Stockholm - airport to city during a layover?
 

I have a cousin who has a 5 1/2 hour layover at the Stockholm airport. She wonders if it is long enough to take the train into the city.

I thought it would be too short - but I've only been there and taken the train from the city to the airport once.

Does anyone have any comments on whether my instincts are correct or not?

What time of day or night? I would play it by ear. If I got in early and felt secure of my time, I might try it. Although, when I have pushed this in other cities, I don't seem to enjoy the time for watching the clock! If I had definite goal to be in the city for 1 hour that might make a difference. On the 'go for it side' Stockholm is usually an easy airport to check into.
They say the Express train is 25 min, reg train 38 min and then how often do they run? She needs to define why she wants to go into the city and then play with the schedules. Even if it took an hr each way, she would be left with 2 hrs worst case 31/2 best case scenario.

The Arlanda Express takes 20 minutes; there are at least four departures every hour and sometimes as many as six.

They who have been on the Arlanda Express can confirm it is 20 mins. Definitely go into Stockholm. The train fare is expensive but worth it. Purchase the ticket in advance and have the receipt sent by SMS to your smartphone. You show the SMS to the ticket collector on the train.

IF it's Arlanda, sure. Please make sure it actually is, first. Stockholm has more than one airport.

Most flights go in and out of Arlanda; budget flights may use a different airport.

Thank you for all the quick responses.

She arrives in Stockholm at 8:30 a.m. EET and depart 2 p.m. EET. She is coming from the U.S. I am double-checking with her about the airport.

Sweden is CET time zone, not EET.

Depending on where the next flight is to and how long the check in time is, she might only have 3 hours in Stockholm. The return rail ticket costs something like $80 return, assuming the arrival and departure airport is Arlanda.

Odin - Is the $80 one way back to the airport? Since you commented that, I wonder if the trip from Arlanda to Stockholm is cheaper.

We did this one way from Stockholm to the airport last summer, but we already had Stockholm cards and I think we only had to pay for the upgrade to express. The details are foggy right now. I have only done it that one time and wasn't trying to do the travel during a lay-over, so I knew I didn't have enough information to really advise her.

Odin, only some of us who have been on the Arlanda Express can confirm that it is 20 minutes. I for one, who have been on it at least 4 times, do not pay any attention to the length of the trip. I would if it mattered, but has never been important to me. But easily found on the internet.

The Arlanda Express is indeed twenty minutes into Vasaplan, a street just north of the Central Station in Stockholm. The price of a ticket does vary some during the year; there are some bargains during the summer. As others have said, there are many departures, so that should not pose a problem. There is, however, a lot to see in Stockholm, and with about a three hour window, your cousin will have to plan her time wisely. What does she wish to see? From the Arlanda train stop, one can walk to Gamla Stan (the old part of town) in about twenty minutes, and there are some interesting back streets (as well as some areas packed with tourist stops). It would be possible to take a subway from Central Station to Slussen and walk to the Fotografiska, which is a fantastic photography museum on Stockholm harbor. There are other fine museums, but some (like the Vasa Museum) will require searching out the tram rather than the subway. The time frame makes everything compressed, so the major question would be what does your cousin wish to do? Just to get a general sense of Stockholm, one could walk from Central Station to Gamla Stan and maybe stop in at the Medeltidsmuseuem (Museum of Medieval Stockholm). Everything would be rather rushed, but that could be done. If your cousin has a specific idea of what she would like to see in Stockholm, post it here. Also, Arlanda is not the worst airport in which to spend five and a half hours, and there are a few food and shopping stops which are authentically Swedish, as opposed to generic "anywhere airport."

I told my cousin that the best place to ask would be fodors and, as always, you all have proved my theory.

<<Odin - Is the $80 one way back to the airport? Since you commented that, I wonder if the trip from Arlanda to Stockholm is cheaper. >>

The return cost of a regular ticket on the Arlanda Express is about $70 at the exchange rate today, a bit cheaper than the $80 I originally mentioned. But there are other types of tickets that might be less expensive. In this link, there is ticket valid for 6 hours which is alot less expensive than $70, about $45 (SEK320), it is not available to purchase online so buy it at the airport.

https://www.arlandaexpress.com/fares...FSuWtAodOSEATQ

As mentioned by Midnightsun, there are plenty of shops and restaurants at Arlanda at the Sky City.

I'm wondering if we'd have time to go into the city during a seven-hour layover during the day. We'll be in Arlanda. I'm concerned about the weather in mid-December. Thank you.