When you see the opportunity to build your own raft and float it down a river for a week, how can you pass that up! This activity captured two of our favourite things; making and paddling.

As part of our Scouting experience we have both enjoyed building pioneering projects out of wooden spars (pioneering poles), rope, pegs, and pulleys as well as a variety of specialist equipment; and between us we have built; shelters, camp gadgets, gateways, bridges, cranes, towers, skylons, and even functioning ziplines, however we have never built a raft completely out of wood before.

We have both built rafts using pioneering poles and barrels before, but never using wood as the primary buoyancy, as frankly there has never been enough of it around for us to do so. However Robert, while idly looking for the next adventure, found Vildmark i Värmland a company based in Värmland, Sweden that offers raft building experiences as well as a host of other outdoor activities, and we just couldn’t pass the opportunity to build a timber raft up!

Our completed timber raft with one covered end sat waiting on the shores of the river — The majestic craft that we built and floated down the river.

What we were looking to get out of the trip?

The primary part of this adventure for us was the opportunity to build a raft using our own hands and travel a distance on it. The prospect of standing on something that we had built on a river was something that very much appealed to us.

At the time of preparing this adventure we were a little busy with other life events (I know, it sucks not being a full time adventure and having to deal with real world things like work and families), so the fact that this activity was largely organised by a company that would do most of the heavy lifting (in so far as organisation goes) made the prospect even sweeter. We were looking for a balance of adventure, novelty, and even a bit of chill out time. Sweden is also not that far away from us in the UK, and it has many a river and lake. We were also intrigued as to how easy or hard it would be to do other water-based adventures in Sweden. Turns out pretty easy!

There was another more profound aspect to this adventure. As we get older it is all too easy to just “catch up” with friends and not actually generate new memories together. We decided that this could be a good way to go and do a bit of adventuring with four other friends where we could generate some memories and spend some quality time with each other away from the distractions of everyday life. Due to their backgrounds, the prospect of building a raft and floating down a river was as appealing to them as it was to us.

When was this adventure?

This adventure was in the heatwave of July 2025. This is a fantastic time of year to go and do an adventure in Sweden, as due to its latitude it has around 23 hours of sunlight. So much time for activities! There was so much light I think we took our torches and did not use them once!

This year Sweden had not been getting the type of rain that it normally receives. Instead of days of light rain it has been getting short sudden downpours, where vast amounts of water would come down quickly all in one go. This has meant that there is more run off into rivers than normal. For us on this trip it meant that the amount of water running down the Klarälven was higher than normal and the distance it was safe to travel on a raft had been reduced as the speed of water in later sections of the river was deemed to be too high.

Katrina checking the map and reporting that we were making incredible time on the river.

A little about the Klarälven River

Well to start with the Klarälven is anything but little; it is the longest river in Scandinavia and in the Nordic countries, passing through Norway and Sweden, with the Swedish section alone happening to also be the longest river in Sweden. From a geological standpoint it is also rather interesting, as it is a very old river due to the local geology. The river moves a vast amount of eluvium in winter, and it is estimated that a mass of around 20 to 25 tonnes of sediment goes down the river each day. In spring floods this figure is dwarfed as the estimate rockets up to over 5,000 tonnes a day. While spending time on the river it was surprising how sandy the water in the river was, our shoes felt full of it most of the time and when using the MSR Guardian™ Gravity Purifier It was surprising how much sand came out of the back wash.

The river has a rich history of moving people and material. From the 17th century up until the early 1990s the river was used to float timber down river from when the trees were felled to the mills where the wood would be cut. This activity brought a fair bit of employment as at its height it has been reported that as many as 1,500 people were working seasonally as log drivers. They were paid by the local paper mills and forest owners.

Since the decline of the logging industry the valley has looked for other means to generate income, one of the most successful being the introduction of timber raft tours.

Believe it or not, that is a cliff almost entirely made out of sand. As the river moves around the valley it has deposited huge amounts of sand on the banks.

