“I left a little bit of my heart in Norway,” says Simon Reeve, speaking between shows on his current UK tour.
“I think a lot of Scandinavia is proper, jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I was in a sports café by the coast in the Lofoten Islands in Norway, and I sent my family a video saying, ‘I really hope we’ll make it here someday,’ ideally in an electric campervan. That would be my nerdy green dream,” he says.
Reeve recently released the three-part series Scandinavia on BBC, which charts his journey through pockets of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and its honorary Nordic members Finland and Iceland to discover what drives the region’s reputation of being so happy, organised and successful.
“I think we’ve been dragged into the divisions of the United States. Of course, it’s interesting and there are big characters,” says Reeve. “But if we look at areas of the world where people are happiest and the most content – it isn’t the United States, it is Scandinavia.
“We met lots of great characters there who were changing lives and trying to change the world. We’ve stuffed it all into three programs.”
Looking from the outside in, the Scandi countries seem almost utopian-like, with the levels of trust in society demonstrated through honesty shops and leaving babies outside in prams, pioneering green technology such as wind farms and carbon capture machines, and a deep connection to outdoor ‘Friluftsliv’ living and a love of nature.
Unlike the United States, Scandinavian countries stay relatively out of the world’s headlines. Yet what Reeve discovered is that the region is also full of surprises, from Finland’s large investment in military at NATO’s longest border with Russia, the constant threat of volcanic eruptions in Iceland, to the wave of gang violence using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the Swedish suburbs.
While no part of the world can claim the title of a perfect utopia, free from challenges and injustices, Reeve did encounter almost fairy-tale-like landscapes throughout his journey to the land of snow, picturesque fjords and colossal glaciers. Yet, there was one location that left him spellbound, and that was Norway.
It has the second longest coastline on the planet; ludicrously jagged and broken up with thousands of tiny islands.”
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Cities such as Stockholm and Malmö were featured in the series, but the main focus was Scandinavia’s magnificent rural vistas, which show us why so many people are be drawn to off-grid escapes over urban mini-breaks.
“Stockholm is often rated as the most beautiful city in Scandinavia, admittedly, mainly by the Swedes,” Reeve recalled himself saying during one episode. “That was a little cheeky, because [Sweden] is gorgeous and it was breathtaking to film there.
“I’m not undermining the beauty of the cities either, but I do think that the countryside in Scandinavia is glorious. They’ve got much more space than we have on our crowded little islands.
“But of course, people there don’t take the p*** the way people sometimes do in the UK. They don’t wander about having spontaneous festivals or fires on other people’s land. You can walk and camp almost anywhere in Scandinavia, which is an amazing freedom.”
The lure of the Arctic has previously seen travellers head to Scandinavia for winter sports activities and adventure tourism, and Reeve explains that the region is now more accessible than ever.
“In the past, it wasn’t easy to get hold of the kit you needed to visit, and the clothing wasn’t as readily available either. And in truth, it is a bit cheaper now as well.
Whether it’s Lapland, Svalbard, or Iceland, oh my goodness, the sights you’ll see, the experiences you’ll have are intensely memorable, and that surely is one of the best things about travel.”
Flying out into colder landscapes calls for more preparation than just throwing your swimsuit and flip-flops into your carry-on, as Reeve explains: “Follow the advice I was given by an elderly woman selling vegetables outdoors at a market in Siberia. She said, ‘You need to dress like a cabbage’, that is the key to dressing for the cold.”
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Reeve recommends getting to know the area through a local. “I think you always want a guide if possible. We’ve been taught for a while now to do things spontaneously,” says Reeve, “which you can do, but you’ll miss out on that local knowledge. It doesn’t have to be horrifically expensive.”
“A lot of people want to share their area with you. We just had a guide when we were in Laos as a family, and the experience we had as a result was so much richer.”
During Reeve’s journey through Scandinavia, he was led by several guides, from a Sami reindeer herder in northern Sweden to a young volcanologist in Iceland, and he explains how these encounters with local communities were enriching.
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“My favourite form of travel is when wealthy folk take their hard-earned money and spend it in parts of the world that need it; giving back to local communities and helping to support wilderness areas,” he adds.
“Scandinavia is an ethical place to go on a holiday, if you do it carefully. You can travel cleanly and greenly on public transport, much more so than you can in many other parts of the world. It’s not guilt-free travel, that doesn’t exist. But I certainly think, because they’ve made great strides towards becoming cleaner and greener, we can benefit from that as travellers.”
While Reeve’s series uncovers that not all is paradisiacal in this region, he also took a lot from the way Scandinavians live their lives. “It made me question where I’m from, and the direction of travel that we’re [the UK] on.”
“Maybe we need to take inspiration from how they’re living in Scandinavia and consider how that way of life could benefit us.
“Travel helps us to question who we are and where we’re from. That’s how we learn.”
Scandinavia with Simon Reeve airs Sundays at 9pm from 18 May on BBC Two. All three episodes are available BBC iPlayer.
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