We've heard people refer to Sweden as a land of evolved human beings. We can now confirm that they are right. And we're guessing that Stockholm is the place that really flaunts this fact. Everywhere you look there are beautiful, sophisticated people doing beautiful, sophisticated people things.

When you arrive here, you'd almost expect to arrive in some sort of space age city of advancement and modernism. But in fact, it's quite the opposite. There's lots of history and culture in the city's façade and it is very similar to Copenhagen but with a more airy, open space feel.

Gamla Stan is where the tourists flock. This part of Stockholm is the old city and is the home of the palace as well as old, small, windy, cobblestone streets and squares that lead to many of the cities historical buildings. Gamla Stan is also right in the middle of Stockholm between the north and the south. Given that this is where all the tourists are, though, the restaurants, bars and shops lend themselves to servicing tourists. So as nice as this area is, it's worth a visit, but don't stay here.We spent two nights in this area in a nice hostel with a great view of the river, but when we had to move out of our private room to a 8 man dorm in the middle of Stockholm Gay Pride Week, we thought we'd be better off finding another hostel to stay at.

When we chose our first hostel, we didn't have a clue where to stay. We took the advice of some blogs, Hostelworld's location ratings and Tripadvisor.But when it came to choosing somewhere to move to for our second two nights in Stockholm we had a better idea of where to go thanks to the great hop-on-hop-off bus tour that we did (we landed up scoring three days for the price of one as the bus driver was out of one day tickets). Gamla Stan is great as it is right between uptown (Ostermalm) and downtown (Sodermalm) and you can easily walk to either from here. Ostermalm is sophisticated, sassy and very expensive. Great to walk through and maybe get a coffee or a drink but not the kind of place for two backpackers to be partying up as the entrance requirements to clubs here is usually fashion that is so trendy that it hasn't even hit the shops yet (couple this with the general incredible fashion and dress of the average Swede, these two mlungu backpackers wereway out of our league) and arrival by means of a sporty Italian stallion pulled by lots and lots of horsesor something similarly exotic or pricey. So needless to say, it was cool to walk around here and try to feel like we fitted in but we found our next home in Sodermalm. Interestingly though, while walking though Ostermalm, we walked through the heart of the pride week festival to catch part of the start of the festival - quite cool with some good live music and even a talk from a man that gave birth to two children (might recognize this story from the Oprah show).

Sodermalm is a more laid back, indie and offbeat scene. Now, once again, given that this is Stockholm, it doesn't mean that this is a grungy area of all-sorts and where anything goes. There is still style and class, only this time with a bit more hair let down. It's a really cool area with lots of funky and interesting bars, restaurants, shops, parks and people. The rest of Stockholm is still easily accessible from here and this is the area we'd recommend staying.

We ended off Stockholm, which marked the end of our trek through both the Scandinavian and Nordic worlds, in true Nordic chic - with a cocktail from an ice cup at the IceBar. Scandinavia was a fantastic experience and expensive experience, but it was great to see and learn how advanced and sophisticated the world could be in terms of both people and government.

Trek on…Brett and Darren