The surprising history of timber rafting along the Klarälven

In the late 1970’s with the decline of the logging industry and the limited farming opportunities, something needed to be done in Värmland as unemployment was high and people were moving away. The local Torsby authority worked with different organisations to try and come up with ideas to create jobs.

Since the early 1950’s the Swedish scouts had run events where groups of young people would build a wooden raft and float it down the river Klarälven, camping along the way. Anders Wiss had been one of these scouts, and also happened to be in one of the groups of people looking into tourism as a potential way to generate income in the local area. He and his wife Brigitta thought that they could make it work, and boy did they make it work.

The first timber raft trip to take guests was in 1980 and they have been going ever since. They have been the reason for (quite literally) thousands of people heading to Värmland to go and enjoy this unique experience. The company now offers not just timber rafting but also canoeing and hiking, as well as camping, and even stays in wood cabins.

The Vildmark i Värmland facility, this is where we had our briefing, instruction, and camped for the first night.

Logistics and how we made it happen

This has to be one of the simplest sets of logistics that we have had to deal with on an international adventure. We managed to get all of this sorted with six people in only a couple of hours.

Who and how many to go with

For this trip we actually went with four other friends who have all had similar experiences with paddling and pioneering in Scouting. We had very little concern regarding their comfort with being away from civilization, or their fondness for water activities. Traveling as a group of 6 makes some things easier, and some a little more challenging. For instance hostel rooms having 6 is fantastic, but moving by cars and taxis however is a bit of a pain. We have found that over the years having a group of any more than 6 people takes significantly more organisation than 2 to 6 people (we suspect that this has something to do with the level of complexity due to variation of the component parts - apologies Robert just went a bit too academic there for a moment!); which is pretty easy, more than 6 is hard work.

The traveling bit

So in this section we are going to detail the traveling parts. We could not believe how simple this was to sort out. We literally figured out the how within an hour. The specifics of timing took a little more work, but all in all for an international adventure it was pretty simple.

How to get to and from Sweden?

This was as simple as booking a set of return flights. We flew from London Gatwick to Stockholm Arlanda, which is the closest international airport to Stockholm. Due to the advanced time that we were booking this trip we also found that the long stay parking at the airport was sufficiently cheap that driving to and from the airport worked out the most cost effective option for all of us.

How to get from Stockholm to the start?

After a surprisingly short amount of Google searching we found that the easiest and cheapest way to get from Stockholm to Vildmark i Värmland was a train followed by a bus. The tickets for which you can purchase online. Fortunately the timetables worked out with reasonable delays between the train and bus. This ensured that the travel was relatively easy.

How to get from the end back to Stockholm?

So the end of the rafting did not finish at Vildmark i Värmland but at a conveniently placed campsite with a bus stop a short walk away. So we got back on the same bus route as we had used to get to the start, and then caught the same train back to Stockholm, nice and simple.

Supplies

One of the nice options that Vildmark i Värmland offers is to supply you with all of your food and supplies that you will need for your trip. There are also a number of small shops along the route that it is possible to moor up at the side of the bank and top up if needed. From the ones we went into it though, it would be tricky to make full camp friendly meals wholly from them.

Food and drink

The group that we were traveling with had a variety of allergies, intolerances, and preferences. For ease, and to reduce anxiety in the group, we decided to procure our own food by going shopping in Stockholm. After a quick bit of research we found that there was an ICA supermarket a short walk from our hostel. This supermarket was sizable enough that we could get enough shelf stable food for the 6 of us to comfortably eat for a week. We do enjoy exploring a new supermarket. A quick tip is to get google translate on your phone (preferably with the offline dictionary for the language you need downloaded) so you can see what the ingredients and cooking instructions are with the lens feature.

Stove fuel

As you may already know, it is almost impossible to transport fuels for camping stoves on an airline. For this reason we had to pick up fuel in Stockholm. After another bit of Googling we found that it was relatively easy to pick up camping gas canisters, but white gas or petrol in small amounts, less so. We wandered into a Naturkompaniet and had a very nice chat with a sales assistant who had done the trip we were going to go do, and they sorted us out with a few bits and pieces and got us on our way.

