Where to Go in 2026: The New 170-Mile Hiking Network Connecting Stockholm’s Dreamy Archipelago

This month on Unpacked, we’re diving into Afar’s just-released Where to Go list—but this year’s picks are different. In 2026, we want to lessen the burden on overtouristed destinations and expand visitation to other parts of the world. Our editors carefully selected 24 emerging regions and overlooked locales that will inspire your next great adventure.

For Sweden, that means skipping Stockholm and heading instead to the Stockholm Archipelago—a series of 24,000 islands about the size of Connecticut. It’s home to a new 170-mile-long hiking path network launched in October 2024.

In this episode, host Aislyn Greene talks with Katherine LaGrave, Afar’s executive editor and host of our Unpacked: Five Questions series. This past summer, Katherine and her cousin spent a week hiking through pine and oak forests, island-hopping by ferry, eating post-hike Swedish meatballs, and sweating in saunas along the archipelago—covering about 62 miles across seven islands.

Transcript

Aislyn Greene: I’m Aislyn Greene and this is Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks the world’s most interesting destinations and the deeper stories behind travel. This month, we’re diving into Afar’s annual Where to Go list, and this year’s list is a little different because in 2026, we want to lessen the burden on overtouristed destinations and help expand visitation to other parts of the world. And that’s why our editors carefully selected 24 emerging regions and overlooked cities that, I promise, will inspire you to start planning your next great adventure. They’ve certainly done that for me.

On the list are places like Bucharest, Romania, aka The Little Paris of the East, and Japan’s quiet and lovely Sado Island. We released the full list on December 4th and on Unpacked over the next two months, we’re going to be exploring fifteen of those destinations by talking with the writers who traveled to and shared our favorite new places.

Today we have Katherine LaGrave. She is Afar’s executive editor, who steers the ship of our print magazine, as well as the host of our Unpacked Five Questions series. This past summer, she traveled to Sweden and as an open‑water swimmer and a lover of all things outdoors, she skipped Stockholm and instead headed for the Stockholm Archipelago. It’s a series of 24,000 islands about the size of Connecticut, and it’s home to a new 170‑mile‑long hiking‑path network. And there Katherine spent several days hiking through pine and oak trees, refueling with Swedish meatballs and, of course, sweating it all out in the many saunas or saunas.

Katherine, welcome to Unpacked. It’s so nice to have you on this side of the mic.

Katherine LaGrave: Yes, I’m happy to be here.

Aislyn: All right, well, your story for our Where to Go package was very inspiring. What took you to the Swedish archipelago? To hike, of all things.

Katherine: I’ve spent a fair amount of time in other Nordic countries. You and I have talked about Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway. And I’ve loved it, but I had not ever been to Sweden, and I’ve always loved the nature and the design and the food. And this trail was a new initiative. It launched in October 2024, and every few years my cousin and I take a big trip. So this really caught my eye as a perfect time to go to Sweden, and after her college graduation is this big trip. I told her I’m really interested in Sweden. She’d been a lot before actually, because her family is from Sweden. She pinned up a photo of a red sauna in the archipelago on her wall a week before, so it was meant to be.

Aislyn: Okay. That’s incredible. Well, you spent a week there hiking along this trail. What was that like?

Katherine: We spent a week and covered about 62 miles. The whole trail is 170 miles and 20 islands. And so we still did a good chunk of it, right? The islands are really well connected by ferry. So we’d arrive on an island, we’d drop our bags and we’d set out on a trail. So we were averaging about 6-7 miles a day. And I say hiking, but a lot of it is walking. There was some like.

Aislyn: You’re not scrambling up the mountains?

Katherine: Not mountains, but like, you know, there was some scrambling and um, but a lot of it is just walking in the forest and certainly some scrambling and more technical parts. But most of it wasn’t very complicated. It was kind of the hiking or walking that I enjoy. I had just done a trip in Chile previously, and my cousin was teasing me like, oh, this is more of your sort of speed because it’s a bit flatter because I was telling her about that, uh, 12 hour ascent that I took there. But this was really beautiful because I think the balance of, like, technical skill, let’s call it with the beauty meant that I could really enjoy it. Like I, you know, you weren’t so constantly feeling stressed, like physically.

I wasn’t, I should note that, like, my cousin would run like four or five miles before we hiked every morning. She’s like a big fitness nut. So keep in mind that this is like the level of fitness required. But then we would do those hikes and we would go back to our accommodation and we would have some downtime. We’d go for a swim, we’d take a sauna, we’d do some reading, we’d have dinner. And most of these islands have one or two places. A lot of times the dining is attached to the lodge, and then we’d get up the next morning and do it again on another island. Or if we were staying there, we’d cover a different part of the island. But I actually loved getting to and from the islands because it’s quite an old system, like you go down to the ferry dock.

