Stockholm's museums are built for rainy days and long winters, and a lot of them let kids touch, climb and press buttons. This list covers hands-on science centers, the big history and ship museums, and storybook worlds for the youngest. Most are fully indoors, and the kid-focused ones have play areas where you can easily spend a whole afternoon.
Nordiska museet shows how people in Sweden and the Nordic countries have lived, from the 1500s to today. In the Children's Playhouse, kids do the chores on an 1890s farm, tend wooden animals and shop at the village store.
Staff hand out maps for two family trails in English: Mission: Vaesen, a hunt for an escaped vaesen, and Mission: The Arctic, through an iceberg in the Great Hall.
Nationalmuseum holds paintings, sculpture, applied arts and design from 1500 to today. For kids, the draw is Colour!, a hands-on exhibition for ages 6 to 12: they put on a lab coat and color goggles, step through a color portal and explore rooms of light.
Free family activities run in the ground-floor studios, and low display cases in the Design Depot put ceramic lions and porcelain dogs at kid height.
Millesgården is the former home and studios of sculptor Carl Milles and his wife Olga, built on a granite cliff on Lidingö. Sculptures and fountains, including the Triton fountain, stand along stepped terraces, with the artist's home and an art gallery of changing exhibitions alongside.
Kids can hunt for Milles' angels in the park, fill in a sculpture-hunt booklet, or follow a children's trail folder from reception.
Moderna Museet is Sweden's state museum of modern and contemporary art, in a Rafael Moneo building on the island of Skeppsholmen. The collection runs from Picasso, Dalí and Matisse to Louise Bourgeois and a model of Tatlin's Tower, alongside changing exhibitions.
Outside, the sculpture park has Alexander Calder's The Four Elements and the bright painted figures of Le Paradis fantastique by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely.
Avicii Experience is a tribute museum to Swedish DJ and producer Tim "Avicii" Bergling, one floor below street level at Sergels Torg. The 350-square-meter exhibition follows his life and music career through interactive rooms, untold stories and music that has never been released.
The room kids remember is the one where they get to try performing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans.
An illusion museum with more than 70 interactive exhibits, each built for posing and photos. Kids hang from the furniture in an upside-down living room, try to stay steady in a spinning tunnel, disappear into the walls of the Camouflage Room and watch their reflections repeat forever in a hexagonal mirror room. A Kaleidoscope exhibit lets them make their own patterns while picking up a little about light and reflection.
A 2,500-square-meter indoor exhibition on Skeppsholmen with 26 animatronic dinosaurs, two complete skeletons and three skulls. The dinosaurs stand in built sets with plants, water, wind, light, sound and scent, so kids walk through a prehistoric world instead of past glass cases.
It comes from the team behind Paradox Museum and Fotografiska. Moving animatronics with sound can be a lot for toddlers who scare easily.
A tropical greenhouse in Hagaparken where butterflies fly free around visitors, kept warm and humid at about 26°C all year. A large chrysalis cabinet holds newly hatched butterflies every day.
In the aquarium, reef sharks and colorful reef fish swim in a 30-meter tank holding 1.2 million liters, with frogs, turtles and koi nearby. On some weekends and holidays a zoologist gives shark talks and feeding demonstrations.
Stockholm City Museum tells the story of the city inside Södra stadshuset, a 17th-century building at Slussen. It is Sweden's largest municipal museum, with permanent and temporary exhibitions drawn from 300,000 objects, 25,000 works of art and 3.5 million photographs.
Kids can see how the city's streets, homes, parks and waterfront changed over time, and how the people who lived there spent their days.
Sweden's oldest museum, founded in 1628, fills the southeastern corner of the Royal Palace with armor, coronation robes and royal carriages. Kids come face to face with Streiff, the stuffed warhorse Gustavus Adolphus rode at Lützen, and the bloodstained clothes of kings.
The Children's Armoury lets them touch, smell and explore royal history under a starry ceiling, and the Palace Mouse trail sends families hunting through the galleries.
The Nobel Prize Museum fills the old Stock Exchange building on Stortorget. Its main exhibition, These Things Changed the World, shows over 250 objects donated by Nobel laureates.
Kids can follow the Little Explorer quiz trail, searching for clues about scientists, authors and Alfred Nobel himself, listen to a children's audio guide on a phone, or read, play and experiment in the Bubble Chamber playroom.
