Safety in Sweden

Overall: You'll feel comfortable at any hour, though it's worth keeping an eye on your bag and wallet where tourists gather.

Winter cold: In the forests of Lapland the temperature can hit minus thirty, so dress in layers and don't leave established trails on your own.

Ticks: On summer walks in the countryside, use repellent and check your clothing after being in the woods, since tick-borne illness is a genuine risk.

Mosquitoes: Northern insects are ferocious at the height of summer, especially near lakes in the north. Bring strong repellent.

Driving: If you hire a car in winter, be ready for ice and for wildlife stepping out into the road in forested areas. Elk collisions are the real hazard.

Emergency line: Dial 112 for police, medical help or rescue. Operators speak excellent English.

Personal space: Swedes value distance highly. Don't force conversation on strangers unless you want to come across as pushy.

Sweden is a calm country where cheating tourists is not the custom. The main difficulty of a trip is not fraud but the way daily life is arranged.

A country almost without cash. This is the first thing to know: many cafes, museums, buses and even churches accept no cash at all, with a "kontantfritt" sign on the door. You need a card, preferably two. There is almost nowhere and no reason to change money in Sweden.

Pickpockets. Gamla Stan, the central Stockholm metro, and ferry terminals. Travelling groups work them, at a modest level.

ATMs. Decline the machine's currency conversion.

Clipboard "charity". Cash is collected on Drottninggatan. Genuine Swedish charities do not take cash at all.

Taxis are the one real trap. Sweden has no regulated tariff: the operator sets the price, which must appear on a yellow sticker on the window. Some companies set absurd rates and work precisely outside stations and airports. Check the "jämförpris" on the sticker: normal companies show around 300 to 500 crowns.

Alcohol only from Systembolaget. A state monopoly: anything above 3.5 percent is sold only in these shops, from age 20, and they close early — 15:00 on Saturday and not at all on Sunday. Bars and restaurants serve from 18. Forgetting this on a Friday evening is the classic visitor's mistake.

Drugs mean zero tolerance. For all its outward liberalism, Sweden has some of the strictest law in Europe: consumption itself is criminal, not merely possession. Police may take a test on suspicion, and a positive result constitutes the offence. Attitudes to cannabis are harsher here than in Germany or Spain.

The right to roam. Allemansrätten allows walking, camping for one night and picking berries almost anywhere, private land included. The duties are strict: no closer than 70 metres to a dwelling, no fires during fire-risk periods, take your rubbish, and do not disturb animals.

Drones. Registration is compulsory, and aerial photography of private land is restricted.

Driving. Dipped headlights at all times. Winter tyres are compulsory from December to March. Speeding fines are high and cameras numerous.

Vaccinations. None mandatory. For the Stockholm archipelago and the east coast in summer, discuss tick-borne encephalitis vaccination: there is considerably more of it there than people assume.

Water. Tap water is excellent nationwide, among the best in the world.

Ticks. The season runs April to October, with high risk in the skerries and deciduous woodland.

Elk and deer on the roads. Hitting an elk is not a joke but a serious crash: the animal weighs around half a tonne and comes through the windscreen. The peak is dawn and dusk, in spring and autumn. Warning signs stand along the highways and deserve to be taken seriously.

Darkness. From November to February Stockholm has around six hours of light, and in Lapland the sun does not rise at all. This affects visitors more than they expect.

Cold. Winter in the north reaches −30°C, and frostbite arrives quickly in wind.

Healthcare. Good, but expensive for an uninsured foreigner. First contact is 1177, a round-the-clock medical advice line that decides whether a visit is needed.

Emergency number is 112.

Sweden ranks in the world's top ten on the Corruption Perceptions Index. Bribery does not exist.

Numbers. 112 for emergencies, 114 14 for the non-emergency police line.

Reporting theft. Your insurer needs a report, filed online at polisen.se in English. No station visit is required.

About gang crime. Swedish news in recent years has carried a great deal about shootings and explosions between criminal groups. This is a real problem for the country, but it is concentrated in specific suburbs — Rinkeby, Tensta, Rosengård in Malmö — and stems from conflicts within that milieu. It does not touch tourist areas, and bystander casualties are rare. There is no reason to go and look, and no reason to fear Stockholm.

Police are correct and virtually all speak English.

Traffic police. Speed and alcohol enforcement is dense, and random roadside checks are routine. The alcohol limit is 0.2 per mille.

Emergency number is 112.