Daily domestic flights crisscross the country, but Sweden’s extensive bus and train systems render flying unnecessary unless you’re really pressed for time. Trains are the basis of Swedish transport outside cities, serving regional centres more quickly than buses. Buses are often the only option once you get off the beaten track. Swedish roads are of a high standard, marred only by their popularity with moose, reindeer and elk around dawn and dusk. You need only a recognised full licence to drive in Sweden: an international licence is unnecessary unless you want to rent a car. Women should ask for discounts (tjejtaxa) in Stockholm taxis at night.

The motorways are not open to cyclists but the long, specially designed and scenic cycle routes are better anyway. Archipelago boats sail around Stockholm and Gothenburg, and steamers on lakes such as Vättern, Siljan and Torneträsk in Lapland make popular summer cruises and handy links if you are cycling or walking. Skippering your own boat can be perilous, given the dramatic changes in water level. Expect to encounter difficulties upon the slightest divergence from marked channels.
Environment

Sweden is the biggest sausage in the Scandinavian sizzle, covering an area of 450,000 sq km (175,500 sq mi). The dominant characteristics of the landscape can be attributed to glacial activity. The 7000km-long (4330mi) coastline, particularly in the west and near Stockholm, is constantly cut by fjords (long, narrow sea inlets). Lubbers rue that it doesn’t get much drier inland, with about 100,000 lakes plugged into Sweden. The islands of Öland and Gotland, south of Stockholm, consist of flat limestone, but they’re sand-fringed and have been turned into beachy retreats for urban escapees. Norrland (a practical term for the northern 60% of the country) is sparsely populated, comprising a near-uniform expanse of forest, river and rapid. Norway provides a natural frontier to the west on the other side of Skanderna, Sweden’s modest mountain range. Sweden’s highest peak is the glacier-capped northern peak of Mt Kebnekaise at 2111m (6924ft).

Moose, deer and fox are common throughout Sweden and, of all Sweden’s wild creatures, these are the ones you’re most likely to spot, though hopefully not as they come through your windscreen. Wolf, lynx and brown bear populations have suffered at the hands of encroaching agriculture and eager hunters, but are making a comeback in some western provinces and the mountain regions. Wolverine survive in the mountains only by preying on domestic livestock, making no friends with farmers in their fight against extinction. Varied bird life twitters, flutters and swoops from seaside to snowline, with the kingfisher perhaps the most beautiful, and the woodpecker the best at carpentry. The northern lakes and streams are choice places to spot Sweden’s fisherfolk boasting about big ‘uns of the salmon trout clan.