An interactive museum about the Swedish pop group, with original stage costumes, gold records and the Polar Studio mixing desk on show.
Kids can sing karaoke in The Audition, set up to feel like the Polar Studio, perform on stage as the fifth member alongside Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Frida, try the Tretow Mix Challenge and an ABBA quiz. The museum cinema screens films all day.
An interactive museum of the Viking Age on Djurgården, with archaeological finds, reconstructed Viking-era settings and objects kids can touch. It tells the stories of the women, children and men who lived on Scandinavian farms, not only the raiders. Guides in Viking-era clothing answer questions.
The big draw is Ragnfrid's Saga, an indoor ride through 10th-century Europe following Harald on a raid to win back his family's fortune.
The Swedish National Maritime Museum tells the story of people and the sea through ship models, figureheads and real wreckage. Straight ahead from the entrance sits the gilded stern of Amphion, Gustav III's 1778 pleasure ship, with its cabin preserved inside.
Battle Stations! shows centuries of navy ship models and parts of the submarine Ulven. Under-7s get Blubb, an underwater play room with submarines, fish and sunken treasure.
Sweden's largest cultural history museum fills an ornate 1907 building on Djurgården with over 1.5 million objects, covering everyday life in Sweden from the 1500s to today, from homes and set tables to Sami crafts.
Kids walk into the great hall under a giant painted and gilded oak statue of King Gustav Vasa by Carl Milles. Artur Hazelius, who also founded Skansen, started the museum in 1873.
Spårvägsmuseet tells the story of Stockholm's public transport inside the renovated Gasverket gasworks. Floors 1 to 3 hold 13 vehicles, from horse-drawn carriages and boats to trams and buses, plus old uniforms, tickets and T-bana art. Floor 4 walks through the history in order.
Kids can ride the mini T-bana, and those who need to burn off energy get Snabbare, a running track on floor 3.
Sweden's largest museum runs from dinosaur skeletons in Fossils and Evolution to the native animals of Nature in Sweden, set in their habitats. Polar Tracks covers the Arctic and Antarctica, and Treasures from the Earth's Interior has gemstones and crystals.
The Animal Human is the most hands-on hall, where kids test how their bodies work against other animals. The building also holds Cosmonova, an IMAX dome theater 23 meters across.
Tekniska museet, the National Museum of Science and Technology, has ten hands-on exhibitions across 12,000 square meters. In Teknoleket, the youngest visitors build marble mazes and turn cog wheels. In The Mine, kids walk the dark old mining tracks, then try drill simulators and detonate explosives. Play Beyond Play has game stations, and the Wisdome Stockholm dome runs 3D shows on space and nature.
Historiska museet holds The Viking World, billed as the largest Viking exhibition in the world, with 2,500 original objects, interactive stations and old Norse tales. Prehistories covers Stone Age tools, art and some of the first runes, and the Gold Room shows Viking Age silver pendants and Migration Period gold collars.
Free activity trails send kids through the exhibitions, and the courtyard gives them room to run.
The Police Museum tells the story of Swedish policing since 1850, and much of it is hands-on. In Polisliv, kids try on uniforms from different eras, step into a 1930s police kiosk and switch on the blue lights in a modern patrol car. Brottsspår centers on a crime scene to solve, and En större uppgift lets younger kids sit on a police motorcycle and groom a wooden horse.
Armémuseum tells Sweden's story of war and peace through the soldiers, women and children who lived it, from the 1500s to today. Full-scale scenes with life-size soldiers and original weapons fill Artillerigården, a former artillery depot whose buildings date from the 1700s.
The Trophy Chamber holds flags and spoils captured from defeated armies, and a smaller exhibit covers Raoul Wallenberg's rescue work in World War II.
The Vasa Museum is built around Vasa, a warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 and was raised after 333 years on the seabed. About 98% of the ship dates from the 1600s, covered in hundreds of wooden sculptures.
Kids can follow the family trail, compare the ship with a brightly painted model, watch the film about the Vasa Piglet, and join hands-on activities with museum staff.
Junibacken is an indoor attraction built around children's books, on Djurgården. The Story Train carries visitors through handmade sets from Astrid Lindgren's stories, from Emil to Ronja, with narration in 12 languages.
The ride ends at Villa Villekulla, Pippi Longstocking's house, where the in-house ensemble puts on theater shows. A story square holds scenes from the Moomins and other picture books, and there is a children's bookstore and a restaurant.
