About this site

Stockholm 4 Foreigners aims to help non-Swedish persons to smoothly settle in Stockholm. Although almost every Swede speaks English, written pieces of information in English on how to survive in Stockholm are surprisingly difficult to find. This site attempts to help you locate the necessary information for survival in Stockholm.

Myriads of information this site offers are organized by "labels" which you see on the right. Click a label with a 2-digit number ("01 Before Arrival" etc.) for tips on how to kick-start your new life in Stockholm. Click a T-bana station name for shops and other places of interest near that station. For opening hours, I adopt the following format: if you see "11-18 / 11-16 / closed", this means that the shop is open for 11am to 6pm on weekdays, 11am to 4pm on Saturday, and closed on Sunday. (This example is typical for shops in Stockholm, by the way.)

I deliberately omit information on boutiques, restaurants, bars, and cafes because such information is already available in English. (An exception for this is restaurants for lunch, because lunch in Stockholm is rather too predictable.) For restaurants, bars, and cafes, check out Time Out City Guide Stockholm or NK's Essential Guide To Stockholm (free PDF copy). For boutiques, Time Out City Guide Stockholm covers major Swedish designers' stores while iCITY Stockholm magazine's English website introduces you to lesser-known, street casual wear boutiques.

If you have additional information that you want to share, do not hesitate to post a comment to this blog entry. If you spot an error in this site, please post a comment to the blog entry of concern. Your input will help many foreigners living in Stockholm.

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In case you wonder who manages this website, here's a brief introduction about myself. I started living in Stockholm on 21 August 2007, to work as a researcher at Stockholm University. I'm a Japanese citizen born and bred in Tokyo, and lived in London for 5 years before moving to Stockholm. (That's why this website is a bit biased towards Japan and UK.) I do not speak Swedish. For the first few months, I found a bit difficult to settle in Stockholm, because of the shortage of information on Stockholm and Sweden written in English. This website is meant to be what I would have visited many times for the first few months in Stockholm.

Obviously, the initial set of information is biased against what I'm not interested in. For example, I have no idea where to buy toys for your kids, because I don't have a child. Please provide such information unavailable in this website by posting a comment to this post.

In case you're interested, the photo above is my favorite landscape in Stockholm: a view from the northern shore of Djurgården. I plan to upload more photos of Stockholm to this site, because I believe the beautiful landscape is what Stockholm can brag about to the world.

I hope Stockholm 4 Foreigners will make your life in this city more pleasant.

Masa

Acknowledgement: Several pieces of information on this website are taken from the Digital Sato Memo, a Stockholm survival guide inherited by several generations of Japanese residents in Sweden. I also benefit from inputs by Christina L, Annika A, David Y, John H, Heiner K and Torsten P.