The Culinary Adventure
4 days of kayaking, foraging and cooking in the wild
Wilderness cooking at its best
Learn to cook advanced meals on an open fire, using local and foraged ingredients. There is something so special about sharing a meal around the fire, it connects us – to nature, to the past, to each other. This unique tour is all about making that connection stronger.
Foraging by kayak
Islands with pine, spruce, deciduous trees, sea meadows, rocky outcrops, long-since abandoned settlements. They’re all different habitats that offer a variety of ingredients to forage. Your kayaking guide leads the way through the maze of islands.
Do the culinary north
We cook Swedish and archipelago cuisine, appreciating what the season and the surrounding landscape has to offer. Your wilderness chef will meet you on an island in the middle of the archipelago, already preparing for an evening and morning full of wild cooking as a team.
As local as it gets
When we say local ingredients, we really mean it! We slow-cook lamb from one of the islands, and wild boar and venison from a hunter nearby. The local fisherman provides fresh perch and smoked whitefish. We use vegetables, eggs, honey and mustard from farms on the mainland.
Mother nature's pantry
June and September are the best months for foraging in Saint Anna. We’ll find greens, berries, mushrooms, fruits & nuts, and find creative ways to use our wild harvest.
Master of the embers
Perfecting a skill with subtle variations that demands a keen sense of the elements – that’s a very fun challenge to take on. We learn how to use a cast-iron pan, Dutch Oven and waffle-iron on the fire.
What You'll Get
Kayaking and wild camping adventure that’s all about deliciousness. We cook over-the-top Swedish dishes on the open fire as well as forage wild ingredients. All meals and snacks included as well as well-paired alcoholic beverages for dinner.
Included
- Kayaking guide and culinary guide
- Breakfast, lunch & dinners in the wild
- Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages
- Forager’s guide
- Top quality kayaking, camping & cooking gear
- Comfort upgrade – airbed, pillow & chair
- Return transfer Norrköping-Saint Anna
What to Bring
- A couple of sets of clothing
- Shoes for water & land
- Towel & swimwear
- Sunglasses, sun cap, sun block & toiletries
- Camera or battery pack for phone
Not Included
- Flights to Sweden
Price per person
4 DAYS
15,600 SEK
Trip Information
Dates 2024:
14–17 June (1 space left)
6–9 Sep (fully booked)
Group size: 8 persons plus guides
Minimum age: 18 years
Fitness level: Low
Prerequisites: Must be able to swim and have a genuine interest in food. Weight limit; 120 kilo per person. Kayaking beginners are welcome!
Accommodation: Solo tents for singles, double tents for couples or friends.
Payment: We charge 1,000 SEK deposit per person at the time of booking. Remaining balance is due 2 weeks prior to your trip.
Day by Day
This tour is not as physically strenuous as our other adventures. Kayaking distances are relatively short with breaks for foraging. See below for a menu of the scrumptious dishes we’ll be cooking!
The roots of our culinary traditions
We begin our journey in the inner archipelago, surrounded by large forested islands and a cultural landscape that invokes the feeling of travelling back in time. Traditional old wooden houses are dotted along the bay.
After a short paddle we take a lunch break by a pretty sea meadow, one of Saint Anna’s most unique habitats, where salt-resistant plants thrive along the edge of the sea. We forage edible greens like sea sandwort, sea aster leaves, orache and sorrel. We also pick juniper berries as well as crabapples and barberries, wild remains from a time when the island was inhabited.
By now, we’re completely submerged in the area, with a maze of islands stretching out in all directions. In the late afternoon we arrive to our base camp in the middle archipelago, where islands are smaller and more plentiful. Our wilderness chef is waiting, already busy preparing for an evening and morning full of wild cooking.
We prepare a variety of items for upcoming days – flatbreads, jams, juniper mayonnaise, pickled vegetables, crabapples and lingonberry herring. It’s quite late by now and our chef has already spent hours simmering our dinner stew. We built a rustic table on-site using lashing and wooden spars for this very special adventure, and it’s indeed a very charming place to sit down for our candle-lit dinner.
Darlings of our modern culinary soul
As we peek through the opening of our tents, we are hopefully met by a mirror-calm sea with the blue sky reflected in the water in the most gorgeous of ways. A morning dip is a refreshing way to start the day.
After breakfast, we set off for our kayaking exploration of the day to the outer archipelago. It’s a very different landscape than the one we left behind – hundreds of tiny barren islands with sparse wind-pined trees. The blue horizon is our backdrop and the solitude out here is amazing. We’re in search for wild chives and visit an old refurbished hunting cabin from the 1700s at the edge of the open sea.
We return to our base camp by early afternoon and leisurely prepare the cast-iron apple pie we’ll enjoy tomorrow and our meal for tonight. There is plenty of time for swimming, some wood carving and a couple of group members wander our island filling up a whole basket of orpine for our dinner.
Our final feast
We’ll go for a shorter paddle today through beautiful bird sanctuaries, clusters of little islands with abundant bird life. Very likely we’ll see White-tailed eagles gliding high up in the sky, and if lucky we may spot seals.
