Planning the route

When I first got the idea to cycle through Scandinavia I did not know exactly what route I wanted to take. I knew I would start in southern Sweden, because it is easy to reach from Germany by train and ferry. Both trains and the ferry allow you to easily take a bike with you.

To plan my route I used Garmin Basecamp and Garmin TOPO maps. You can use any map you want, however Garmin’s TOPO maps are very detailed, including small gravel roads that can not be found in every map. If you plan to stay on a paved road at all times, a printed road map would be sufficient. You could even do it for free by using OpenStreetMap.

Sweden has a long distance cycle path network called Sverigeleden. This network is quite extensive in the southern parts of the country and gets more sparse while you travel north. I decided to cycle the Sverigeleden for the first half of Sweden and then go on a custom route. After leaving the Sverigeleden I planned my route mostly on small paved roads, but added some gravel roads as well. I also added some accidental offroad sections, more on that later. While you go north traffic dies down significantly, allowing you to cycle on basically every road. Nearing north cape, there are not many roads to chose from, and on the last stretch it all comes down to one road.

After reaching north cape I planned to take a ferry (Hurtigruten) and go east along the coast. I would then cycle south again, along the fjords of northern Norway and into Finland. My plan was to cycle as long as I wanted and to stop in a bigger town when I am tired of cycling. My way home would then be sorted out spontaneously.