Scandinavia wrapped

A celebration of 2024, including waving whales, cocooning in the Arctic and a bored-looking man walking around Oslo...

Dec 27, 2024

At Alchemist in February, just waiting for the dinner of a lifetime. I did not know what was about to hit me…

It’s my best of the year round up!

December 2024

Woop! So the year is finally coming to a close and I’ve been spending some time looking over everything that’s been going on in the world of travel and Scandinavia to see what I made of it all.

I started the year in snowy Helsinki with a roll in the actual snow during an evening in a sauna with my friend Leena. We also went to an incredible restaurant, The Room, which became my find of the year for The Guardian. I love Helsinki, and would definitely recommend a weekend there.

I jumped on a plane without knowing where it was going as part of SAS’s Destination Unknown trip, an initiative that has won them plenty of awards. It’s something I’m still thinking about: I loved the trip, the concept and the people. Athens was not somewhere I would have chosen, but I still had a good time (and went swimming in a lake with fish that nibbled my feet – weird but fun!).

I lost my mind at Alchemist’s El Bulli mash up and then again when I went for a ‘regular’ night there in November. I resolved after the first one that I wouldn’t eat out anywhere else ever again as it would never be as good. I mean, it’s not a resolution I’ve stuck to, but I certainly haven’t had sea slug served to me anywhere else ;)

Where else? Greenland, looking for whales in May on a sensational trip full of snow, hiking, and, unexpectedly, Martin Clunes. Back to the Arctic Hideaway in the summer for a perfect family holiday. The Faroe Islands, for a week driving around in the rain, and one unexpectedly beautiful day on an island with dolphins and a selkie for company. Manchester, where I was researching for a story coming out next year.

One of the absolute highlights of the year, even given all this, was getting a book deal with Icon Books, who are going to publish my memoir, The Year I Lay My Head In Water. It’s about a year I spent trying to figure out what on earth I was doing with my life. I left a job that was making me unhappy, and decided to spend the year doing three things I liked doing: swimming, meeting new people and travelling around Scandinavia. I reasoned that if I followed these three things, by the end of the year, my life would be different, and probably better.

The spoiler is that, yes, it did look different. I grew in all ways: stronger, bolder, braver. I swam in places I never thought I would: in iceberg-filled seas, at naked saunas, with strangers, with friends. I met incredible people who are still my friends today. It changed my life.

My hope is that reading it will change some more lives too: it asks the question, what are the three things you’d do, if you wanted to shape a happier, more meaningful life? And where might that experiment take you?

I’m editing the book through next year and it comes out at the start of 2026. I can’t wait to share it with you – it will be on preorder in the second part of 2025, so I will tell you more when we get there.

On with the rankings! And Happy New Year!

Laura

Surprise of the year…

Oslo!

Here’s how you promote a city: make out that it’s rubbish. Then when anyone comes, they’ll be delighted to find it isn’t. I really enjoyed my weekend in Oslo with my daughter, staying at lovely hotels, exploring the fjord and eating ice cream. I also loved writing about Oslo’s approach to tourism, for Afar.

Disappointment of the year…

Paris!

I wrote a lot about tourism this year, especially overtourism, and after a few years not venturing much beyond the borders of Scandinavia, Paris really shocked me. Much of our not so good experience was down to my bad planning, I will say that. But overall, I just found it a bit too busy, sights were super expensive and it was all a bit of an underwhelming trip. But I did love hanging out with my daughter and eating baguettes, so it wasn’t all bad…

Absolute smash hit of the year….

Greenland!

My favourite country in the world and the Nordics this year is Greenland. I started the year with a dream to go visit the whale radio station broadcasting whale song from under the ocean, and as the year closes, finally, the story has come out. I dreamed about a whale waving to me from the top of a hill, and it actually happened. You can read it in Beau Monde Traveler here.

It coincides with a lot of news about how Greenland has new flight routes and is opening up to tourism in 2025 - and I’m excited about that, but with some caveats. It’s a thoroughly exciting country with so much to share with the world, but it’s not very well developed (yet). I’m a little interested in how the reaction will be when Americans start travelling: will they be disappointed or feel like it’s been oversold? Time will tell.

Inspiration for 2025

I’m thinking a lot about how to feed my brain with the right information to start the new year well. Just a few things you might have missed:

New Year wishes

As we speed off into the new year, I’ve been doing some thinking about what I’d like to it bring.

I’ve really loved writing profile and portrait pieces of people connected to my region who are inspiring and interesting. I like slightly quirky, unexpected creative people, and I’m keen to meet more of them.

I’ve enjoyed so much writing profiles of Rasmus Munk, head chef at Alchemist, but also people like Louise Thompson, who has set up a mindfulness in museums project in Manchester, Mike Keen, who kayaked round Greenland eating an Inuit diet, and Riitta at Halippu Forest in Finland, who has saved her family’s forest by persuading people to hug trees.

I’m going to focus on doing more stories like this, and on locating more inspiring people who allow me to tell these kinds of positive and wholesome stories.

Is wholesome going to be the word of 2025? I seem to be using it more and more, and against all evidence, I can only hope… have a good one, you guys, and thanks for reading all the way to the bottom.

Modern Scandinavian

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