My Swedish road trip 🚗

I spent most of my time in Sweden in Stockholm. I mean, that’s where KTH is, that’s where home was and that’s where I felt most comfortable. As I got closer and closer to the end of my time though, I started wondering what the rest of the country was like, outside the concrete walls and city streets. A part of learning to do things by yourself is figuring out the things that you love. Fortunately for me, although I wasn’t totally sure what all those things were, I was sure of one: singing on the top of my lungs in the car 🎙️. So, after exams, armed with my airline points (be sure to redeem those by the way ☺️),a toothbrush, and a few pairs of underwear, I set out on a 1400 km, 16-hour drive over 2 days from Stockholm to Malmö to lip sync until I nearly lost my voice 🥰. So, how’d I do it?

Renting a car in Sweden 🚗

The first thing I needed to figure out was where I was going to get the car, and the type of car was very important for me. I mean, would I really be doing a Swedish road trip right if I wasn’t driving a Volvo? My (Hertz’) Volvo V60, who I affectionately called Julia met me at the rental car station at Stockholm Arlanda on the 3 of June. What can I say, it was love at first sight 🤷🏾‍♂️, and for good reason 🥹.

I was a bit nervous about renting a car in Sweden, especially because of my age, but everything actually worked out, even better than I had expected ☺️. Renting the car was easy. Although I used my airline rewards points in addition to a small fee, renting a car as a student is very much possible, even at a discounted rate on Mecenat with Hertz or Budget car rental. Be warned though, the one thing you need to look out for is the deposit. Hertz had to place a 9500 SEK hold on my credit card to cover any potential damages before they confirmed my rental. In addition to the fee, you need to know that some rental car companies may require you to have a credit card for the transaction rather than a debit card. All in all though, the process was very smooth for me and what I got was well worth it.

I should tell you this though, be warned, before you rent a car in Sweden, you need to know what it’s like to park there. It’s something that I was never used to thinking about but became very important when I went on the trip. Parking a car in Sweden is not cheap, and you need to be prepared to pay in the region of 300 SEK per day to reserve a space. Hotels like mine have information about their paid parking listed on the website, and there are also public parking lots that are a bit cheaper than private ones. The key here is to do your research and plan beforehand. I would also recommend the Aimo app to anyone planning to park in Sweden. They have thousands of parking facilities available in their app, and they make looking for parking much easier, especially for people like me who wouldn’t have even known where to begin to look for parking.

Just me and Julia 🚗

This is the part that I’d been waiting for. I’d been toying with the idea of a Swedish road trip for weeks, and that meant I started putting my playlist together early. I honestly don’t know how I retained my sense of hearing after that 7-hour drive, but all I can say is that I regret none of my choices on that trip. From snapping my fingers to keep the pace with Noah Kahan’s ‘Stick Season’, to catching the high notes on Beyonce’s ‘Listen’, I know for sure that the people looking on must’ve thought that I was crazy 😅. Did I care though? Not one bit 🥰.

My time in Malmö

I must say, in this case, I enjoyed the journey much more than I did the destination 😅, but I guess that was the whole point, right? I spent most of my time in Malmö at my Scandic hotel (which I booked using my discount code on Mecenat), eating, or shopping. I also went to the Malmö opera house, but that one didn’t quite go as I had expected 😅. I honestly can’t say much about the city because I didn’t get to experience much of it with the timeline that I was on. My impression though, is that Malmo is a Swedish city like any other. The one thing I did notice was how industrialized it seemed to have been, definitely more than central Stockholm, but much different from Gothenburg. Of the three Swedish cities that I visited, Gothenburg was definitely my favourite. You can read about my trip to Gothenburg here!

So, did I spend hundreds of euros to rent a car, pay for a hotel room and buy gas just to listen to music for 14 hours nonstop? Yup 🙂‍↕️! Is that financially or practically irresponsible? Probably 🥴. Do I regret doing it? Not one bit 🙂‍↔️.