Now in all the outdoor shops we have been in around the world this is the first time we have come across a gas cupboard inside a shop. How cool (and sensible) is that!

Maps

Whenever we go anywhere we like to have a physical map. Some people collect fridge magnets, we collect maps, and we are growing quite the cartography cupboard from our adventures. We found that there is a specialist map shop in Stockholm, Karbutiken, where you can purchase maps for all over the world, and especially Sweden. Our intended route for the rafting required two maps. This is not something you need to purchase as Vildmark i Värmland supply the map sections for you affixed to the lids of kit boxes, but with our own we could use them independent of the box lid, as well as having a memento of our trip.

Accommodation

When planning we were looking to keep the cost down for the group as much as possible. While rafting the accommodation was easy, we were wild camping for most of it, with one night at a campsite included in our package price. The only bit we needed to sort out was somewhere to stay in Stockholm at each end. As a 6 it worked nicely to book a single 6 person room at Generator Stockholm. This hostel is a convenient walking distance from Stockholm central station where we would be arriving and departing Stockholm on all occasions.

The Generator hostel in Stockholm. A clean, tidy hostel with helpful staff.

Itinerary

The overall trip was 12 days with us rafting for six days. Due to the weather we actually cut our rafting short by a day and decided to spend an extra day in Stockholm.

Day 1: Travel: Home to Generator Stockholm (hostel)

This day was broken into a number of legs:

The drive to Gatwick airport.
A rather pleasant flight to Arlanda airport.
A surprisingly spacious train ride into Stockholm Central Station (on the Arlanda Express).
One not so brisk walk to the Generator Stockholm.
And then an easy evening with a meal at Vapiano. This was a restaurant that some of us had visited some 10 years before. It had changed a lot since we were last there, not all for the better, but we still had some good food.

Us on our rather pleasant flight from Gatwick to Arlanda. It took us longer to drive to the airport than we spent in the air!

Day 2: Supplies around Stockholm

We started the day with our high risk item to purchase: food. We had identified five potential supermarkets but only needed one, meaning the food for the whole trip was very quickly sorted.

We then went to Naturkompaniet for fuel and a few other small bits of outdoor kit. There was also a fair bit of window shopping at some very nice equipment that they sell.

Once we had all the stuff we needed to carry with us, we had a big gear and food faff, distributing equipment and food around the group.

After a considerable amount of handing bits of kit and food to each other in some sort of twisted game of pass the parcel, we were ready for the next stage of our journey. We managed to get this all done by early afternoon so we went out for a bit of sight seeing in Stockholm and ended up at Bastard Burgers for dinner. They had some interesting flavor combinations. We quite often have fast food the day before heading into the wilderness as your chances of getting food poisoning are pretty slim in fast food restaurant chains.

A mouse hole draw on the shop's skirting board with a plushie toy mouse poking out — When in Naturkompaniet we noticed this little fella poking out. Thank goodness it wasn’t a real mouse!

Day 3: Getting to the Start: Generator Stockholm to Vildmark i Värmland at Gunnerud

This day was also split into a few parts:

Walk to the train station - A short walk from the hostel, now significantly heavier with all the food!
Train to Karlstad - A very spacious train with plenty of luggage rack space.
Bus to Gunnerud - A somewhat ominous amount of rain that we dove through. The bus ride was a touch over an hour and we got to see some interesting scenery.
Walk to Vildmark i Värmland site - The bus drops you off at the side of the road a few hundred metres from a short road to the Vildmark i Värmland site.

Once we arrived at the site we were directed to put up our tents and get ready for the briefing. The briefing consisted of a video, a powerpoint presentation, and a hands on session learning the ropes. The method used to make the rafts is ingenious working on a series of loops and using the “floors” of the rafts to tighten the knots. After a quick dinner we turned into bed at around 22:00. It was still bright daylight and a little disconcerting.

Katrina sat in a train with the station sign outside saying 'Katrineholm' — Katrina excitedly pointing out that the place name is similar to hers.