A nice foraging mission awaits on a large island just across the strait from our camp, We can paddle here, or even swim! It’s a completely different habitat than the pine trees and moss of our base camp. Here we are surrounded by deciduous forest with open glades marked by grazing animals. Oak trees, linden and hazel are common, and it’s a great landscape for foraging. We may find lingonberries & blueberries, as well as mushrooms like porcini, red-foot bolete and suede bolete. Wild herbs grow on the meadows, and we pick wild mint and ground-ivy.
We’ll use our wild harvest for our last delicious dinner together!
The end of a decadent journey
Our last morning of waking up in our tranquil island wonderland. We pack up our camp and fill our bellies with a hearty breakfast.
We paddle towards a different site on the mainland than where we started, passing though new bird sanctuaries as we near the end of our fantastic exploration. A narrow canal takes us from the wilderness maze, then all of a sudden civilisation appears in a bay full of little cabins and old houses.
We hope that you will leave Saint Anna full of inspiration to take your wilderness cooking to another level, just about anything is possible!
*This is an example route as is the menu below. We spend most our time in the inner and middle archipelago, which provide lots of shelter even in windy conditions. The menu depends on foraging luck and season. Early summer means for example greens, edible flowers, wild strawberries and wild raspberries. Late summer offers greens, mushrooms, lots of berries, rose hips and more.
Menu
The Roots of our Culinary Traditions
DAY 1
Venison stew served with potatoes, lingonberries and pickled cucumber
Traditional slow-cooked stew seasoned with allspice and bay leaf. We use local wild venison and serve our flavourful ‘Kalops’ with potatoes, lingonberries, pickled cucumber and an unfiltered lager.
Regional cheeses with local plum
chutney & crisp bread
Jurss Dairy north of Norrköping produces a number of prize-winning cheeses with a progression that’s great for a cheese tasting. Served with plum chutney and crisp bread from a farm on the mainland, and
mulled wine with raisins and almonds.
Flatbread, juniper mayonnaise, jams & pickles
We prepare a few items to be used in the days to come. The cooking method for our flatbreads goes back to Medeaval times, we make mayonnaise flavoured with foraged juniper berries, jams from seasonal berries and an array of delectable pickles.
Darlings of our Modern Culinary Soul
DAY 2
Waffles with homemade strawberry jam and whipped cream
This flavour profile has a warm spot in any Swedish heart, sweet memories from our childhood. We grill the waffles right in the flames using waffle irons made of cast-ron.
Flatbread wrap with wild boar, juniper mayo, apple, leeks and buckthorn preserves
A traditional way to eat reindeer or moose cold is roasted and cut in thin slices in a flat bread wrap. In later years boar has been plentiful in the region, and we source it locally for this modern twist on an old favourite.
Pan-fried perch fillets, potato pure and sauteed orpine & sorrel
The local fisherman at Kallsö supplies his renowned deboned perch fillets, we dip them in a little flour and fry in plenty of butter. Orpine is a fantastic green and adding some sorrel right at the end adds delicious acidity. Served with a well-paired Riseling white wine.
Poached ginger & cinnamon pears, flambeed in rum with lushious whipped cream
A very traditional recipe from the 1800s of poached pears in a ginger and cinnamon syrup, elevated by flambeeing in rum, butter and sugar. We whip cream and fold in some of the custard we’ve made for tomorrow’s apple pie.
DAY 3 - Our final feast
Pan-baked bread with butter & jam, muesli with fresh blueberries & hazelnuts
Baking with yeast is perfectly doable in the wild. Small breads grilled in a cast-iron pan. Butter whipped from cream and our own jam. Pan-roasted crunchy muesli with dried fruits, hazelnuts and fresh blueberries served over “fil” a Swedish style yoghurt.
Lingonberry pickled herring on rye
Dark ‘kavring’ rye bread topped with a horseraddish dill creme and our lingonberry pickled herring & vegetables.
Our final feast
We serve our three-course meal with Valpolicella Ripasso red wine.
Appetiser
Hot smoked salmon on butter-fried toast with chive, roe & mustard creme, pickled red onion, pickled cucumber and seaweed smoked on rocks near the fire.
Main course
Heavenly slow-cooked lamb stew in red wine and tomatoes with pearl onions, dried chanterelles, thyme, smoked pork belly and our foraged mushrooms, ground-ivy and wild mint. Served with smashed root vegetables and our pickled crabapples & sea sandwort.
Dessert
Rustic apple pie baked to golden perfection in our Dutch Oven. Custard made from scratch of course.
DAY 4 - The End of our Decadent Journey
“Kolbulle”
This hearty breakfast pancake with salted pork belly was eaten by coal miners and forest workers in pre-industrial times. Served with lingonberries.
Wrap with pickled beets and goat’s cheese
A delicious lunch wrap with our pickled beets, local goat’s cheese, greens, herbs, wheat berry and pumkin seeds.
Getting Here
Getting here
Norrköping is the major hub of the area. We pick you up at 10.00, it’s a beautiful city to spend the night before your adventure. Our closest airport is Linköping, but you can also fly to Arlanda, Copenhagen, Bromma etc. Arriving by train is an excellent option for the environment!
