June-September 2024

One of the world's great nations.

The Jorun River is stunning. Crystal blue water, sweet gurgling sounds, lined with hyper-green vegetation, cascading into distant mountains under the midnight sun. I drop my backpack surrounded by clouds of mosquitos, and begin to set up camp. It's here, deep in the backcountry of Lapland, that our Swedish adventure begins.

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I had always wanted to visit Sweden. Year after year, it tops every list of quality-of-life markers: low crime, fairest government, most vacation time, longest life expectancies, best education systems, most-traveled people, and on and on. In my lifetime of travels, I'd also met plenty of Swedes, and was continually impressed by their vast knowledge of the world, their multilingualism, and their humble pride of their great nation. Beyond this, it's also a stunningly beautiful country with tons of fascinating Arctic wilderness awaiting our exploration. Which is how we ended up here.

 

In June 2024 we rented a tiny rental car in Germany for 10 weeks to drive a massive clockwise lap of Scandinavia, carrying our backpacking and packrafting gear. I'd mapped out a number of rivers I'd 'found' on satellite imagery and thought we'd be able to paddle. Some were too high, some were too low, but some were just right. We spent several days on the Jorun River in northern Sweden, and then later paddled another river near Kebnekaise. The wilderness was magnificent, the bugs not nearly as bad as we'd expected, and the people were incredible.

Later, in Stockholm, we were impressed by how modern but how full of history the city is. I also lucked out and got to go see a live show of world-renowned Swedish heavy metal band Amon Amarth - one of the best shows of my life!

Sweden will forever be one of my favorite countries. It's just such a wonderful place to visit, to travel, and to live.