Day 4: Building our raft: Vildmark i Värmland at Gunnerud to the Raft build site at Brannas

The build site was about an hour's drive from the Gunnerud site. For the drive we had a wonderful conversation with one of the instructors, who was more than happy to talk with us about the local environment and economy. It turns out that they had emigrated from Germany to be a guide at this centre after doing the tour initially as a participant.

To build our raft it took us from about 09:00 to 17:00. It was made out of three 3m by 3m sections, so it totaled about 9m long and 3m wide. We moved literal tonnes of logs. The raft itself was well over 5 tonnes of just logs, and during the sorting (to get the right types of logs from the pile) we must have moved double that.

We made the decision to camp the first night at the build site and settled into a comfy night under a clear sky. Thankfully there were very few bugs.

When they advise that you take working gloves, they mean it. We purchased a couple of cheap builders grip gloves from Toolstation for just this part of the trip. These cheap gloves saved our hands from a number of splinters and abrasions. Some in our group did not bring gloves and their hands suffered. We suppose that if you did it day in day out your hands would toughen up, but with the six of us all having office soft hands it was a bit hard going.

Robert in the water with another member of our group building one of the sections of the raft.

Day 5: Rafting: Brannas to Likenas (wild camp)

We started the day with some loud banging and crashing. The lorry that is used to move the logs from the end back to the start had turned up and was depositing its load. It was a treat to see a machine operator who was so at ease with his machine, restocking the wood piles for the next groups to build their rafts.

When we walked over to our lovingly made craft we were in for a shock, the river had dropped almost a meter from the night before. This had resulted in our raft being well and truly beached on the bank. After a bit of prying with spars we shifted the raft back into the water.

Before we knew it we were on our way drifting down the river at a steady pace. After an hour or so we thought we had the hang of the moving of the raft. We found that we could put a person on each corner, to be able to rotate and crab the craft around the river.

Around midday we saw some classic anvil-shaped clouds moving towards us. We knew what was coming our way, a good chance of rain with a side of thunder and lightning. Within the hour we were moored up on the side of the river, waiting out a torrential downpour, and watching lightning rattle around the valley. As soon as it came it went, and the sun was once again out warming us back up.

We dispatched our canoe to find a camping location. We found one and moored the raft up. The camping location was a bit buggy so we decided to dine on the raft taking advantage of the breeze on the raft.

Katrina getting settled on the raft and the slow way of rafting life.

Day 6: Rafting: Likenas to Femtam (wild camp)

The morning started foggy, bright and buggy. We decided to strike camp and have breakfast on the raft once underway. It was quite the experience to cook breakfast on the raft. The fog burnt off quickly and the day was gloriously hot. The river was flowing so fast we were making good time (if anything, a little too fast), so we ended up mooring up around lunch time. It was so hot, we did not want to go hiking up the hill, so we chose to sit on the raft and chill out and chat nonsense. Some of our group took the opportunity to take a dip in the river close to the raft. We ended up spending much of the afternoon on the raft due to the amount of biting bugs on the banks. Looking at the weather that was coming up, and the rate at which we were progressing, we made the decision to cut our rafting short by a day.

close up of the raft catching the light in the afternoon sun — The long hot afternoon spent at the side of the river.

Day 7: Rafting: Femtam to Munkebol (campsite)

We started in the sun and ended in the sun. It was a hot one! Another very short rafting session with us finishing around lunch time. The campsite was a free community site which has been set up to encourage people to the local area. The site was surprisingly busy with camper vans, and families enjoying BBQs. We took the opportunity to do some washing of both clothes and ourselves. We also took a short walk to the local shop and had ice cream, cold non-alcoholic beers, and interesting snacks.

Taking advantage of the warm weather and fresh water for a bit of wash.

Day 8: Rafting: Munkebol to Klarälven Camping (campsite)

This was to be one of our longest sections of rafting. It was relatively uneventful. We had got a routine in place by then where everyone had their place and job. We had also got pretty good at steering the raft in the flow so we were done rafting by 14:00. The campsite was clean, well kept and (most importantly) had ice creams. We also had a bit of fun on the playground, making use of the bouncy trampoline equipment.

