Scandinavia Campervan Trip – Driving from Denmark to Sweden – Euro Trip Part 4

Join us as we start the next leg of our Scandinavian road trip by campervan in Sweden. We get our first taste of van life in this beautiful country, including wild camping next to serene lakes, epic views of Lake Vättern from the Tegnér Tower, learning about the candy cane tradition in Gränna, and stumbling upon the beautiful city of Örebro.

Welcome to ‘SevenGrandVan’!

We’re Jack, Laura and Frank, and we have just moved into our self converted campervan (Citroen Relay) to embrace full time vanlife. After a three month adventure in 2024, during which we travelled through France, Spain and Portugal, we realised that we needed to see more of the world, and vanlife was the perfect way to do it.

And so began our year long plan to make it happen. We quit our long term, corporate jobs and went through the process of renting our house so we could begin our dream of motorhome travel in Europe.

We finally packed up our belongings, moved into our van, and began our road trip to Scotland in March 2025. We then made our way to Europe and headed to Scandinavia.

Subscribe to follow our journey as we hit the road, and leave us like or comment if you enjoy our vlogs! We’ll be sharing our recommendations for dog friendly travel, the best places for van life in Europe, leisurely walks, beautiful scenery, delicious foodie finds, running, cycling and charming towns and cities to explore.

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @SevenGrandVan for daily updates and behind the scenes content.

