First of, hotel. If you do not die of staying right in the middle of everything that happens in town, then consider just a few metro stations away from the city centre, definitely brings your money more worth of its value. I guess it's no mystery to many but Stockholm in particular is worth while to do so because the city is of a decent walking size. If you're not too unfit & the weather permits, you can plan your sight seeing trips without breaking your wallet by the areas - on foot. Most hotels in Stockholm include breakfast, which saves you quite some money unless your idea of breakfast is a croissant and coffee from 7-eleven ;) The one thing that is not common in Stockholm hotel is the coffee / tea making facility which is probably common in other places, so set the expectation right.
Now after selecting your hotel, how are you going to get into town from Arlanda airport (assuming you are flying to Arlanda)? Arlanda Express which costs 260SEK one way, takes 20 minutes to go into city centre and is the best option if you're travelling alone and press on time. If you travel on Saturday/Sunday or in summer, you only need to pay 280SEK for two person for a single journey. Plus, you can bring up to 4 children below 17 years old for free. And if you're only in Stockholm for a weekend, from Thursday/Friday until Satuday/Sunday of the same week, then get a weekend return ticket for 325SEK, you can also bring up to 4 children for free for the ride. Remember, if you do not stay right next to the Arlanda express station, you'll need to purchase tickets for use of public transport (unless you have the Stockhol card).
We travelled to Stockholm, arriving on Saturday & departing on Monday and decided to take a taxi directly to our hotel. Our taxi ride costs 495SEK fixed price from the company called 'Airport Cab', nice clean Mercedes with very good service. Taxi Stockholm / Taxi 020 charges 520SEK one way and you shouldn't pay anything more than that. If you pre-order a taxi, additional fee will incurred for the waiting & parking time. There are quite a number of 'private taxis' in Stockholm and there's no regulation about taxi fare, so watch out for 'black cab'. Taxi Stockholm, Taxi 020 (very yellow painted cars) & Taxi Kurir are the major taxi companies with compatible price and their service is also more trustworthy.
From the city to the airport, it should be cheaper (because there's no airport tax) and the fixed price taxi rate for Airport Cab is 390SEK. If you really can't find any Airport Cab, there are plenty of taxis in town that is more than willing to take you to the airport. However, remember this direction should always be cheaper than 520SEK, so negotiate the price and definitely get a final agreement on price before getting on taxi. We paid 450SEK from city centre to Arlanda airport. It is possible to take public train to the city from airport but it's not cheap, changes are required and the local train only travel nearly once an hour, not recommended.
So how are you going to move around in town? If you have purchase the Stockholm card, then you can disregard this section but if you haven't, then please read on. If you visit Stockholm in summer, I'd highly recommend walking. Stockholm is a good size walking friendly city. Plan the areas you want to visit by location, then you can easily save hundreds of Swedish kroners on public transport, plus you get a better overview of the city by walking.
Inevitably, at some point, you'd have to take public transport. A single ticket cost 36SEK and allows you to travel within zone1, which is pretty much everything interesting in Stockholm. If you have the need to travel more than a few times, you can purchase a 'pre-sale strip' of 16 zones at 200SEK for a total of 16 zones. A small note for the strip: minimum travelling zone is 2 zones; which means, even when you only travel within zone 1, the booth personnel will stamp two zones on your ticket. Even with that, 2 zones = 25SEK with the strip, you still save 9SEK each trip.
Another option is of course to get a day pass, which save all the hassles but it doesn't really come cheap at 115SEK; a three day ticket is however more reasonably priced at 230SEK. Expect to pay 20SEK extra for the smart card and the cards are valid from the hour of first use. My advice? walk around, enjoy the beautiful scenery. All tickets can be purchased at booths / kiosks with the blue 'SL' flag. For more detail info, you can check out http://sl.se/en/Visitor/Tickets/Visitor-tickets/.
Stockholm is expensive but it doesn't mean you can't visit this beautiful city if you don't have loads of money. We tried not to spend a fortune but still end up with a bill that is equivalent to a week's vacation in the middle / eastern Europe for two, so watch out your wallet & plan wisely. Hopefully the info provided above helps on top of whatever researched you have found about Stockholm, and have a pleasant trip :)
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| 16-zone strip (on the left) and a single trip ticket (on the right) |
Stockholm is expensive but it doesn't mean you can't visit this beautiful city if you don't have loads of money. We tried not to spend a fortune but still end up with a bill that is equivalent to a week's vacation in the middle / eastern Europe for two, so watch out your wallet & plan wisely. Hopefully the info provided above helps on top of whatever researched you have found about Stockholm, and have a pleasant trip :)
