Tourists seek out Nordic holidays to keep cool

Far from her home in the tourist mecca of Tenerife, Cati Padilla is one of the growing number of travelers escaping heatwaves for cooler holidays in Nordic countries.

Countries like Norway and Sweden in northern Europe are now promoting "coolcations" to attract visitors to their temperate climates.

Why leave the Canaries in summer? "To escape the heat," said Padilla while on holiday with her friends.

"Norway attracted our attention a long time ago because of the green landscape, the mountains and the ice," added the civil servant in her fifties on the so-called "troll path," a serpentine mountain route towards the fjords.

In 2023, foreign overnight stays rose by 22 percent in Norway and 11 percent in Sweden according to official statistics, mainly driven by the end of Covid-related restrictions in 2022 and a slump in Scandinavian currencies.

But a survey in Germany for tourist organisation Visit Sweden also found that two out of five people plan to change their travel habits due to the southern European heat, opting for different seasons or cooler destinations.

"Coolcation is not just about the weather," said Susanne Andersson, head of Visit Sweden. "It's about travelling to places where it's a little bit cooler both in the weather but also cooler in the sense of not that many people."

For some people, gone are the overcrowded Mediterranean beaches and heatwaves causing forest fires and the partial closure of the Acropolis in the Greek capital in June.

Nowadays, many prefer to take a dip in a lake or a fjord, or fill their lungs with fresh air on a mountain hike in relative isolation.

When British tourist Pam disembarked from a cruise ship on the majestic Geiranger Fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site,...