Stockholm's museums are built for rainy days and long winters, and a lot of them let kids touch, climb and press buttons. This list covers hands-on science centers, the big history and ship museums, and storybook worlds for the youngest. Most are fully indoors, and the kid-focused ones have play areas where you can easily spend a whole afternoon.
Nordiska museet shows how people in Sweden and the Nordic countries have lived, from the 1500s to today. In the Children's Playhouse, kids do the chores on an 1890s farm, tend wooden animals and shop at the village store.
Staff hand out maps for two family trails in English: Mission: Vaesen, a hunt for an escaped vaesen, and Mission: The Arctic, through an iceberg in the Great Hall.
Nationalmuseum holds paintings, sculpture, applied arts and design from 1500 to today. For kids, the draw is Colour!, a hands-on exhibition for ages 6 to 12: they put on a lab coat and color goggles, step through a color portal and explore rooms of light.
Free family activities run in the ground-floor studios, and low display cases in the Design Depot put ceramic lions and porcelain dogs at kid height.
Millesgården is the former home and studios of sculptor Carl Milles and his wife Olga, built on a granite cliff on Lidingö. Sculptures and fountains, including the Triton fountain, stand along stepped terraces, with the artist's home and an art gallery of changing exhibitions alongside.
Kids can hunt for Milles' angels in the park, fill in a sculpture-hunt booklet, or follow a children's trail folder from reception.
Moderna Museet is Sweden's state museum of modern and contemporary art, in a Rafael Moneo building on the island of Skeppsholmen. The collection runs from Picasso, Dalí and Matisse to Louise Bourgeois and a model of Tatlin's Tower, alongside changing exhibitions.
Outside, the sculpture park has Alexander Calder's The Four Elements and the bright painted figures of Le Paradis fantastique by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely.
Avicii Experience is a tribute museum to Swedish DJ and producer Tim "Avicii" Bergling, one floor below street level at Sergels Torg. The 350-square-meter exhibition follows his life and music career through interactive rooms, untold stories and music that has never been released.
The room kids remember is the one where they get to try performing in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans.
An illusion museum with more than 70 interactive exhibits, each built for posing and photos. Kids hang from the furniture in an upside-down living room, try to stay steady in a spinning tunnel, disappear into the walls of the Camouflage Room and watch their reflections repeat forever in a hexagonal mirror room. A Kaleidoscope exhibit lets them make their own patterns while picking up a little about light and reflection.
A 2,500-square-meter indoor exhibition on Skeppsholmen with 26 animatronic dinosaurs, two complete skeletons and three skulls. The dinosaurs stand in built sets with plants, water, wind, light, sound and scent, so kids walk through a prehistoric world instead of past glass cases.
It comes from the team behind Paradox Museum and Fotografiska. Moving animatronics with sound can be a lot for toddlers who scare easily.
A tropical greenhouse in Hagaparken where butterflies fly free around visitors, kept warm and humid at about 26°C all year. A large chrysalis cabinet holds newly hatched butterflies every day.
In the aquarium, reef sharks and colorful reef fish swim in a 30-meter tank holding 1.2 million liters, with frogs, turtles and koi nearby. On some weekends and holidays a zoologist gives shark talks and feeding demonstrations.
Stockholm City Museum tells the story of the city inside Södra stadshuset, a 17th-century building at Slussen. It is Sweden's largest municipal museum, with permanent and temporary exhibitions drawn from 300,000 objects, 25,000 works of art and 3.5 million photographs.
Kids can see how the city's streets, homes, parks and waterfront changed over time, and how the people who lived there spent their days.
Sweden's oldest museum, founded in 1628, fills the southeastern corner of the Royal Palace with armor, coronation robes and royal carriages. Kids come face to face with Streiff, the stuffed warhorse Gustavus Adolphus rode at Lützen, and the bloodstained clothes of kings.
The Children's Armoury lets them touch, smell and explore royal history under a starry ceiling, and the Palace Mouse trail sends families hunting through the galleries.
The Nobel Prize Museum fills the old Stock Exchange building on Stortorget. Its main exhibition, These Things Changed the World, shows over 250 objects donated by Nobel laureates.
Kids can follow the Little Explorer quiz trail, searching for clues about scientists, authors and Alfred Nobel himself, listen to a children's audio guide on a phone, or read, play and experiment in the Bubble Chamber playroom.
