Top 7 beaches in Sweden

Sweden is not the first country anyone thinks of for a beach holiday, and that is rather the point. There are no high-rise resorts on this list and no stretch of coast that has been sold off to a hotel chain. What there is: clean water, long light, and a national habit of swimming in it the moment the temperature allows.

Two things to know before you go. The season is short and specific, roughly late June to mid August, and July is when the water is actually warm enough to enjoy rather than endure. And Sweden's right of public access, allemansrätten, means you can swim almost anywhere you can reach on foot, so the named beaches below are about facilities rather than permission.

Dogs are not allowed on every beach. Where it matters, it is signed.

1. Böda, Öland

The big one. Böda sand runs for around 20 km up the north-east coast of Öland, the long thin island off the south-east of the mainland, and it is the closest thing Sweden has to a classic sandy resort coast. Shallow, warm by Swedish standards, and backed by pine forest and campsites.

It is one of the beaches that welcomes dogs. There is windsurfing, cycling and golf nearby, and the saunas are taken seriously. Öland is reached by a 6 km bridge from Kalmar, so you can do it without a ferry.

2. Långholmsbadet, Stockholm

A proper swimming beach on an island in the middle of the capital, ten minutes from Södermalm. This is the thing visitors find hardest to believe about Stockholm: the water in the city centre is clean enough to swim in, and people do, in numbers, from June onwards.

Långholmen was a prison island until 1975. The old prison is now a hotel and a hostel. Get there early on a hot day or you will be swimming from a crowded rock.

3. Smedsuddsbadet, Stockholm

The other central Stockholm option, on Kungsholmen, with a sandy strip and grass behind it for the overflow. Facilities for swimmers, somewhere to eat, and the same warning about crowds.

If both are full, walk. The Kungsholmen waterfront path has a dozen places to get in the water that nobody has given a name to.

4. Ribersborg, Malmö

A city beach with very shallow water, which makes it the pick for families with small children. Restaurants, marked barbecue areas, a nudist section, and dogs allowed.

The reason to come is at the end of the pier: the Ribersborgs Kallbadhus, an open-air bathhouse from 1898 with saunas and ladders straight down into the sea. Swedes use it all year, which in February means what you think it means.

5. Sudersand, Fårö

The best beach in Gotland, on Fårö, the small island off its northern tip. White sand, shallow water, and a short free ferry from Fårösund to get there.

Fårö is also where Ingmar Bergman lived and shot several films, and the raukar, the limestone sea stacks along the shore, are why it looked the way it did on screen. There is mini golf, restaurants and a kiosk, but the island rewards a bicycle more than a car.

6. Varamon, Lake Vättern

Northern Europe's largest inland sand beach, at Motala on the shore of Lake Vättern in Östergötland. It has a local reputation as one of the sunniest spots in the country, which is repeated more often than it is measured, but the beach itself is real enough: shallow, sandy and gently shelving.

Windsurfing, volleyball and enough cafés to make a day of it. Lake water, so no salt and no tide.

7. Skutberget, Karlstad

On the northern shore of Vänern, Sweden's largest lake and the third largest in Europe, just outside Karlstad in Värmland. There is a campground, a playground, hiking and mountain biking in the woods behind, and a long shallow shoreline.

This is the one to aim for if you are driving between Oslo and Stockholm, because the E18 goes straight past it and it turns a six hour drive into a day out.

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