12 Days - Denmark/Scandinavia
 

Need some help thinking through a realistic/not overly ambitious itinerary starting in Copenhagen. My daughter finishes a study abroad program in May. My wife and I will then meet her in Copenhagen, spend a couple of days in the city and then move on from there. We would love to find a couple of places to stay with opportunities for reasonable day trip to explore (small towns, cities, and hiking). We also have an interest in spending time in Amsterdam on the way home. Probably at the end as our flights would stop in Amsterdam anyway.
Thought is, we would do the travel out of Copenhagen first, then likely fly from Copenhagen to Amsterdam, spend 2-3 days there and then fly back to the U.S.

We also hope to visit Sweden as part of the trip and see a family we know in southern Sweden.

Note: one issue is that my daughter will have a huge bag for getting her personal belongings from the term back home. We were thinking about storing that in Copenhagen somewhere so we can pick it up before flying to Amsterdam. Otherwise, it would be tough to cart around on trains as we head somewhere else.

Appreciate some ideas from this forum! Thanks!
What is realistic for 12 days?

Copenhagen train station has a luggage storage but not sure how long you can store it there. If coming back to Copenhagen ask your hotel if you can leave it there. Trains are great everywhere - for lots on trains check www.seat61.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

You could do

Copenhagen
Southern Sweden
Oslo-Bergen train - one of most scenic in Europe
do Norway in Nutshell trip from Bergen
fly to Copenhagen or Amsterdam from Bergen.

You may want to check out shipping bag back to States vis FedEx, post office, etc.

Copenhagen - Sjælland - Southern Sweden - Stockholm - ferry to Helsinki - flight back to CPH.
There are a number of public holidays in May to be aware of.
For train bookings, much better to use the official Swedish Raiways website.

the Stockholm to Helsinki ferry is an oustandingly scenic ride as it skirts a rocky archipelago much of the way and with days long you can see it till late.

You could stick to Denmark and choose another city such as Odense (home of Hans Christian Andersen) or Aarhus as a base. One could also limit oneself to Copenhagen and do day trips. We were in Denmark last summer; click on my name to find the trip report.

Copenhagen does offer a surfeit of nice easy day trips- Roskilde for Viking Ship Museum - Helsingor for Hamlet's Castle, Frederiksborg for royal castle and many more. so you could easily spend 4-5 days there and do day trips. and do Norway or Stockholm - Helsinki too.

IMO, with 12 days, you will have more than enough to see if you aim for Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Amsterdam – and if you plan carefully, that should give you time for a very short visit with the family you know in southern Sweden. As a starting point, you might consider 3 full days in Copenhagen (to include a day trip to Roskilde); 5 full days in Stockholm (to include at least part of a day in the archipelago), and 4 full days in Amsterdam. Adjust based on your own interests! Personally, I would find anything that includes more stops to be unpleasantly rushed, but YMMV.

There are overnight ferries Norway - Oslo - Copenhagen. everyone here seems to favor Stockholm but to me Norway Oslo to Bergen was really scenic and the Norway in a Nuitshell thing awesome. Oslo itself I did not find for me as interesting as Copenhagen or Stockholm..

Very useful guidance here. Currently, our itinerary is shaping up as follows (again mostly trying to get the flight departure nailed down). So have a few more questions. At this point, I believe we will want to stay in Copenhagen for 3-4 full days. Our daughter already has identified sites for us to see and day trips. We will want to reserve 3 full days in Amsterdam prior to our flight back to the U.S. This would leave us with us with 4-5 days in between. 4-5 days doesn't give a lot of time for covering too much ground. From the standpoint, it looks like most of our time would then be visiting our friends in Southern Sweden and visiting Stockholm. Is it practical to consider time in Norway at all? Seems like Helsinki would likely be out.

A couple of other questions have come up in our planning. Is traveling by train adequate to the point that we wouldn't need a car at all? At this point, we're assuming we would journey back to Copenhagen to fly to Amsterdam...the primary reason would be my daughter's huge bag from staying the semester. Shipping that home looks to be $200-300 (anyone know the best option for shipping a large duffel?).

You might be able to do without a car depending on where in southern Sweden you are going. Some places are pretty remote and you need a car, other places are served well by a rail service. Stockholm has a congestion charge depending what time you are going, weekends parking can be free, again depending where you are however some parking can only be paid for by app or phone and require a personnummer. I always have a car in Sweden, rail service can be unreliable. There is no problem renting a car from Copenhagen and driving to Sweden and dropping it back at Copenhagen.

I would think this itinerary would work well with public transportation only -- depending, of course, on where your friends are.

I think you are right that your itinerary would work better if you skip Norway. Or skip Amsterdam, which is often easier to reach than Norway and where you might want more than 3 full days.

Good luck1

Our DS did a study abroad semester in Copenhagen and we visited in the middle as they had a week long break. At the end though, our DD flew over and they traveled around for a few weeks before flying home. DS had the same issue with his stuff from the term and what worked for him was to keep his room on campus until they were ready to fly home. So he just left his bags there while they traveled around. I couldn't tell, are you flying home from Amsterdam or from Copenhagen? Obviously this won't work if you are not headed back to Copenhagen.

FWIW, the week that DS had off we used for around Copenhagen itself and then took a few days and went to Norway, doing the Norway in a Nutshell and that was definitely a highlight!

Tough decisions. My wife and would love to do the Norway in a nutshell trip. However, our daughter is doing a very similar trip to Bergen, etc. about 3 weeks before we arrive. Amsterdam is appealing to all in the family. However, is there reason to look at Helsinki instead?

I enjoyed Helsinki immensely, and think it would fit your time frame quite nicely! No bad choices -- just difficult ones.

Yes a Copenhagen-Stockholm-Helsinki trip would be perfect for 12 days.

Finland however is not part of Scandinavia! But slavish so 12 days in Scandinavia...???

Some people say that Finland is part of Scandinavia, but why that should matter is not clear to me.

It's geographically part of Scandinavia, but not linguistically as it is Finno Ugric by language.

Happy Travels!

In 12 days, I would do Denmark and Finland as to get something different. I've been spending summers in Denmark since the early 1970s, but have also been to Finland which I find very interesting.

Happy Travels!

The OP wants to visit southern Sweden.

In 12 days, I would do what I originally suggested ie Denmark (Copenhagen) and visit places in Sjælland, then go to southern Sweden (location is not revealed so cannot advise whether to go via Malmö or Helsingborg), onto Stockholm, ferry to Helsinki and fly back to CPH. I would not skip a visit to Stockholm.