Sweden

One of our all-time favourite destinations, Sweden combines an immaculate capital city with a far north that is essentially an arctic adventure playground.

Stockholm is, quite simply, special – a sophisticated, elegant, manageable and thoroughly civilised city with excellent hotels and restaurants and the perfect launch pad for adventures in Swedish Lapland, the scene of some of Original Travel’s favourite Big Short Breaks.

Best of all is dog-sledding through the snowbound forests and mountains of Lapland, which should charm even the hardiest ‘been there, done that’ traveller. Glide through beautiful winter landscapes, staying overnight in private log cabins and eating traditional Lapp delicacies such as reindeer stew with cloudberries. The dog-sledding combines well with a stay at the extraordinary Ice Hotel, sculpted anew each year from the frozen waters of the Torne River.

Even further north, right on the Norwegian border, lies the tiny ski resort of Riksgränsen. Skiing here starts in February, when the 24-hour darkness of mid-winter begins to lift; come June, you can head back out on to the slopes after supper to ski in a t-shirt under the midnight sun. If you are lucky, the Swedish Arctic is also one of the best places in the world to see the Northern Lights, the ethereal natural light show that occurs in the depths of winter, as shimmering bands of colour drift across the night sky.