Swedes travel abroad like never before, but where do they go? You might be surprised to find out that the most popular destination for Swedes is … Denmark. Thailand, which if you look at media seems to be so popular, is not even on the top 10 list of popular places to travel. Last year Swedes made 18.5 million trips abroad, which is an increase of 3.8 percent (674,000 trips), according to statistics from Resurs’ interview base. Denmark is on top, even increasing a little by 4.4 percent. A bit more than 50 percent of the trips to Denmark are day trips, where the Öresund Bridge means a lot. The second most popular destination is Spain, followed by Finland. So it looks like Swedes tend to stay in Europe when they travel abroad. As a matter of fact, the one country that’s not European but makes it into the top 10 list is the U.S.

”We don’t travel that far,” says Hans Remvig at Resurs. ”Thailand is a bit of a ’media bug,’ a little more than half of those who travel to the U.S. travel to Thailand.” It is perhaps important to point out that all kinds of trips are included in this survey, not just vacations but also business trips. Much of the traveling is controlled by currencies, and a weak domestic currency has made Turkey a more popular destination. And Remvig believes Turkey’s popularity will increase. The Swedes who are most interested in traveling are the ones in Norrland (also the mostly travel to nearby Finland).
The top 10 list looks like this:
1. Denmark (3,076,000 trips)
2. Spain (2,119,000)
3. Finland (1,828,000)
4. Norway (1,533,000)
5. Germany (1,221,000)
6. England (1,072,000)
7. Turkey (740,000)
8. France (680,000)
9. Italy (672,000)
10. The USA (647,000).