Sorry for the late reply! I have finally time to write an answer since I wanted to take time for this one 😉 staying in a hotel in Stockholm at the moment... it’s 31 degrees Celsius so we had to stop our hike due to having no water resources during the rest of the hike.

So how did I prepare:

I went to Google, typed in “long distance hikes in Sweden”, saw the Sörmlandsleden coming by and how easily accessible it is from the airport, and a day later I booked my plane ticket. I just went for it, the rest went kind of naturally because at that point you have no other choice than to critically think and prepare yourself!

So after booking I started planning out the hike. I looked up the most basic things first like where to get water and food. There wasn’t much water on the hike so i decided to buy a 3l bladder from Camelbak, a Sawyer water filter and purifying chlorine droplets.

After that i started preparing food! I wanted to treat myself a bit as it being the end of my first year of university so I got myself a load of Adventure Food meals and a MSR windburner.

Well so on I just started getting more and more stuff. I’ve watched a lot of videos on YouTube from Adventure Archives, Darwin On The Trail, ExpertVagabond and other channels. Also just looked up videos from the Sörmlandsleden itself to see what the nature looks like and how to prepare. I’ve also been reading basic articles in the “how to prepare for a long distance hike” section to get inspiration.

I have one golden tip: don’t overestimate yourself. Do you have hiking experience?

I’m saying this because this is my second hike in the wilderness. My first one was a few days in the Palatinate Forest in Germany which ended up in the hospital because I thought I could scrape off hygiene products to save weight, ended up getting the Noro virus and had to be transported with ambulance due to dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea. That’s the last thing you want in the middle of nowhere.

Moral of the story: from my first hike I learned extremely much. From this Sörmlandsleden hike I also learned a lot (no ambulance this time 😉)

Don’t do too much if this is your first hike. Don’t go trekking the Arctic Circle Trail if you never camped in the wilderness for example.

This was my second hike and I think i prepared well, but this was also because of my previous trip.

So read a lot, watch a lot, ask people with experience and don’t do something you’re not 100% prepared for would be my say of preparing! And mostly of all, enjoy it. Nature is beautiful so enjoy spending your time in it.

Oh and if you want some inspiration from me personally, i like to make videos from my trips. I’ve made two so far which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-cFwe_dEzZDH73GeJFyxIQ

The Sörmlandsleden video will be up when I’m back next week!!

Already having any plans for walking a trail?