holland you can either drive via Germany and Denmark and over the Oresund bridge, or across Germany to the island of Rugen where you can get a ferry from Sassnitz to Trelleborg in south Sweden. This is reasonably priced if you book well in advance, even cheaper if you travel at unsocial hours.
There are also ferries from Germany to the Danish islands.
We usually go one way and return the other.
Sites are pretty good, busy mid June till mid August. Some sites accept the ACSI card and Camping Cheques if you are travelling off-peak.
Expect to pay between £20 and £30 per night otherwise.
Wild camping is permitted away from built-up areas, and some picnic areas have water, waste and toilet emptying.
Prices of food and fuel are not much different from UK, Lidl is very popular in Sweden. Credit cards are accepted almost everywhere.
Alcohol, other than beer, is only sold in special shops called Systembolaget. Food and alcohol are cheapest in Germany, so stock up there. Food in Denmark is more expensive than in Sweden, alcohol reasonable.
Many sites start closing in mid September. Grey waste is sometimes unknown, you can use the toilet emptying, or better, the MH dump point.
Most EHU is CEE16, but some may be 2 pin, so take an adaptor.
Midgies are rife in summer, especially near lakes. The further north you go the bigger they get!
Most Swedes will understand English, but may not be so good at speaking it, talk slowly and clearly, and be patient!
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We have only been to Sweden with solo car. Most recently 2015. We live near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, there used to be a DFDS ferry Newcastle to Goteberg, but that no longer runs, so, we took DFDS Newcastle to Amsterdam. Then drove through Holland, into Germany, Denmark, into Sweden at Malmo via the new bridge, simply because we wished to see new bridge. On return journey, we took ferry Goteberg to Fredrickshaven (Denmark), then drove through Denmark and retraced our route to Amsterdam. Roads Denmark similar to UK in terms of mix of motorway / major "A" type roads. Sweden, our experience only took us as far north as Sunne. Not a lot of motorways, or even dual carriageway, but, road quality good. They appear to be quite hot on speed limits, lots of cameras! Sweden is not very densely populated, so, not a lot of fuel stops!
Hope that is helpful.
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Thank you all very much for all the information.
I will take a look at the different routes suggested to see which suits us best. We were hoping to keep driving to a minimum through mainland Europe because we are going quite far norh in Sweden so there will be a lot of driving once we get there. We have
never driven in Europe before so I am quite nervous!I will also look into the ACSi card and camping cheques as I have not heard of them before. Forgive my ignorance but we are complete novices.
Are the ferry ports easy to use? I had only looked at crossings from Travemunde or Rostock to Trelleborg so it is helpful to have other options to check out.
Lots to think about!
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Ferries are very easy, drive on, drive off.
Driving through Germany or Denmark is straightforward, it will only take a few hours to get used to driving on the "other side". Just follow what other road users are doing.
Where in Sweden are you heading to?
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The plan at the minute is to head towards Umea or maybe even further North. The nice thing about having a caravan is that we can go as far as we want to.
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We have been up that way several times as I am from the north of Norway (Bodo). When we go there we drive north/south in Sweden as the roads are much better and everything is cheaper.
The coast road is interesting, lots of good sites to stop on, the inland road is good too, but a LOT of trees! You must visit the big lakes too, and the glass blowing area. (Kosta Boda etc).
How long are you going for?
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We are hoping to go for about a month in total but are at the early planning stages at the moment. As we have never travelled overseas we have no idea how long it takes to get from one place to another. We will go from Harwich to Holland but could you give
me an idea of how long it then takes to drive to Sassnitz please? We will only be able to drive for about 5 to 6 hours a day maximum. Also, if we headed straight for Umea, roughly how many days do you think it would take us? Thanks very much for all the information
so far, it really is very useful.0 -
Hook of Holland to Sassnitz ferry by the quickest route is about 840km, you will be limited to a max of 80kph, so I would think you could possibly do it in 2 days as it is mainly motorway. But it would be quite tiring. Would also depend on when you got off the ferry/amount of traffic etc.
From Trelleborg to Umea by the quickest route is about 1280km, so would take 3 days minimum, 4 days if the roads are busy.
A month is not long when you consider the distances involved.
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Thanks for your reply. It gives me something to work from now. We may have to consider going for a bit longer.
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Have you considered the Kiel Germany-Gothenburg ferry, this would reduce your driving a considerble amount. We journeyed by car last year, our route was via Puttgarten Germany to Denmark, Oresun bridge and Malmo to Gothenburg. If we were to take the caravan,
I think we'd use the Keil- Gothenburg ferry, everything was surprisingly easy and straight forward, Paul.0 -
I hadn't thought about going from Kiel to Gothenburg but will certainly look into it now thanks.Now that I have an idea of roughly how long it takes to cover the distances I think the next step is to make a list of all possible options and weigh up the cost,
driving and timings to see which would suit us best.0 -
HoH to Kiel is 615km, Goteborg to Umea is about 900km, so you need to look at how much the ferries are. And the timings, if the time is important, which with only a month it will be.
Whatever you decide, do try to go and return by different routes, you will see so much more.
Despite we Norwegians being sore at the Swedes for stealing a lot of land from us way back, and we won't mention WW2, I do like visiting Sweden. Less extreme in many ways than Norway, but of course not so scenic.
Sweden is well worth an extended tour, if you have the time. It is a long way, so make the most of it if you can.
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Thank you, I certainly will and going one way and coming back another sounds like a really good idea because as you say, we will get to see more of Sweden.
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