Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Sweden 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have always wanted to go to Sweden. I started learning Swedish when I was 14, and I started a pen-pal friendship with a Sweden at the same time. When I was 21 I finally made a trip to Sweden (March 2002) for 2 weeks and I used the May 2002 edition of this book.

I spent my time in three cities: Stockholm, Umeå, and Skellefteå. Most guidebooks that I looked at covered the south of Sweden quite well at the expense of the North. This guidebook used 25% of its space to write about the two largest cities and 60% to write about the rest of Sweden. (The remaining 15% of the book deals with formalities of getting to/into Sweden, language, food, etc.)

The section on Stockholm was fantastic, and since the chapter was organized based on each island or section of the city, it was very easy to read. You could plot out which part of the city you wanted to visit each day with ease. The book specifies open/close times very well (although you always double check). As someone traveling in the winter, I appreciated that fact! Some guidebooks don't list the months that something is open!

Whereas some guidebooks have 2 paragraphs on Umeå and Skellefteå, this one had 6 and 3, respectively. The cities are described well and the information is as much as you'll probably need.

Another nice feature is that the guide features fairly detailed information about getting to/from each city, even the small ones.

The third section of the book, about history, food, money, language, etc was well laid out, and the history section was as complete as most general tourists would want it.

The book caters to a variety of tourists as it lists a wide (very wide) variety of accomodations, restaurants, activities, and methods of travel. Other guidebooks aimed at "poor college students" seem to cover mostly pubs and nightclubs at the expense of museums. Guidebooks aimed at the "one trip to Europe in a lifetime let's use all of our stock earnings" books seem to cover hotels at the expense of hostels. This book covers both.

Overall, a very good buy.

I lived in Sweden for a year, and this book was hands-down the best guide to the place I found. In fact, when I traveled around the country I left the other guides behind and took this one with me. Not only is the Rough Guide small enough to cart around conveniently, it has consistently accurate information. I also admire the attention the guide gives to areas outside of the big cities. Sweden is a country of small towns, really, and the guide pays a lot of attention to their attractions. Rough guides have never been afraid to be candid, either. I walked into a coffeehouse in Lund one day, took a look around, and felt instantly at home. I looked in the Rough Guide, and read that this was the place to be if you were a pretentious intellectual and wanted to be among similar effette poseurs. Yep, that was me, and that was the place. I had a great time. Tak sa miket, Rough Guide.

I had issues with the Rough Guide to Japan that I used 2 years ago and unfortunately this book disappointed me in similar ways. First off, the errors. I only read the sections on Stockholm, Uppsala, and Gothenburg and surroundings, in addition to the Basics, Contexts, Glossary, etc., but in these I found numerous errors, particularly in the maps. Rough Guides maps use legends with numbers for food/drink establishments and letters for lodging. But you'll see, for example, the letter J listed in the legend but missing from the map, or another letter or number has been placed in clearly the wrong spot on the map. I also found Swedish spelling errors and mislabeled photos. I am convinced that this series is poorly edited. Anyone could crosscheck the maps in 1 day and catch the errors. But this crucial step in publishing seems to have been skipped.
Additionally, something that strikes me about the Rough Guide series is that the authors tend to be older and male, and their recommendations do not always suit female travelers or younger travelers. The authors are also rarely country natives. The main author listed for this edition does seem to have experience with the country, but the coauthor does not. Just because someone has a background in journalism and likes to travel does not qualify them to write about a specific country or to provide up-to-date information that will suit a wide range of travelers. And if you can't find a country native to author the guide, at the very least you could get a native to give it a look-over and catch the errors.
Also, there is little to no information in this guide on shopping - more evidence of the lack of any female input. I do not need long narratives on shopping, just a few bullet points on the main shopping areas or popular stores.
I admit I am rarely happy with any travel guide. I feel that too much time is spent detailing the dishes available at various restaurants or explaining the sights of remote towns I will never visit, and not enough space is devoted to truly helpful information and tips for navigating an area and saving money. I wish more guides would focus on budget travel and pull in the reigns on extravagant splurges. I also request more content on the present-day reality and culture of a country and less info on their medieval history. This guide is no exception.
That being said, the things I do like about this guide are its compact size, its focus on public transportation, the colorful photo section, the Contexts section, the Useful Words and Phrases, and the Swedish Glossary. I checked other guides to Sweden and these elements were missing. For that reason I give it 3 and not 2 stars. But it is a very reluctant 3 stars.

Sweden is a wonderful travel destination. It is beautiful country that manages to be both very tranquil and very dynamic. However, like most Americans, I was totally ignorant about Sweden. In fact, I don't think I would ever have gone there if I hadn't found this book in the public library. It got me interested enough to spend a few weeks in Sweden, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I will definitely go back!

The book was very detailed and accurate, and went well beyond the average travel guide in the level of interesting detail about almost everything you could possibly encounter in Sweden. Although the book was published in 1997 and I went in 1999, most of the hotel and restaurant information was still accurate. The book also provides a good introduction to the history and culture of Sweden.

I throughly enjoyed reading this book, about a country which so little is understood, I baffled as to why nobody has discovered this fancisating guide to a wonderfully exciting, beautiful country. It's a must that you visit the beautiful,wonderous, exciting, young and vibrant and little known cities in northern europe Stockholm. Stockholm has been described as the "The Venice of the North". But Stockholm is far more beautiful, spacious, less crowded but best of all it has 24,000 islands in it's archipalego to discover. Don,t take my word for it GO!

