As part of our feature on Climate Smart Holidays in West Sweden, Sarah Baxter took the train from the UK to West Sweden in September to visits five low carbon places to stay. Here is the fifth place she visited: Dalslands Activities
In a nutshell:
An outdoor activity centre where you stay in lakeside glasshouses and can pretty much do everything in the great outdoors, including beaver safaris, bushcraft, campfire cooking, fishing, foraging, gold-panning, high ropes, horseback hacks, SUP-ing. The centre offers an array of human-powered, low-impact activities that encourage a deep-dive into the surrounding lakes, forests and fields.
Rooms: Glass cabins (the stuff dreams are made of!) in woods by the water's edge. There’s an outside toilet near the glass cabin but the shower is in the activity centre 800 metres away.
Price: 3-night package from 8695 SEK per person for single booking and 5595 SEK per person for two people. It is also possible to book a glasshouse for 1 night for 3200 SEK on a B&B basis
Meals: Three breakfasts delivered to your glasshouse, two lunches and three dinners
Open: April to October
Carbon count: One night at Dalslands Aktiviteter creates around 1.5kg CO2-equivalent per person (the carbon emissions at an average hotel in Sweden is approximately 6.8kg CO2-equivalent)
Dalsland Activities. All photos Richard Hammond except sunset canoeing: Roger Borgelid/Westsweden.com; sauna: West Sweden Tourist Board
Sarah Baxter's insight:
“I burn for nature,” Pontus Gyllenberg told me on lunchtime, over a dish of local-caught venison. “I want people to experience the countryside – when they see it they want to conserve it.”
And seeing it at Dalslands Aktiviteter comes in every imaginable form. This activity hub in West Sweden’s ‘lake province’ was founded by Pountus’s father as a horse-riding centre 30 years ago; Pontus took over in 2011. Now, you can do pretty much anything here: beaver safaris, bushcraft, campfire cooking, fishing, foraging, gold-panning, high ropes, horseback hacks, SUP-ing. The centre offers an array of human-powered, low-impact activities that encourage a deep-dive into the surrounding lakes, forests and fields.
I opted for a kayak trip down the tree-flanked Stenebyälven River, Jesper as my guide. As we ducked under branches and paddled gleefully through the faster ripples, he told me about the area, about its Ice Age potholes, river pearl mussels, 13th-century church and ancient ritual sites. “Obviously,” he said, “people have long been attracted to this special place.”
However, as fun as it was to go out adventuring, I fell hardest for staying in. My room for the night was a secluded and off-grid glass cabin, perched on the weathered-smooth rocks by Lake Iväg.
Reclining on my crisp white sheets, doors thrown wide, all I could see were the fragrant forest, the mirror lake and the cloudless blue above. I laid and watched the sky change as the day began to fade, paling to blush-pink, deepening through shades of blue, finishing as a canopy of stars. Who wouldn’t want to conserve this?
How to get to Dalslands Activities
The activity centre is half way between Gothenburg and Oslo.
By train/bus: From Gothenburg it's just over an hour Ed station from where you can take the local bus to the Steneby Kyrka stop (around 40 minutes) then walk five minutes to the activity centre.
You can also get the train to Mellerud or Åmål and change to local bus there, again to the Steneby Kyrka stop. From Stockholm the train journey takes around five hours.
By Bike: The two national cycle trails, Unionsleden and Vänerleden, pass the town of Dals Långed 6km from the activity centre.
More information:
Book a stay at Dalsland Activities: dalslandsaktiviteter.se
In splendid isolation at a lakeside glass house, Dalsland Activities. Photo: Richard Hammond