Again, a lot of these are really small islands, and you raise a semaphore to have the boat pick you up. Yeah, because if you don’t, they won’t stop. So, you know, I was like, watch me do it. And I would pull it up and but of course I was, you know, you know, me. I was like, we have to get there really early because the boat is early and we have to raise the signal and, you know, but Swedish people are also pretty on time. So I wasn’t the only person who was like there early and ready with the semaphore. But it was a great joy to be able to participate in that system.

Aislyn: And then do you just you walk on the ferry and is it a ferry like you might think of in the traditional sense, or are we talking about like a small fishing boat where they’re just like, here, let’s move some crab pots and you can sit down?

Katherine: No, they’re ferries, but it’s a whole system that connects the archipelago. And so some of the ships are larger than others. Some of them do have room for cars, but most don’t. But they’re pretty similar. Like you walk on the sort of tongue of the boat opens and then you walk on and they’re seating areas and they’re also seating areas on top. There’s always a little cafe, but it’s pretty efficient. You know, they’re on a timeline because they’ll go to one island and ten minutes later they stop at another and stop at another, at least on the schedule. Again, you have to raise the semaphore.

Aislyn: How many islands would you say you visited in total across that week? Roughly.

Katherine: So we probably did I want to say 7 islands. A lot of them, you know, we did a few day trips. There was one where we did a boat taxi, which is another way of getting around where we just hired someone to take us to an island. And then we started from the top, and he brought us to the top of the island. And then we hiked all the way to the south and got the ferry, then back. It’s just a factor of accommodation And you know what we could do in in the time that we had. So I think we actually stayed on 5 islands and then we visited 7 or 8.

Aislyn: So accommodation, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about because it sounds like you all stayed predominantly in lodges, but can you, do like do people actually go backpacking there, or is that the main way that you would actually stay on these different islands?

Katherine: So it’s a real mix of accommodations like there are lodges. But again, because most of these islands, several of them are nature reserves, the accommodation is really limited and they’re provided by the Swedish government. But to give you an example of the range, like one of the places we stayed on the island of, I’m just going to pronounce it.

Aislyn: Let’s hear it.

Katherine: The English way, uh, Grinda. They would say Grinda. Which is exactly how they’d say it was the Wärdshus, which was this historic house. Incredible. That used to be the summer residence of the director of the Nobel Prize committee, and it’s this really stately lodge. It’s got a crackling fireplace and a huge, beautiful entryway and dining hall, and it has little cottages that are associated with it.

And then on the island of Ingmarsö, we stayed at this B&B that used to be a farmhouse. We had the whole floor and this garden to ourselves. The last island we stayed at, we stayed at a hostel, which I haven’t done in a long time. And, you know, she and I shared a room, but we shared a bathroom with…

Aislyn: All the other people.

Katherine: All the other people. So it’s really a range. Most people that we encountered were staying in these accommodations, B&Bs, hostels. But you can also camp, you know, thanks to Sweden’s right to roam laws, you can camp anywhere. Generally, one night is always allowed provided you don’t disturb wildlife and there are stricter rules for nature reserves and obviously you can’t camp and you know right in front of someone’s house, but you are able to camp.

Aislyn: Even hearing you talk about this trip, I feel like my blood pressure is dropping, which is interesting because we just saw, and maybe this is a gimmick, but Sweden is trying to position itself as the first prescription destination in the world, like doctors would prescribe travel to Sweden for health reasons. So did you feel healthier? Did you feel more relaxed and at peace at the end of this?

Katherine: Definitely. I mean, I think being out in the natural world always centers me, and I certainly feel that when my goal is disconnection and Sweden as a country, even being there for the first time, there’s just such a reverence for nature. And I mean, these islands, they weren’t overcrowded, but there were also lots of day trippers and people just going to be and experience this slice of a bit more nature that’s so accessible from Stockholm, you can really see the ways that the nature is cared for and maintained and so clean. And, you know, I’d love to bottle that feeling of like just walking in the woods and having it be silent or diving into this freezing lake after a long day of hiking. So I can definitely see why you’d be prescribed a trip there.

Aislyn: Because that was one of the lines that really jumped out at me in your story was, I think you said that you and your cousin were hiking for like 30 minutes and you realized that you hadn’t talked, that you were just quiet, you know, and you’ve also assigned and edited at least one story about the world’s quietest places. So what was it like to just listen?

Katherine: Yeah, it’s funny you asked that because that did become a real joke between us. Because we’d be walking in these forests totally alone. I mean, we really, you don’t really see people when you pass people. Maybe. And there’s a nod, but you’re out there hearing the birds. You know, if you’re walking by the water, you’re hearing the waves and just really the sound of our footsteps. And of course, I would ruin the silence by commenting on the silence like, can you believe how quiet it is. Like just the amazement of that sort of after every 30 minutes. So my cousin would say, come on.

