Sörmlandsleden: six days alone in the Swedish forest — a solo trip report

I went for the forest. For the silence. For the chance to wild camp in Sweden and feel, for a while, like I had the whole country to myself.

The Sörmlandsleden is a long-distance trail south-west of Stockholm, winding through the forests and lakes of Södermanland. Dense, remote, unhurried. Exactly what I was after. So in September 2025, I packed my tent and set off for six days on my own.

Yes and no

When people ask how it matched my expectations, the honest answer is: yes and no.

The solitude delivered completely. I did not meet a single other person on the trail — not one, for six days. The Sörmlandsleden is so spread out, so quietly woven into its landscape, that there is simply nobody there. That stillness was real, and it was exactly what I had come for.

The forest, though, I had not fully anticipated. After two days I realised: it all looks the same. Dense spruce and pine, moss and rock, more pine, more spruce. Beautiful, yes — but the landscape barely changes from one day to the next. That was something I had not expected, and I found it a shame.

Where you can — and cannot — sleep

I had prepared well for wild camping. Or so I thought.

The reality on the Sörmlandsleden is that the terrain barely allows it. The ground is almost everywhere rough, uneven, covered in big roots and rocks — you cannot pitch a tent just anywhere. The only reliable flat ground is next to the raststugor, the log shelters and open huts dotted along the trail beside the lakes. So I adjusted my plan every single day to ensure I reached one of those huts by evening. Some days that meant walking eight kilometres more than planned. It is how I finished in six days rather than the seven I had set out to do.

The huts themselves were a genuine highlight. Each one had an outdoor wooden toilet, firewood, and a campfire spot. One night I slept inside an open shelter rather than pitching the tent — until I was woken in the dark by a sound in my gear. A curious mouse, helping itself to a thorough inspection of everything I owned.

What the forest sounds like at night

The wildlife made up for the monotony of the days.

On my first night I heard elk bellowing somewhere out in the trees, in the distance. That low, carrying call in the dark — it was extraordinary. Something you don't forget.

But the night that really stopped my heart was the last one. At two in the morning I was woken by the most alarming sound I have ever heard in the wild: a piercing, desperate scream, like a woman in danger. It moved along the trail one way, then came back. I lay there trying to understand what I was hearing.

A fox. Looking for a mate. Their mating call is genuinely one of the most unsettling sounds in nature — and out there in the silent Swedish forest, in the middle of the night, it is something else entirely.

"A piercing scream in the dark. A fox looking for a mate. Out in that silent forest at 2am, it was something else entirely."

The rocky climbs

The Sörmlandsleden is not flat. There are real climbs — up bare granite outcrops, some a hundred metres high — and the descent on the other side is often just as awkward. I had to push through a few of those moments. But compared to the Cape Wrath Trail, which I walked the year before, this was nothing. Not even close. Anyone who can walk long days on uneven ground will get through it.

The thing that kept me going

My wife had baked me boterkoek — a Dutch butter cake — with pecan nuts and caramel. I had it tucked away in my pack and rationed it across the days. Out there in the forest, after a long stretch over rough ground, a piece of that cake was something close to luxury. That is the sort of thing that sticks in your memory.

How it felt at the end

Good. Satisfied. Genuinely glad I had done it.

But honest, too: the landscape is too samey for me to want to walk the whole thing again. If you are someone who finds deep peace in an unbroken forest — who doesn't need mountains or dramatic views to feel the reward of a long walk — the Sörmlandsleden will give you exactly that. The solitude is real. The wildlife is real. The log huts are a pleasure.

Just know before you go: you will see a lot of pine trees. And if a fox screams at you in the night, try not to panic.