Northern Europe❄️ Sweden Ice Hotel 🇸🇪 Only Locals Can Navigate This

I’m calling it now—Kiruna, Sweden, is by far the most beautiful spot on my 3-country Northern Europe trip so far!❄️ ✅ Stayed at the Ice Hotel ✅ Drank red wine from an ice glass ✅ Slid down the ice slide Sweden has super strict laws on alcohol and tobacco. You can only buy alcohol in designated places, and drinking outdoors or wandering around with alcohol is a no-go. That’s how my “epic alcohol run” happened:👣 After getting back to the hotel at night, I wanted a bottle of wine to unwind. First, I went to the supermarket—only to find weak beer (just 2-3% ABV). So I headed to the hotel bar. The bartender said I could only drink there, not take alcohol back to my room. “If you want to take anything to your room, I can only pack food—no alcohol,” she told me. “For takeaway alcohol, you need to order room service at reception.”👣 Fine, off to reception! The receptionist said, “I can’t pack food for takeaway, but I can help with alcohol—but you have to buy it from Riverside (the hotel’s venue).” Off I went to Riverside—and finally, I could buy the wine! But wait, there were more steps: first, the receptionist checked my ID to confirm I was of legal drinking age. Then, she carried the wine and walked with me back to my room to make sure there were no underage people inside. Only after she opened the bottle for me did the wine finally become mine!❄️ She laughed and said, “This is basically walking the line of the law. Technically, you’re only supposed to drink this wine at our bar, and I’m supposed to stay behind the bar working. But since I brought the wine to your room and opened it… well, it’s like you’re drinking at the bar (sort of)!” Honestly, I still don’t get how that “sort of” works 😂. In the end, I went to 4 different places, spent over 30 minutes, and finally got my drink. Truly—only locals can navigate this kind of red tape! #Sweden #SwedenTravel #SwedenIceHotel #NorthernEurope #CountriesNorthernEuropeTrip #Kiruna