But I will say it’s a real gift to be in a place like that where it’s not just quiet, but it’s someone that you can feel quiet with, right? Like there wasn’t a need for us to fill the silence. We would just sort of settle into this feeling or understanding, and certainly the environment was conducive to that.

Aislyn: All right. Well, at the end of the day, you’re hungry. What were your favorite things to eat?

Katherine: Well, I mentioned getting around by ferry and I think I mentioned the cafe. So every ferry has a cafe. Like no matter how small the ferry is, all of the ones that we encountered, they have cafes selling sandwiches, coffee, pastries, which are huge in Sweden. And so I would always get my second or third cardamom bun of the day as we’re moving between islands. Again.

Aislyn: That’s very on brand for you.

Katherine: It’s on brand for me, compared to my cousin running her 6 miles before. And so one of the best things that I ate was a cardamom bun from a bakery in Ingmarsö. One of the people that we met on the boat who worked on the boat, he told me when we were leaving because I had gotten a bun on the boat on the way to Ingmarsö, and he said, oh, actually, the buns are from the bakery, and we always load up and this is how we supply them.

So then when I was on Ingmarsö, we went two days in a row, got the buns, and then when I was on the boat back, I got them as well. So definitely buns. And my cousin and I also had a thing where even though I’m vegetarian, I would get the meatballs, we would get the meatballs every island we went to so we could compare them because it’s a classic Swedish dish, right? Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and lingonberries. It’s something that’s really hard to beat after a long day of hiking, especially when some of the days we were hiking were rainy and a little cool. And so we had so many cardamom buns and meatballs that my brother started calling it our ball and bun tour.

Aislyn: I love that. Yes, yes, that’s great.

Katherine: But also another thing that I liked, but maybe it wasn’t only in Sweden thing. I was never really a big fan of shrimp before and my cousin would always get the toast skagen, which is essentially a shrimp salad with lots of mayonnaise, or maybe it’s creme fraiche, but mixed with a lot of dill. And then it’s piled high on this toasted bread and it’s served with a slice of lemon. And so it’s a really seasonal, if you, I guess, are eating it during the right time, which we were, fresh appetizer. And I was like, hey, I like this when in Sweden. Yeah. So I would say those three things.

Aislyn: So the other part, you mentioned this plunging into the cold waters after a long day of hiking. But I imagine that many times that was preceded by, you know, some minutes in the sauna and I’m pronouncing it the correct way because now I know I’ll link to that story in the show notes. That’s the sauna. So what was that? Because that was that was what inspired your cousin to go, right? She wanted to, like, be in a sauna in the forest. So.

Katherine: Yes.

Aislyn: Did you do it?

Katherine: Both of us are big sauna heads. It was on her mood board, and both of us actually have them in our family homes. So we sauna, I can’t believe you’re making me say it like that. But yeah, we did that a few times on different islands, and it’s such a popular part of Swedish culture. And so you had to reserve times, you couldn’t just show up because again, a lot of these are islands with 60 to 100 full time year round residents. And so when travelers come, you need to reserve spots.

So one of my favorite experiences was on Finnhamn, which was the last island that we visited. And so we reserved this sauna for an hour, and it had this incredible view out to the water and a little sort of boardwalk, most of the way that would lead you to this semi-private beach. And so we would sauna for 10-15 minutes. I mean, this thing was hot. It was cooking.

Aislyn: Like red face, sweat pouring down.

Katherine: Sweat pouring down, you know. So she and I had staggered it so we would be there for 10-15 minutes, and then we’d run out and dive into the water, which was freezing, but just felt incredible.

I mean, so a group of Swedish men had booked the sauna after us, and they were they were keeping their polite distance down by the beach until it was their turn. And I remember running on one of my last second to last or last jumps into the water and just running and diving in and all of them going like, wow and and applauding. And they were kind of wincing and waiting, which I definitely don’t think is the way to go.

Aislyn: Yeah, yeah. No. You gotta. You just have to do it.

Katherine: And I mean, it was probably like, you know, 60 degrees outside. And the water was definitely that year round. Water temperature is not very warm. So I think it helped. That’s why we were running from the sauna, because we’re so hot and we’re like, don’t lose, don’t.

Aislyn: Lose the hot. You can’t lose the hot. Yeah. One of my favorite moments of you was when we were in Toronto, and you went and did that sauna experience, and then the really, really cold plunge, and you came back and you said something along the lines like, I feel like I could kick the door in. So did you also feel equally invigorated?