Please take the time to read Getting to Sweden with less CO2 emissions for tips on what you can do from your end. Hint: offsets ain’t it!
We pick you up either at the train station or at any hotel/hostel/airbnb.
Check out our Visitor’s Guide to Norrköping
We drop you back off around 16.30-17.00 on your last day of kayaking.
This is en excellent option for the environment. If you search for the entire trip, as quick as possible, it may seem like a complicated journey with many changes and no possibility for sleep. But if you divide it, and take some time to visit one or two spots on the way, it’s a fantastic chance to experience new places.
Your best bet is to purchase an Interrail pass, for example travel 4 days within a month EUR 185.
An example:
Brussels – Hamburg, 6,5-8 hrs, 1-2 changes
Hamburg – Copenhagen, 4,5-5,5 hrs, 0-1 changes
Copenhagen to Norrköping, 3 hrs 45 min, 0-1 changes
Each of these cities are very beautiful and interesting, there are plenty of departures and you can puzzle together your journey as you see fit!
Your carbon emissions will be around 75% lower than flying.
“Snälltåget” from Berlin or Hamburg to Norrköping has daily departures during peak summer (June 24-Aug 18). Leave Berlin in the evening and arrive to Norrköping around 16 hours later. You can use Eurail or Interrail passes on Snälltaget!
Your carbon emissions will be around 75% lower than flying.
Directions (Map):
Aim for our closest town Söderköping.
Take road 210, follow signs to S:t Anna,
Pass the bridge “Lagnöbron“, and take a left after 500 meters by the sign for “Mons Friluftsby“. Keep driving appr. 5-7 minutes to the pin. It’s a gravel road on the right with a gate. Follow the small road down to the water.
Carbon emissions per person when driving the whole way are a little trickier to calculate. It depends on several factors like how many passengers are in the car, fuel type and fuel effiency. In very broad terms, you will leave around a 50% smaller carbon imprint than flying the same distance.
Direct train 2 hours to Norrköping. sj.se (Arlanda C – Norrköping)
Sweden’s main airport. Served by all major airlines, for example SAS, Lufthansa, British Airways. Low-price alternatives:
Ryanair: London Stansted, Birmingham, Liverpool, Vienna, Brussels Charleroi, Cologne, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Beziers, Barcelona
Easyjet: Geneva
Combining kayaking with a visit to Stockholm? Take Arlanda Express to the city, 20 mins. Train from Stockholm Central to Norrköping 75 mins. sj.se
We’ll pick you up at the train station.
Copenhagen may seem far away but it’s actually a great airport to fly to. There are high speed trains from the airport to Norrköping (appr. 3 hrs 45 min). It’s also way better climate wise with a substantially shorter flight than to Stockholm.
Trains (Copenhagen Airport to Norrköping): sj.se Note that if you’re booking your kayaking adventure far in advance they may not have released all the train departures yet. Trains will leave appr every hour, earliest departure around 5.00, latest departure around 18.30.
Combining kayaking with a visit to Copenhagen? Train or metro from the airport to the city takes 15 mins and runs 24/7. Train from Copenhagen city to Norrköping: sj.se
Your carbon emissions will be around 25% lower than flying from most European cities to Stockholm!
Brussels Airport (BRU) to Bromma Airport (BMA).
Bus transfer 20 mins to Stockholm city. flygbussarna.se/en/bromma
Train from Stockholm city to Norrköping, 65-90 mins. sj.se
Flights on Mondays and Fridays. Bus transfer 15 mins to Örebro train station. Buses connect to all flights to/from London. flixbus.se
Train from Örebro to Norrköping appr. 2 hrs 15 mins. sj.se
Kalmar is quite far from Norrköping, about 3.5 hours by train. But you may get a good deal on the flight.
Bus from Kalmar Airport to Kalmar train station 13 mins, leaves every 20 mins. Train to Norrköping appr. 3 hrs 20 mins. sj.se
Gothenburg is quite far from Norrköping, but if you’re looking for a budget airline from your city it might be worth having a look. It’s also a very nice city to visit, Sweden’s second largest.
Shuttle from the airport to Gothenburg train station 20 mins. flygbussarna.se Train from Gothenburg city to Norrköping, appr. 3-3,5 hours. sj.se
Ryanair: Edinburgh, Manchester, London Stansted, Prague, Dublin, Vienna etc.
Spending the night in Norrköping
We’ll pick you up at any hotel/hostel/airbnb in Norrköping. We recommend:
This chic little hotel in a refurbished 18th-century building has a great atmosphere. It’s located 700 meters from the train station, and also offers spa services and a great restaurant. Breakfast is included. All rooms are equipped with shower & WC, TV and Wi-Fi. The Lamp Hotel
Use discount code Dothenorth for a 10% discount! Must be applied when booking.
This hostel is a more budget alternative, 1.4 kilometres from the train station. It’s located right in the city centre in the historic “Industrial Landscape” with great views of the river and the old magnificent factory buildings and chimneys. All rooms have TV and Wi-Fi. En suite or shared shower & WC. Self-serving breakfast buffet included. Pronova Hostel