Call us canoe nerds, but a highlight of this campsite was the canoe that was from the 1700’s! Things have both simultaneously come a long way, and stayed very much the same.

This is the beach at Klarälven Camping. There are options for shorter rafting experiences that run from this location. Also, the staff are happy to help you if your raft needs some fixing before the last day or so of activity.

Day 9: Rafting and Dismantling the Raft: Klarälven Camping to Bjorkebo Camping (campsite)

This day was cooler and a little overcast, much more pleasant for rafting. Once again we had got to our final location for the day by lunch time. Vildmark i Värmland has the last functioning log boom on the river, set up just a short way down from a mooring site and a storehouse where you deposited your rope and other rented equipment. We had a quick lunch once we reached the site, and then started dismantling the raft. Bearing in mind it took us around 8 hours to build the raft, we had it unloaded, dismantled, all the ropes coiled, and all the equipment back into the store house, in its rightful place, in under an hour and a half.

It was a short walk to Bjorkebo camping where we enjoyed freshly baked cakes and hot showers after setting up our tents for the final night of camping.

The large sign identifying which side of the river you need to be in to make sure that you can moor up at the dismantling site.

Day 10: Traveling: Bjorkebo Camping to Stockholm Generator (hostel)

In a strange twist of fate we managed to get the tent down dry! About 5 minutes after we had all the canvas in the bag the heavens opened.

The bus stop was a short walk down the road from the campsite past some rather excited huskies. The bus ride itself was once again paired with a significant amount of heavy rain. We all agreed that we had made the right decision cutting our rafting short by a day, given the weather.

The train ride back to Stockholm was delayed a bit by a signal failure, caused by a lightning strike. But due to the delay the train company provided complementary tea and coffee for all of the passengers. We were thankful that we were not rushing to the airport straight after this train journey!

Katrina happy at the prospect of a shower with clean dry towels.

Day 11: Day in Stockholm

We started the day by heading to Vete-Katten for some, quite frankly, astounding pastries and hot chocolate. We also tried a local delicacy of Prinsesstårta (princess cake), which by the way is delightful and we can see why it is a thing.

The exquisite pastries that we got from Vete-Katten.

After filling up with tasty pastry morsels we went back to Naturkompaniet to hand back the gas bottles that we had not finished. They were happy to take the bottles back and “recycle” them. We do hope the staff enjoyed the three quarter full bottles of gas. We may have also been tempted by a few items, but due to exchange rates some things were actually more expensive than at home, which unfortunately included a few Fjällräven garments we’d had our eye on prior to our rafting adventure.

Robert has a fascination with finding the perfect gloves for outdoor activities so the prospect of visiting the Hestra Concept store was too much of an opportunity to miss. Robert is still trying to replace a pair of Gore-Tex lined leather gloves that were perfect for the dreary wet UK weather. After about half an hour of conversation we came close, but not quite (so the search continues!). Robert did pick up a pair of gloves for bushcraft activities though.

What do you do with an afternoon in Stockholm? Well we do have a bit of a thing for museums, and about a decade ago we did do a museum crawl of Stockholm though there was one that we did not have time for, so we finally got around to going to Nordiska Museet (the Nordic Life Museum). This museum was well worth the visit. The things people can do with silver birch bark was just mind boggling to us.

One of our personal highlights in the museum was the wooden maps used to navigate coastlines.

Once we were done wandering around the city we headed back to the hostel to regroup. To round out the day we decided to head out to the conveniently close Brisket and Friends for a meal, which has got to be some of the best American style BBQ we have had outside of the USA, before turning in.

Day 12: Travel: Generator Stockholm to Home

The return home was a relatively uneventful affair. A short walk to the train station to start (which was much easier now we no longer carried food for a week); a train journey that did have a short delay (of less than 10 mins), and a flight that somehow landed back in the UK a full hour ahead of schedule!