Katherine: I did definitely. That was a present moment. But I think that I think science shows that right. You sort of push your body to these limits. Um, and then you feel adrenaline spikes. And that’s what I was saying earlier about the prescriptive element of nature or even Sweden recommending certain experiences. I would love to bottle that feeling of what it’s like to be in a sauna after a long day of hiking, right? And then just running into the water. Um, yeah. It felt incredible. It’s certainly my favorite, favorite way to end a long day on the trail.

Aislyn: Well, I would love to close with your advice for people who want to replicate this trip. So maybe one of the first questions people might ask is, do you have to bring a swimsuit for the sauna? Well, I think it’s a legitimate question for the, you know, the shy Americans.

Katherine: I can’t talk about my cousin too much on this podcast, but she was really like, I don’t need a suit. I could just be. And I was like, I think we do because of the timed thing. So yes, bring a swimsuit. And, you know, a lot of places did say that because even though you can book an hour, sometimes that slot will be shared with other people. So be prepared.

I actually think maybe there was a miscommunication and those polite Swedish men were supposed to be in the sauna with us and we were like, no, it’s just us. Even though there’s room for, like, 15 people. So yes, I would. I would definitely have a swimsuit for sauna and for swimming.

Aislyn: Yeah. Is there anything that you wish you’d known before you went or something that you feel like was just important in terms of the planning of all of this?

Katherine: I think you and I had talked about is this a trip that you can do spontaneously? And certainly you can. It would be more difficult because of the lodging and accommodations tend to fill up because they’re pretty limited on the island. So if you’re camping, that’s that’s different, right? Some of the islands have campgrounds, others don’t. But again, you can camp in in most places.

But if you’re booking accommodation, I would start by choosing a part of the archipelago, which is really quite massive. So generally these are classified as southern, which is one portion, middle and outer, and then middle and northern. We did middle and northern because we were interested in a lot of the nature reserves and frankly, the bakeries, but I would take a look at the groups of islands in the archipelago and see what they offer and what interests you there. If it’s a new restaurant, if it’s a new maritime park, for example, and then you’ll be able to pretty easily build an itinerary because the ferry schedule is online, and so you can see when those those ships are coming and going, because the ferry system is the best way to move to these islands. And a lot of people on the islands have bikes and sort of these motorized tricycles, but not really full cars. And I would say the best way to get around the islands themselves is still by foot or by bike. And places have bike rentals.

Aislyn: What about navigating like did you bring paper maps or is there an app? How did you kind of get around?

Katherine: So we would use the app to figure out where we’re starting for the trailheads. And those maps work offline as well.

Aislyn: Is it just Google Maps?

Katherine: No, it’s part of the Stockholm Archipelago Trail.

Aislyn: Oh, cool. Okay.

Katherine: But then once you’re on the trail, it’s incredibly well signposted. I mean, there are bands with yellow, blue and white reflecting the colors of the Swedish flag and also of the sky and the sun. And those are those are also reflective. So when it starts to be dusk, it’s easy to see. And so those would probably be every, I don’t know, twenty feet or so.

Aislyn: Got it okay. Any other tips. Maybe gear or I mean it sounds like layers are probably key.

Katherine: Layers are key. Good rain proof gear. You know, a good pair of waterproof boots. And that’s really what you need. You know, maybe a sweater or a shirt for dinner. But most of these places are pretty casual, and the clientele they’re seeing is people that are coming to hike the trails.

But I would say, as with any hiking or walking trip, pack what you can carry. You know, we were both using packs. Um, and in most cases, you’re walking from the boat dock to the accommodations. Sometimes it’s a 5 minute walk, sometimes it’s a mile. But just be prepared for that.

Aislyn: Yeah. But nice that you don’t actually necessarily have to carry all of your gear while hiking, unless you were doing the camping part of it. Like you could drop it at your lodge and then do a light, like, day pack or something.

Katherine: Yeah. You know, in some cases we did hike from one island to another, but for most islands you’re not able to do that. So it wouldn’t make sense to have your pack the whole time because you’re basically they’re so well designed that oftentimes you’re doing a loop back to the main area or to the accommodation. So it’s not one trail in that sense. It’s more of like a trail that’s connected across islands. But you don’t need to always have your gear with you. Does that make sense?

Aislyn: Totally or like when we did the Kumano Kodo last year, it was like, you know, wasn’t any kind of loop you had to hike from accommodation to. So you had to carry everything at all times. So it sounds fantastic. I’m sold.

Katherine: I know she was already talking about doing the other 100 miles.

Aislyn: Yeah. Well, Katherine, thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.

Katherine: Hej då. Bye.

Aislyn: Hej då.

Thank you so much for joining this special episode of unpacked. In the show notes, you’ll find links to the full Where to go list, as well as to the places that Catherine suggested. You’ll also find other travel resources to help you jumpstart your 2026 travel planning. We’ll release more Where to Go episodes from now through December 19th, and then again starting on January 1st. Happy travels!