The kids really wanted to visit Northern Europe on this tour after having great memories of a family trip we did to Norway many years ago. To be honest, I wasn’t initially excited about Northern Europe because it has many similarities to Canada, so we did a lot of research to find a unique experience.  It turns out there are many amazing things to see and it became hard to choose, but Abisko National Park was a really excellent choice.  It’s located north of the Arctic Circle at 68 degrees latitude and we timed our visit so that we would have 24 hour daylight while we were there.  We spent one night by the Stockholm airport on our way from Turkey and flew to Kiruna, which is about an hour from Abisko.

Despite its incredibly remote location, Abisko is really well set up for tourists because it boasts both a great summer hiking season and a winter Northern Lights viewing season.  It has a very dry microclimate, clear skies and no light pollution which leads to some of the best viewing of the Northern Lights in the world. We stayed at the lovely and simple Abisko Guesthouse where we had our own apartment with a kitchen – such a blessing.  Although we knew it was coming, the cost of eating out in Europe was still a shock after being in Asia so long.  We cooked ourselves dinners for the first time in months!

Hiking

We spent many of our days hiking in Abisko National Park and the areas surrounding it.  The landscape is very striking with glacier carved, rugged mountain terrain.  There was still lots of snow on the mountains, all melting in the June sun, so there were icy rivers flowing everywhere.  

One day we hiked Mount Njullá, which stands at 1,164m, and is the highest peak in the area.  We feel like we’re in good shape from our Nepal hiking, but it was still a difficult climb.  Steve and Zachary also added some extra distance to find some geocaches which are all over the area.

Another day we hiked up the Kärkevagge valley to the Trollsjön lake where you pass by huge fields of boulders carried there by glaciers. The lake has clear water down to 38m – really spectacular. On other hikes we got a closer look at other glacier carved wonders: the Lapporten ravine which looks like a huge gate to the park, and the Abiskoeatnu canyon.

Photos don’t do this place justice, but hopefully you’ll get a sense of the beauty:

Midnight Sun

The 24 hours of sunlight was certainly an experience.  The first few days there, it was cloudy most of the time so we didn’t get the full effect, but when the clouds blew away… wow!  The sun never gets that high in the sky and at midnight does go behind some of the mountains but never actually sets.  It was certainty hard to get to bed at a reasonable time because it always felt like daytime.  Somehow of course the teenagers could sleep through it, but Steve and I found it much harder.

One night we went out hiking right at midnight to experience the famed “Midnight Sun”.  It was easy to be active at that hour with so much sunshine, so we hiked at a nearby ski hill to get great views. Here are the photos from that hike.

Day Tripping to Norway

The Norway border is just about half an hour from Abisko and the famous Norwegian fjords were just a little further, so we took a short drive there to take a look. (Much discussion ensued as to whether this day trip counted as an additional official country on our tour. The kids say yes, and I say no, because we didn’t sleep there.)  The first day we went to Norway it was pouring rain ALL day so while we got glimpses of the spectacular fjords we didn’t get to see as much as we would have liked, but it was still beautiful.  We did do one amazing hike up one of the world’s largest expanses of continuous rock at Verdenssvaet, very cool, and very slippery in the rain. 

We decided we had to go back to Norway for a second day to see it in the sunshine and this time we went to the Polar Park, a native animal reserve for Arctic animals. It was fun to see well-tended reindeer, wolves and bears there from a safe distance which we hadn’t had a chance to see in the wild.  And because we are gluttons for hiking punishment (or at least Steve is) we found a hike up a canyon wall with a newly built 2117 step staircase.  Views were stunning, so well worth the pain. Here are a few photos from our days in Norway.

Overall, an incredible week and the big dose of nature and clean air was refreshing. Next stop for us is Stockholm and we have just finished an 18 hour train journey from Kiruna to Stockholm. We have a week here to explore the beautiful city. More on Sweden coming soon.

Thanks for reading!