Navigation

Out of all of our international adventures this has to be the easiest we have had to navigate. The river only goes one way, and Vildmark i Värmland have even installed signs hanging off bridges, and at other convenient locations to help guide you down the river.

The Kartförlaget map that we purchased was surprisingly accurate for the river as well. At all points we were able to locate ourselves to within a matter of metres.

Water

At the point we joined the Klarälven river it was wide, deep, full of silt, and traveling at the respectable pace of between 2 and 3 Kilometres per hour. There were very few obstacles, with only a few sand banks and bridges to avoid.

Coming from the UK we were surprised to find how clean the river was. During our time on the river we did not see a single piece of litter.

Regarding drinking the river water; Vildmark i Värmland recommended boiling the water before drinking it. As we happen to have MSR Guardian™ Gravity Purifiers from other adventures we decided to take and use them as they are far more convenient that having to keep boiling water and waiting for it to cool.

The water in the Klarälven was at times like a mirror, despite its fairly quick pace. It was fascinating to watch.

Equipment

We probably took far more equipment that we needed for this trip. Our more recent water activities have been a bit more remote, which is why we may have over packed. However, we were rather comfortable on this trip equipment wise, so it wasn’t too much of an issue. For a full equipment list of what we took on this adventure please see our Equipment List (it’s a long one!). If this doesn’'t yet have a link, Katrina is still reviewing it, but it should be up soon!

Lessons learned from this trip

We have been trialling these three simple questions to help us get the most learning we can out of an adventure. The answers to these are what we’ll be looking at before we head off on the next adventure to make sure we can make each one incrementally better than the last.

What replicable new learning did we gain from what went well on this trip?

It is possible to palm off (give away) half used gas bottles to outdoor shops. This solved the issue we had of having partly used bottles of gas at the end in a way that might allow someone else to benefit from them, rather than needing to dispose of them safely before getting on a plane.
Getting white gas for petrol stoves is possible from outdoor shops in Sweden.
Through conversations with the rafting company, canoe hire in Sweden is relatively cheap compared to that in the UK.

What replicable new learning did we gain from what did NOT go well?

The Sea to summit head nets that we have successfully used elsewhere have an open weave that is too big for small flies found in Sweden.
The MSR Switch is flexible and capable of being used on pans, however it is still not as good for cooking as our MSR dragonfly.
Double check with the activity provider if there is any ambiguity on the length of the trip that is being offered. We thought we were going much further, but the trip was shortened due to river conditions.
We enjoy the manoeuvrability and comfort of canoeing over timber rafting. We had some difficulty with the nature of rafting, with it mostly being 10 to 15 minutes of nothing followed by 5 minutes of hard paddling so as not to crash. This somehow seemed like more work than we would expect just canoeing down the same section of river.
Being comfortable in rain when the air temp is above 10°C and under 27°C.

It turns out the timber rafting life does not sit well with us. In this picture Katrina had fallen asleep sitting with a paddle in hand at the front of the raft!

What changes can we make to the way we go about doing things to improve our future adventures?

If we are looking to cook a variety of food stuff in Sweden then look to take our MSR dragonfly as you can easily get fuel for it.
Start a conversation with activity providers rather than just relying on their website to make sure we fully understand what is being offered.
Investigate leg rainwear that we can be comfortable in warm but not hot rain, as most of ours feels designed for colder rain situations.

Would we recommend this trip?

As far as we know this is the only place in the world where you can do this activity in such a safe and well organised manner. If the prospect of building your own raft and floating it down a river sounds good to you, then a hard yes, we would recommend. However, for us we think we would have been more than happy with the 5 day package, and would probably recommend this for others as well. We felt 7 days was a little long and we ended up cutting it short by a day, but with a 5 day trip, you would get the day of building, 3 days of achievable paddling distances and a final day with a shorter distance and adequate time to then dismantle your raft. We’d also recommend camping overnight at Bjorkebo once you’re finished if you like to reduce travel stress. The biggest thing we learnt from this trip is that we want to go back to Sweden for more adventures, but probably in a canoe next time!

Timber Rafting down the River Klarälven