Travel Diaries: Stockholm, Sweden

April 19, 2018

Travel Diaries: Stockholm, Sweden

I have a bad habit of traveling to really expensive places when I’m on a student budget. That being said it has taught me how to manage my money better so there is a silver lining! I just spent three days and four nights in Stockholm which honestly was too long especially since we weren’t willing to pay to go into any museums (they all cost money). But I’m still so glad I had the chance to see this incredible city.

First off, I want to say if you’re considering traveling to Stockholm on a student budget Interhostel may seem great on the budget but it will not be a great experience. We’re pretty sure there was someone living in the bathroom, and a few other people who were quite a bit older and around all the time. It was a weird atmosphere, and not the cleanest either. The service was alright, although we asked to move rooms because we were uncomfortable and they told us there were no rooms available even though there were when we checked online. I’d say skip this and spend the money on a better place to stay.

It’s not super difficult to find reasonably priced food in Stockholm! We fell in love with Espresso House, a cute coffee house chain that had reasonably priced sandwiches, and we also ended up eating at a lot of decent kebab/ falafel places to save money. If you look, you’ll be able to stay on budget for food.

We started our trip going down to the Gamla Stan, the historic and picturesque island in Stockholm. There are so many beautiful streets to wander just on this tiny island that we ended up spending a whole afternoon there. We found an adorable cafe as well to sit in and enjoy the atmosphere (and warm up because we were freezing). That night we had pre-booked tickets to the original Ice Bar! While it is pricey for just one drink, it was a must do experience. We had so much fun drinking out of ice cups and sitting on the ice thrown to take pictures.

Th next few days we’re spent wandering the streets looking for reasonably priced places to eat. We enjoyed taking the metros and seeing the longest running art exhibition in the world (at the metro stations!). That was a unique and budget friendly option that we loved. We also found out about a free shuttle bus to the worlds largest Ikea. This ended up being a great activity for a cold afternoon for us. We did plenty of window shopping in Ikea and had a great, and inexpensive Swedish meal!

I would definitely recommend traveling to this beautiful city if you’re interested and maybe have a bit more than a student budget to work with. Maybe a shorter weekend visit would be best considering how much there is to do, especially if you go during colder months as we did!