Sweden's best backpacking trip starts on a station platform in Stockholm at dusk and ends a week later with you limping happily out of the mountains at a Sami settlement above the Arctic Circle. The Kungsleden, the King's Trail, runs 440 kilometres through Lapland, but the classic first section from Abisko to Nikkaluokta is the piece almost everyone hikes: about 105 kilometres over six or seven days, through a treeless glacial landscape of braided rivers, board-walked bogs and mountains that never quite get dark in summer.
Getting there is half the trip
The night train from Stockholm to Abisko Turiststation takes around 17 hours and is a genuine pleasure: book a couchette in a six-berth compartment for roughly 700 to 1,200 kronor if you grab it early. You fall asleep to pine forest and wake to bare fjäll and the long lake of Torneträsk out the window. The train stops a hundred metres from the trailhead. At the end of the hike, buses run from Nikkaluokta to Kiruna, about an hour, from where you can catch the train or a flight south.
The walking
Day one leaves Abisko through low birch forest along a canyon of green-blue water, reaching Abiskojaure hut at 15 kilometres. Day two is the long haul to Alesjaure, 20 kilometres up a widening valley where you will likely see your first reindeer herds; the hut sits on a bluff above a lake and has a wood-fired sauna, and rolling straight from its heat into arctic lake water is a memory that outlasts most countries. Then the trail climbs over the Tjäktja pass at 1,140 metres, the highest point, before dropping into the Tjäktjavagge, a vast U-shaped valley you descend for a day and a half to Sälka and on toward Singi. At Singi you turn east off the main trail, passing beneath Kebnekaise, Sweden's highest mountain, to the fjällstation at its foot. The last day is 19 easy kilometres to Nikkaluokta, with a boat shortcut across Ladtjojaure lake that cuts six of them and sells waffles on the far shore.
Huts, tents and money
The STF huts are the character of this trail: no electricity, no running water, gas stoves, and a warden who assigns you chores like fetching lake water or chopping wood. A bunk costs 500 to 750 kronor for non-members in 2026, roughly 100 less with an STF membership that pays for itself in four nights. Most huts between Alesjaure and Sälka have small shops selling pasta, freeze-dried meals and chocolate at mountain prices, so you can walk with only two days of food at a time. Or carry a tent: Sweden's right of public access lets you camp almost anywhere for free, and pitching beside a hut for a small service fee still buys you sauna access. Budget the hike itself at 400 to 800 kronor a day depending on hut versus tent, and remember the huts take cards, absurdly, in the middle of nowhere.
When to go and what to expect
The season is late June to mid September. July brings the midnight sun and the mosquitoes, both industrial-strength: bring a head net and don't bring a headlamp. Late August is the local secret, when the bugs die off, the tundra turns rust and gold, and the returning darkness means a real chance of northern lights from your sleeping bag. Weather changes fast at 68 degrees north, so pack a proper shell, warm layers and shoes you trust on wet planks; the trail is well marked and crossings are bridged, making this one of the most beginner-friendly serious treks anywhere. Fill your bottle straight from the streams. Not filtering your water feels wrong for about a day, and then it feels like the whole point of coming.
