The World’s Largest Bed & Breakfast: Sweden and the Freedom to Roam By Marcus Andersson
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hree years ago, Sweden’s board of tourism partnered with Airbnb, the popular home rental website, to turn the entire country into a listing. The partnership produced a video advert, in which a narrator speaks over footage of the wild Scandinavian landscape, stating that “in Sweden we have this thing called Freedom to Roam. It is a right protected by law that allows me to sleep and eat and walk pretty much anywhere I want. And now, you can too. Because we listed the entire country on Airbnb.” For those unfamiliar with the law described in the video, it sounds like a marketing gimmick. But freedom to roam is a rough translation of allemansrätten, which literally means “every man’s right.” It is a pillar of Swedish culture and another example of Swedish exceptionalism. In its essence, the freedom to roam makes private property semi-public by giving any person on Swedish soil the right to travel almost completely freely across the
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land. One is not permitted to wander into the immediate vicinity of a household or damage cultivated enclosures, but all wilderness is open to anyone who comes across it. What’s more, allemansrätten grants a list of rights in addition to free access. Under the law, one is allowed to pitch a tent and camp for a couple of days; make a campfire, collect flowers, mushrooms and berries; catch fish in the major bodies of water; access any beach; swim in lakes; and drive on private roads, regardless of whether the area is public or owned by a property holder. This privilege is extended to citizens and tourists alike, and is guided by the maxim inte störa, inte förstöra, or “don’t disturb, don’t destroy.” The history of the freedom to roam dates back to the medieval period. In the 1200s, Sweden didn’t have the infrastructure to provide proper food and lodging for travelers, so it was generally accepted that, even on private property, travelers could set up camp, feed themselves off the
land or water sources, etc. From the mid-19th century until the 1940s, this ancient tradition was given even more explicit shape in conjunction with the rise of friluftsliv, a movement that celebrated the importance of spending time outdoors. By 1937, Sweden developed a formal articulation of allemansrätten, but it took until 1994 for it to be codified in the constitution as a foundational right. Throughout Swedish history there have been debates at the Riksdag (Parliament), with cases spanning from 1889 until 2010, where opponents of the practice have tried to regulate it. Interestingly, the freedom to roam is a constitutional right but lacks a robust legal definition outlining exactly what is and isn’t acceptable. There are minor restrictions, but even those are only loosely described. The principal regulation on allemansrätten is the idea of hemfridszon or the “home peace zone.” Travelers are not allowed to camp within an uncomfortably close proximity to a
