Hiking!

Traveling in Northern Sweden

An overview of northern Scandinavia can be found in a separate window.

This is a sketch of part of northern Sweden and Norway. Streets are in black and hiking trails are in light green.The picture indicates the most popular trails only.You should find Kiruna as well as Narvik on every map of Europe. They are connected by a railroad and the E10 street. About halfway between both cities is Abisko, a small village and, 4 more km west, the Abisko Touriststation.

You can come with your car along the E10 and place it at one of the trailheads. But, if you go Abisko-Kebnekaise for instance, it will take you roughly one day to get back to the car. Especially if you don’t have fixed plans, it makes sense to use public transportation.

Railfans can use the Inlandsbanan from the south to Jokkmokk or Gällivare. If you want to start hiking in Kvikkjokk, you can get out in Jokkmok and take the bus. To Saltoluokta / Ritsem you best get out in Gällivare for the bus.

A second train line comes in from Stockholm via Lulea to Narvik. You can change to the bus in Gällivare or Kiruna, or use the train to go to Abisko. Since Carola and I like traveling with railroads, we hope that we can use the night train from Stockholm in one of the next years, which is said to have an interesting atmosphere.

Buses operate on the following routes: Kiruna – Abisko – Riksgränsen, Kiruna – Nikkaluokta, Kiruna – Gällivare, Gällivare – Jokkmokk, Jokkmokk – Kvikkjokk, Gällivare – Kebnats/Stora Sjöfallet – Ritsem with a connection from Jokkmokk. In 1996, the ticket Kiruna – Ritsem was 170 Skr, this is probably one of the longest distances. Kiruna – Nikkaluokta was 70 Skr.

For People that can spend money rather than time, helicopters operate in a regular schedule between Kvikkjokk – Staloluokta – Ritsem and Kebnekaise – Nikkaluokta. These are cheaper than individual taxi flights. The Fiskflyg with a base in Stora Sjöfallet can bring you to one of the lakes with a seaplane, which can be cheaper than a helicopter. You can find several other companies on http://www.kiruna.se that offer taxi flights.

With a SAS plane you can fly Stockholm-Kiruna, sometimes with stopovers. The connection to buses at the Kiruna airport is usually good. Don’t spend too much time looking around in the airport building, the bus to Kiruna will leave when the passengers have gathered.