An interactive museum about the Swedish pop group, with original stage costumes, gold records and the Polar Studio mixing desk on show.
Kids can sing karaoke in The Audition, set up to feel like the Polar Studio, perform on stage as the fifth member alongside Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Frida, try the Tretow Mix Challenge and an ABBA quiz. The museum cinema screens films all day.
An interactive museum of the Viking Age on Djurgården, with archaeological finds, reconstructed Viking-era settings and objects kids can touch. It tells the stories of the women, children and men who lived on Scandinavian farms, not only the raiders. Guides in Viking-era clothing answer questions.
The big draw is Ragnfrid's Saga, an indoor ride through 10th-century Europe following Harald on a raid to win back his family's fortune.
The Swedish National Maritime Museum tells the story of people and the sea through ship models, figureheads and real wreckage. Straight ahead from the entrance sits the gilded stern of Amphion, Gustav III's 1778 pleasure ship, with its cabin preserved inside.
Battle Stations! shows centuries of navy ship models and parts of the submarine Ulven. Under-7s get Blubb, an underwater play room with submarines, fish and sunken treasure.
Sweden's largest cultural history museum fills an ornate 1907 building on Djurgården with over 1.5 million objects, covering everyday life in Sweden from the 1500s to today, from homes and set tables to Sami crafts.
Kids walk into the great hall under a giant painted and gilded oak statue of King Gustav Vasa by Carl Milles. Artur Hazelius, who also founded Skansen, started the museum in 1873.
Spårvägsmuseet tells the story of Stockholm's public transport inside the renovated Gasverket gasworks. Floors 1 to 3 hold 13 vehicles, from horse-drawn carriages and boats to trams and buses, plus old uniforms, tickets and T-bana art. Floor 4 walks through the history in order.
Kids can ride the mini T-bana, and those who need to burn off energy get Snabbare, a running track on floor 3.
Sweden's largest museum runs from dinosaur skeletons in Fossils and Evolution to the native animals of Nature in Sweden, set in their habitats. Polar Tracks covers the Arctic and Antarctica, and Treasures from the Earth's Interior has gemstones and crystals.
The Animal Human is the most hands-on hall, where kids test how their bodies work against other animals. The building also holds Cosmonova, an IMAX dome theater 23 meters across.
Tekniska museet, the National Museum of Science and Technology, has ten hands-on exhibitions across 12,000 square meters. In Teknoleket, the youngest visitors build marble mazes and turn cog wheels. In The Mine, kids walk the dark old mining tracks, then try drill simulators and detonate explosives. Play Beyond Play has game stations, and the Wisdome Stockholm dome runs 3D shows on space and nature.
Historiska museet holds The Viking World, billed as the largest Viking exhibition in the world, with 2,500 original objects, interactive stations and old Norse tales. Prehistories covers Stone Age tools, art and some of the first runes, and the Gold Room shows Viking Age silver pendants and Migration Period gold collars.
Free activity trails send kids through the exhibitions, and the courtyard gives them room to run.
The Police Museum tells the story of Swedish policing since 1850, and much of it is hands-on. In Polisliv, kids try on uniforms from different eras, step into a 1930s police kiosk and switch on the blue lights in a modern patrol car. Brottsspår centers on a crime scene to solve, and En större uppgift lets younger kids sit on a police motorcycle and groom a wooden horse.
Armémuseum tells Sweden's story of war and peace through the soldiers, women and children who lived it, from the 1500s to today. Full-scale scenes with life-size soldiers and original weapons fill Artillerigården, a former artillery depot whose buildings date from the 1700s.
The Trophy Chamber holds flags and spoils captured from defeated armies, and a smaller exhibit covers Raoul Wallenberg's rescue work in World War II.
The Vasa Museum is built around Vasa, a warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 and was raised after 333 years on the seabed. About 98% of the ship dates from the 1600s, covered in hundreds of wooden sculptures.
Kids can follow the family trail, compare the ship with a brightly painted model, watch the film about the Vasa Piglet, and join hands-on activities with museum staff.
Junibacken is an indoor attraction built around children's books, on Djurgården. The Story Train carries visitors through handmade sets from Astrid Lindgren's stories, from Emil to Ronja, with narration in 12 languages.
The ride ends at Villa Villekulla, Pippi Longstocking's house, where the in-house ensemble puts on theater shows. A story square holds scenes from the Moomins and other picture books, and there is a children's bookstore and a restaurant.
