VAN-COMPARATOR Guide
Campervan hire in Gothenburg: Bohuslän, Sweden’s most beautiful coast
Pink granite slabs, fishing villages and 8,000 islands: from Gothenburg, the Bohuslän coast unrolls Sweden’s finest shoreline all the way to the Norwegian border. Campervan itinerary, the right to roam, and the urban toll traps to know.
Stockholm has the archipelago, but Gothenburg has the coast: north of Sweden’s second city, Bohuslän lines up polished granite slabs, fishing villages of red huts and a rosary of islands all the way to the Norwegian border — a landscape unique in Europe, made for a campervan.
Gothenburg, a laid-back starting base
Landvetter airport is 25 km (15 miles) from the centre, and the city deserves an evening: the Haga district, the Feskekôrka fish hall, Dutch-dug canals. One detail to know: Gothenburg applies an automatic congestion tax (trängselskatt) billed by plate reading — a rental vehicle’s crossings are passed back to you by the rental company, as are the Öresund or Svinesund bridge tolls if you push on to Denmark or Norway.
The Bohuslän itinerary: 5–7 days to the border
First stop Marstrand, the car-free fortress island (park on the mainland, three-minute shuttle ferry). Then the bridges hop island to island northward: Tjörn and the Nordic Watercolour Museum in Skärhamn, Orust and its boatyards, the Gullmarn fjord — Sweden’s only true sill fjord — towards Lysekil. What follows is a festival: Smögen and its legendary wooden boardwalk, Hunnebostrand, the Bronze Age rock carvings of Tanum (UNESCO-listed), and Fjällbacka, the village of Ingrid Bergman and Camilla Läckberg’s novels, huddled under its split rock. Finish at Kosterhavet marine national park: leave the van in Strömstad, take the boat to the Koster Islands and their cycling trails. Return inland, or tip over to Oslo, 170 km away — our guide to campervan hire in Oslo takes over from there.
Allemansrätten: the right that changes everything
Sweden guarantees allemansrätten, the right of public access: walking, swimming, foraging and spending a night or two in a tent or discreet bivouac, away from dwellings and off cultivated land. Careful though: for a vehicle the right is narrower — it does not cover off-road driving, and overnight parking falls under local traffic rules. This special status is a classic research topic: the analysis by Klas Sandell and Peter Fredman published in 2010 in the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism (Google Scholar page) shows how deeply this right, massively supported by Swedes, structures the country’s entire nature tourism — more than protected areas themselves. Our guide to wild camping rules in Europe sums up the limits to respect.
When to go
The coast lives from June to August — surprisingly good swimming in August, herring and crayfish festivities — but that is also the Swedes’ own high season: book campsites at the star spots (Smögen, Fjällbacka). May and September offer the same low-angled light with the boardwalks to yourself.
Compare before you book
Van-Comparator compares offers in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen — see also our guides to Stockholm and its archipelago and Copenhagen and the Danish coast, and the Scandinavia hub to build your Nordic loop.
Free checklist: your first campervan trip
Licence and vehicle size, pick-up inspection, stopovers or campsites, water and electricity, insurance, drop-off: everything to check before and during a first trip. Sign up — the link to the full checklist appears immediately.