Stockholm's Archipelago: Kayaking Through 30,000 Islands

The Stockholm Archipelago is one of the largest archipelagos in the world, stretching from the city's eastern suburbs 80 kilometres into the Baltic Sea and encompassing approximately 30,000 islands, islets, and bare rock skerries. The archipelago was shaped by the last ice age, when glaciers ground the bedrock into the rounded, polished forms that characterise the outer islands — smooth grey granite rising just above the waterline, with a few wind-bent pines clinging to the crevices. The inner archipelago, closer to the city, is more sheltered and more wooded, with larger islands supporting villages, farms, and summer houses.

Kayaking is the ideal way to explore the archipelago — the waterways between the islands are calm and sheltered, the distances between stopping points are manageable, and the perspective from water level reveals details of the granite landscape that are invisible from the ferry decks. Several operators in Stockholm offer guided kayaking tours ranging from day trips to week-long expeditions, with camping on the islands overnight. The right of public access — the allemansrätten — means that anyone can camp on any island for up to two nights without permission, making the archipelago one of the most accessible wilderness areas in Europe.

The outer archipelago, beyond the last inhabited islands, is a landscape of extraordinary austerity and beauty — bare rock, open water, and sky, with the occasional lighthouse or fishing hut as the only sign of human presence. The light in summer, when the sun barely sets and the sky remains luminous until midnight, gives the granite a quality that shifts from silver to gold to rose as the hours pass. Seals haul out on the outermost skerries, and white-tailed eagles — the largest birds of prey in Europe — patrol the open water.

Sandhamn, one of the most popular destinations in the outer archipelago, has been a sailing hub since the 18th century when it served as a pilot station for ships entering Stockholm harbour. The village, with its wooden houses painted in the traditional Swedish red and yellow, clusters around a natural harbour that fills with yachts in summer. The KSSS sailing club, founded in 1830, hosts the Round Gotland Race each July — one of the largest offshore sailing races in the world, with over 400 boats competing.

Vaxholm, the gateway to the archipelago and reachable by boat from central Stockholm in an hour, is dominated by a 16th-century fortress built to defend the approach to the capital. The fortress was besieged by the Danish navy in 1612 and by the Russians in 1719, and its thick walls and water-level gun ports give a vivid sense of the strategic importance of the archipelago in the centuries when Sweden was a major European power. The town itself is one of the best-preserved wooden towns in Sweden, with a main street of 19th-century shops and houses.

The archipelago's culinary tradition centres on the freshwater and saltwater fish that have been harvested from these waters for millennia. Strömming — Baltic herring — is the staple, eaten pickled, smoked, fried, or fermented in the notorious surströmming that Swedes consume with a combination of pride and masochism. The summer months bring crayfish parties — kräftskiva — where friends gather around tables laden with dill-boiled crayfish, schnapps, and singing, a tradition that has been celebrated in Sweden since the 17th century.

The best time to visit the archipelago is from June to August, when the weather is warm enough for swimming and the long days maximise the time available for exploration. The Midsommar festival in late June, when Swedes celebrate the summer solstice with dancing around maypoles, flower crowns, and herring, is one of the most joyful events in the Swedish calendar and is celebrated on many of the larger islands. The autumn, when the birch trees turn gold and the tourist crowds have gone, has its own austere beauty — the light is lower and softer, and the islands feel more remote and more themselves.