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Welcome to Seven Grand Van.
My name’s Jack, also known as WTO.
And I’m Laura, but most people call me LJ. And this is Frank.
His farts stink. He’s always hungry,
but he does give the best cuddles. We’ve moved into our self-built camper van fulltime and are on an epic adventure traveling around the UK and Europe. This week we get our first taste of wild camping in Sweden, experience our first Swedish Fica, explore the home of the candy cane, take in the views from the Tegnner Tower, and Jack even finds a new hobby. So, we moved into Sweden straight after the Terics Museum. Sort of a change of plan. The weather was coming in a bit windy and rainy. Um, and although the the western coast of Denmark looked lovely, it was looking like mainly beaches and probably wouldn’t have been that much fun on the west coast um with the weather that was coming in. So, we um we spent how much money on the to the bridges?
72 and 62, something like that. Yeah. So, one bridge was between the two Danish islands and then the bridge from Denmark into Sweden. They’re both tolls. Um, and I think they are just one way fees, but um, quite expensive. Um, but yeah, we arrived in Sweden and turned out that Jack’s friend Steve was on holiday about an hour and a half from where we were parked up on our first night. So, we met them for lunch yesterday
in Helmstead.
Helmstead. Yeah. Oh, we had such a nice lunch as well. Um, and
I can put a couple of pictures in.
Yeah. It was like homecooked food. So cute. um a little brownie. Um and that was really nice. And then we’ve moved on to this beautiful lake park up. I’m going to drive through the countryside.
Yeah, nice little spot. Yeah, I think you can rent kayaks and canoes to go on the lake, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, there’s actually a little um waterfall like in the nature reserve here. So, thinking maybe before we drive any further, we’ll go for a little wander there. And
yeah, have a look.
Crap style pancakes for breakfast. How’s it going?
Oh, good. I think they’re looking good to be fair. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
That looks like a good one.
We got some chunky spread, honey, peanut butter, yogi, green.
Yep. Oh, baby. One apple tea. We just stopped at this what said bakery cafe, but it’s actually like a selfservice spot. Um I was hoping they’d have fresh cinnamon buns, but they don’t. They’ve got loads of fresh eggs and frozen goods. They have frozen cinnamon buns, but we’ve no way of cooking those. Sweets, honey, loads of nice things.
We need to get some cash out. We need cinnamon buns.
Some cinnamon buns.
Yeah. Cinnamon buns. We just stopped at this waterfall and it turns out there is a 17th century flower mill which is quite interesting to see. It’s actually closed but um it looks like sometimes it’s open to have a look inside. After strolling around the rottle waterfall, Raasmus farm mills and surrounding picturesque village, we stumbled upon the town of Irana, which to our surprise is the birthplace of the candy cane. It was so interesting to learn about this tradition and let’s face it, even better to taste the finished products. The main street is lined with traditional sweet shops where we were able to watch them make the sweets with the traditional stripe pattern. We even got to try it while it was warm. You’ve got three biscuits. Done in one.
Uh-uh. Oh, should I show them the other biscuits? No,
they’ve got these other type of biscuits as well. I’ve never seen these Mcvitties before. Mcvitties fingermarie. Huh? We’re about to walk up this tower. The Tekken Tower is 27 m high and it has panoramic views over Lake Batn. It was built in 1973 purely for a viewpoint across the lake and the surrounding area. Yes.
Where are we?
We are at Gamla Lingoping which is an open air museum depicting life uh around 100 years ago um in Sweden. So they’ve recreated the old town square of the local city um and then like actually moved the original buildings some of them from the original places. It’s quite cute.
So, we’re going to have a look around.
Yeah.
An old general store in Link Coping in this open air museum. Just we’ve just witnessed some live tap dancing. Picked up a few moves. No, never do that again. The street, old street.
This is actually a recreation of the most popular street in Linkaping.
Yeah.
100 years ago.
Did you mention the why Linkoping? Why they’ve remodeled it or what happened? No.
Because basically they had to modernize it, widen the streets, and sort of bring it up to sort of modern day standards. They didn’t want to get rid of it all, so they moved it all here. They just pick these houses. Oh well, not all of the houses are actually picked up and just recreation. No, recreation.
Recreate. This house is actually genuinely a preserved house from
1986.
Yeah. This is the old square. So you got that’s the bank in front of us. Then that sort of creamy gray green building is the general stores. Morning, Elge.
Good morning.
What have you made me today for breakfast?
Your breakfast. Granola bowls with yogi, honey, banana, nectarine, and some sultanas.
Happy days. That’s our go-to.
Yeah. And hopefully it will fuel some running. We’re at a running track.
Wow.
What’s Frank saying?
He’s really cute. He’s on little rug.
Hello, Stinky.
Probably wants us breakfast, to be honest.
Yeah. Good morning. So, where did we last? We were in the only just down the road in that um open air museum.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We’ve drove on from the open air museum. Uh found well actually we had a nap in an IKEA car park. Found life reality.
Yeah.
Cuz we were both feeling a bit puked. And then we found a lovely little park up to stay over, didn’t we? Um like a leisure type outdoor leisures place.
Yeah. In like a village, wasn’t it? Um so it had uh a 5k running loop, a 2 and 1/2k loop, um two mountain bike trails, and then
outdoor gym.
Yeah, outdoor gym. Um
and then in the winter they use it obviously use it for like cross country skiing track.
Yeah,
it was pretty good.
It was It was really cute and um perfectly quiet and stuff for staying over. Um so we had a bit of a lazy well not lazy but slower morning. Um and then took the opportunity to go for a little run. Um and then now we’re just heading off to do some services cuz we are totally out of water. Can’t shower yet. Um and to find our next spot, which um will hopefully be where we stay for a couple of nights um for for the working days this week. Hopefully we’ll get get some pizza tonight.
Yeah, that’s the plan. Pizza. We’ll let you know. We’ve just seen a warning sign for moose and we’re just like on the lookout. We pulled over to have a little peer through the forest. We saw some deer. But
have we seen foxes with cubs?
Yep. We seen a fox with uh three little cubs. Um, so yeah, this drive is really good. We’re just literally on the lookout the whole time. We’ll let you know if we see one. She can’t resist a swing. After a wander around the beautiful city of Orio, we secured amazing pizzas. Result. That’s the end of this week’s vlog. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below. And don’t forget to like and subscribe.