It was late August when I arrived at the outer limits of the Stockholm archipelago. Much of the Northern Hemisphere was still luxuriating in all-out summer splendor, but Sweden’s long summer days of nearly 24-hour sunlight had distinctly ended. I had traveled to the archipelago, an area covering 30,000 islands, islets, and granite skerries in the Baltic Sea, to immerse myself in the islands’ remote landscapes. I would be traveling along part of the Stockholm Archipelago Trail, a new 270-km hiking path (approximately 170 miles) that stretches across 22 islands off Sweden’s east coast, making it possible to venture deeper into the outer archipelago.
By the time I arrived, the archipelago had just entered a period of in-between, a sort of ethereal season between the summer and fall, when bright days move rapidly into longer, inky-dark nights. Gone were the boats that crowd the archipelago’s harbors in the midsummer, as were most of the visitors who keep the area’s inns and guesthouses buzzing through the season. Some islands had already returned to being completely uninhabited or were down to their single-digit year-round population. And yet the air and water temperatures were still warmer than in the rest of the country, a mild 68 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Stockholm Archipelago Trail stretches across 22 islands—hikers can begin and end wherever they please.
Sandhamn’s hiking trail brings you through flat sandy paths, 19th-century summer homes, and pine forests.
Nature lovers have long flocked to the archipelago, hiking around the islands under the national principle of allemansrätten: the right to move freely in nature, even over privately owned land. It’s an essential tenet of Swedish culture, this concept of open access to the outdoors for all. Yet until the creation of the new trail, there was no formalized network of hiking paths in the archipelago, making the more remote islands a logistically intimidating place to explore—particularly when temperatures drop. When the new trail is formally completed by the end of October, it will extend the hiking season beyond the summer months, offering clearly delineated routes to safely explore the islands’ rural beauty without the crowds.
The hiking trail, when complete, will be divided into 20 sections and weave through a smorgasbord of landscapes, from accessible flat sandy walks to more vigorous treks through birch forests peppered with blueberries, lingonberries, and juniper, and challenging scrambles over lichen-covered granite boulders on the coast. Carved out painstakingly island by island, the trail unfolds an average of 9 miles of hiking paths per island (or about 4.5 hours of walking). It isn’t entirely completed on foot: The trek is connected by
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Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 aimed to be the first to cross the snowy mass of Antarctica, passing through the South Pole on the way. But he never even got started on that epic journey—and embarked on another instead—when his ship to the White Continent, the Endurance, sank in the Weddell Sea before reaching its base on Antarctica. Shackleton then had to figure out how to get his crew safely home from where they were stranded on the ice. He succeeded against all odds, and became a legend in the process, but the shipwreck itself was never found, the aura of mystery and intrigue only growing greater with time.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nabila Ismail , a 30-year-old from New York who quit her corporate job to travel. It's been edited for length and clarity.
Welcome to the first installment of a year-long series where Tarah Chieffi, TPG's family travel reporter, shares her experience using various points, benefits, credits and access from her first-ever premium rewards credit card, The Platinum Card® from American Express.
If you're familiar with TPG's valuations, you'll notice transferable rewards currencies such as American Express Membership Rewards points and Chase Ultimate Rewards points consistently rank as some of the most valuable rewards.
If you're looking for a true breath of fresh air in the most literal sense, the pros at QR Code Generator have a new study you're going to want to see. In September, the team unveiled the findings of its newest study, which showed which U.S. and European destinations have the lowest pollution rates, offering the cleanest air possible for travelers and locals alike.
New York City's luxury hotel scene just keeps getting better. And next spring, the city will welcome one of the trendiest hotel brands of them all: Faena.
What makes each of us happy is certainly subjective. However, there is one easy way you can increase your chances of feeling that emotion: Choosing to live in a happier state. In September, WalletHub released its study ranking the happiest states in the U.S. It came to its conclusion after evaluating all 50 states across three key dimensions: emotional and physical well-being, work environment, and community and environment. Those three dimensions were evaluated using 30 metrics, including the physical health of the population, sleep rates, food insecurity, commute times, income growth rate, average leisure time per person, safety, and more. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing maximum happiness. It then averaged each state's numbers to calculate its overall score.