Easy to use, practical, detailed, extremely helpful, with an eye toward saving money while you travel. This guide is organized by different regions of the country in case you don't have time to see the entire country while there. Has all the things you'll need to do and know before you go.

I bought this book, which is 4th edition published June 2006, because I thought it would be the most recent guide book to Sweden. Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not, but the part about the third largest city, Malmö, in the south of the country, is clearly not updated after 2000. There is no information about the big real estate exihibition held in 2001, nor the township that emerged following the exibition. Restaurants and bars are abundant in the area, and therefore the area should be of great interest to tourist. Its location by the waterfront, with its own marina and established swimming ground, makes it one of the most attractive places in the summer. The clearest landmark in Malmö, The Turning Torso (264 metres, finished 2005) is in the same area, and also not mentioned in the book. How all of this could have been overseen in a book that came out 2006, I do not undersstand. In addition, most of the restaurants mentioned in the Malmö section have changed names or simply does not exist anymore.

Since Malmö only takes up about 12 pages of the book, I can not give a comprehensive review. Some of the other parts of the book might be more updated, but for what I have read about Malmö, I definately do not recommned this book.

I am sorry for being contrarian, but I feel I need to set the record straight. Being from Norrland (North Sweden) I appreciate that the authors give Norrland and the country side more attention than some other books. However, the book contains some grave omissions, inaccuracies, and is replete with highly subjective opinions that are presented as facts. You don't want any of this in a guide book.

Three years ago we visited the Ice Hotel in Northern Sweden. It was a mixed American-Swedish group of ten people, including five kids age three to ten. We had a blast, it was a lot of fun, and all of us, except my wife, slept really well. For example, my five year old daughter slept like a princess on the Ice bed. The furniture was made of Ice, the lamps, the chandeliers, the art was made from ice and we drank from cups made of ice.

The kids played with spark sleds and in the snow, and we went on a long dog sled ride. There were some truly breath taking ice art in the hotel, including statues of moose, dogsleds, people, motorcycles, and monsters. There were laughter and smiles 36 hours straight, and still we did not have time to do many of the other exciting things you can do here like, reindeer sled rides, moose safari, ice theater shows, snow mobile rides, ice fishing, etc. In my (and many others) opinion this is one of the best tourist attractions in Sweden.

Unlike us, the authors of this book could not sleep, and they also claimed that no one else could either. They also did a strange sort of (mandatory) run in their undergarments to their room. We did nothing of the sort. I disagree with their less positive description of the ice hotel experience, but what I object to is that their negative experience colored their description of the ice hotel.

A few examples of irritating errors in the book are;
(1) The authors claim that the word "älg" means "Elk" (through out the book and in the dictionary). However, if you lookup the word "Elk" in wikipedia you will see a photo of an animal that has never been seen in Sweden. The truth is that "älg" means "Moose". However, it should be noted that in Europe Moose is sometimes referred to as "Elk", but this is not explained, instead the reader is misled (there are 300,000 Moose in northern Sweden).
(2) The city of Jönköping is pronounced "Yunn-Chupping" not "Yurn-Churping" as the authors claim.

However, their biggest mistake, in fact a giant whopper (a lie), is in regard to the way they treat the Ice Hockey capital of the world.

Örnsköldsvik was once named the Ice Hockey capital of the world because of the many Ice Hockey legends that have come out of this town (for example Peter Forsberg and Markus Näslund). There are also eleven NHL players from this town, even though it is a fairly small town. Because of this strange fact it has received a lot of attention world wide and hockey enthusiasts often come to visit Örnsköldsvik, as if it was a sort of Mekka.

Örnsköldsvik is located at the northern tip of what is called the "High Coast" a coastal area of mountains, mountainous Islands and beautiful fjords, and it also has a lot of interesting attractions. One of them is a reconstructed Iron Age village (with actors and the whole bit) that was erected close to a real Iron Age archeological find. Örnsköldsvik also have an indoor water park that people from all over Northern Sweden come to visit, several good ski slopes, as well as the most modern and prominent ice hockey arena in Northern Sweden. In addition Örnsköldsvik is an important port (especially for all the Islands in the Archipelago around the High Coast). It is the education and media and entertainment center of the region in which it is located.

The book "Lonely Planet Sweden" only has one page on Örnsköldsvik out of 36 for the entire North Sweden. The book "The Rough Guide to Sweden" only has zero pages out of 130 for the entire North Sweden. In fact many lesser towns and villages surrounding Örnsköldsvik are described in detail and with enthusiasm while the only thing ever mentioned on Örnsköldsvik in this book is the following sentence on page 330:

"..from the High coast bridge at the mouth of the Ångerman River to varvsberget, the hill overlooking the Center of Örnsköldsvik, a dreadfully dull place where you'd do well not to get stuck"

This is, of course, not an oversight or a misunderstanding, it is a load of horse @#& done with the intent of offending somebody. The question is who and why? One of the authors is British and they are not happy that Ice Hockey is more popular than soccer in North and East Europe. My guess is that this was their attempt to unload on the entire Ice Hockey community. The British are also not happy about Americans playing football instead of soccer, so if these authors would ever write about Wisconsin; it would be Green Bay who gets it next time. Personal vendettas or irresponsible expression of opinions have no place in a Guide book. Since it was also done in a dishonest fashion I renamed the book to "The Bluff Guide to Sweden"