Tickets to Sweden

ACCHHH!! That chaotic feeling in the pit of the stomach when you’ve committed big bucks and are not quite sure of what the future holds. Of stepping out over the ledge.

I booked a flight to Sweden for the fall with the hope of hiking the Kungsleden (King’s Trail), southern terminus, Hemavan–Ammarnäs, 78 kilometres in total, I chose this segment of the trail, 6 days walking, 5 nights, 8–19 kilometers per day, as both beginning and ending points are served by the SJ train. I’d love to do the whole trail someday, but wanted to get my feet wet (not literally, but maybe it’ll happen). I’ll stay in the mountain huts and not bring a tent in order to cut down on weight. Also I don’t want to lug a tent around after the hike as I plan to visit friends.

I haven’t been back to Sweden since 2018 and before that I first visited in 2014. Each time I’ve hiked and biked while there, so I do have a feel for terrain and weather. Nevertheless, the Kungsleden lies within the Arctic Circle and want to approach the idea open-minded about my capabilities.

A parallel idea was to do Flash Memoir workshops while there on the portion of the trip NOT hiking. Seeing as no one has responded to my inquiries and emails, I’ll just go ahead and plan that I won’t be doing workshops.

I reached out to the Stockholm Literary Festival about a workshop and they responded that it sounded niche. I wrote back that EVERY literary magazine accepts flash. That it isn’t a new category. In fact, just this year as I’ve been sending out manuscripts and submissions—I see that many journals have lowered their maximum word count to around 2000. When I first started submitting 15 years ago it was 10-15,000 for a typical short story, then 7000, then 5000. Writing small is pretty universal as no one seems to want to read longer work. A writer has to be able to get in, develop the plot, have something happen, hit the right emotional note, and then get out.

Thank God for the novel which allows us to dwell longer.

But . . . back to the tickets and the whole Swedish trip. I’m freaking out.

I got a good deal on the tickets through SAS, but after trip plan insurance, reserving seats (on-line reservation forced me to), and a small fee to get SMS messaging from airlines about trip updates (I know! $3.99!), it came to $651. I hope to get everything packed into such a short trip: the hike plus overnight train travel to get to the start and return, plus 2 friend visits.

Here’s to 2025 vacation plans!