Two islands a short walk apart, and plenty to fill a day with kids. Gamla Stan is the old town: cobbled lanes, royal history and winter markets. Södermalm, just south, is where local families go for hilltop lookouts, big parks, playgrounds, swimming and outdoor ice rinks in winter. This list gathers kids' theater, museums, seasonal events and places to run around on both sides of Slussen.
Häpp! is a gentle dance show by ZebraDans about two friends, two wooden stools and the simple joy of dancing together. With soft live music, a bit of humor and a little magic, the friends make the stools float and spin.
There is very little talking, so kids who don't speak Swedish can follow it. It suits toddlers and preschoolers who do better with a calm show.
Kurt and Kio are bored, the stare-at-the-ceiling kind of bored, until Kio decides a fort will fix everything. They just don't have one. What follows is an adventure around the living room, told mostly through movement and humor by two mime-trained actors. It's based on Lisen Adbåge's Swedish children's book Kurt och Kio vill ha koja, and suits kids who like silliness more than a long story.
Gräv (Dig) is a new puppet musical by Miriam Forsberg. Every morning Billie walks past a building site on the way to preschool, until one day the digger turns and looks back. A friendship grows from feeling different, and Billie's fascination brings back the digger's lost spark.
Songs carry the story. The director calls it a tribute to kids with special interests, so it lands well with machine-obsessed preschoolers.
A hands-on chemistry session in the workshop of the Nobel Prize Museum, in the middle of Gamla Stan. Kids run two experiments: they start a chemical reaction inside a plastic glove and make a substance that wasn't there before, then use what the museum calls "fart juice" to watch liquids change in front of them. It suits kids who like to mix things and see what happens.
Språkfesten (The Language Party) is Stockholm City Library's day about growing up with more than one language. Authors and illustrators read picture books aloud, often in two languages, and kids can ask them questions and get a book signed. A book fair carries children's books in Swedish and about 20 other languages. It suits multilingual families most; the main stage leans adult, so head for the kids' stage.
Dröse & Norberg's own stage version of The Jungle Book, with Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Kaa and Shere Kahn alongside a troop of monkeys and their King Gibbon. It mixes original songs, humor and acrobatics, played by a large cast of Swedish musical performers in big fur-and-feather costumes. The show has drawn over 200,000 people and suits kids who can sit through a full-length theater show with an intermission.
A solo physical theater show for toddlers and preschoolers about how hard it is to learn something new, and how proud you feel when you suddenly can. Per Dahlström sweeps, stumbles, whistles and rides a unicycle, losing heart along the way until a small green horn turns into a cheeky bird that won't let him quit. It suits kids learning to try again when something goes wrong.
Lorpan längtar (roughly "Lorpan longs") is a puppet play from Dockteatern Tittut, a Södermalm theater that has made stage shows for the very youngest since 1977.
It is performed in Swedish, so it works best for kids who understand the language. A good first theater trip for toddlers and preschoolers.
A physical comedy loosely based on Barbro Lindgren's books about Loranga, Masarin and Dartanjang. Kids follow Masarin home through the forest, past the junk heap and the giraffe, to where Pappa Loranga sleeps under the kitchen table. Then something rumbles in the distance. It must be tigers! The play tumbles through tiger hunts, pike shoals, bullfights and car races, all about being strong, scared and almost happy.
Tomtebobarnen is a dance and music show for toddlers, loosely based on Elsa Beskow's picture book Children of the Forest. Three performers in red mushroom hats play siblings through a year in the woods: they grow, squabble, play and learn about each other. Teater Tre tells it through dance, movement, music and play, and the room is small, so the youngest sit close to the action.
Nobel Week Lights is a light art festival that turns Stockholm's streets and squares into canvases during the darkest time of the year. International and local artists, designers and students build large-scale light artworks that interpret the Nobel Prize and the ideas behind it.
Kids walk from one glowing piece to the next, so it suits a toddler in a stroller as much as a curious teenager. Everything is outdoors.
Lucia is one of Sweden's best-loved traditions, and Storkyrkan, the medieval cathedral in Gamla stan, is a classic place to see it. The Lucia procession enters in white with a crown of candles, and choirs sing the Lucia and Staffan songs of the day.
This is the family performance of the cathedral's Lucia concerts. It suits kids who can sit quietly through a concert in a dim, candlelit church.
Kulturnatt is the evening when cultural venues all over Stockholm stay open late, each with a program of its own. Every place is its own organizer, so the night looks different depending on where you go, and there are guided walks outdoors too.
With small kids, pick two or three spots close together and leave it there. Older kids who like staying up get a rare night out in town.
Locals call it Stora Bleckan. At its center is a city-run parklek, a staffed playground with one of the city's biggest slides, a zip line, trampolines, swings, sandboxes, climbing frames, ping-pong tables and courts for basketball and bandy.
The parklek building has indoor toilets, a changing room, a play room and a clubroom for older kids, and pens hold pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs.
Zinkensdamms IP, known locally as Zinken, is a City of Stockholm sports ground from 1937, designed by architect Paul Hedqvist. In winter the whole field is artificially frozen into a big outdoor ice surface, and it is the home ground of Hammarby IF's bandy team, which plays in Elitserien, the top Swedish league. Public skating sessions share the ice with club training and matches.
A small outdoor ice rink set on Medborgarplatsen, the large Södermalm square locals call "Medis". In winter kids skate laps right in the middle of the square; in summer the same spot turns into a terrace with benches.
A big public library stands on one corner of the square, and the 17th-century Lillienhoff Palace sits diagonally across.
Monteliusvägen is a 416-meter walking path along the steep edge of Mariaberget, high above Söder Mälarstrand. Terraces and benches, some with fixed tables, look out over Riddarfjärden to City Hall, Riddarholmen and Gamla stan. Steps and cobbled lanes like Blecktornsgränd climb up from below, and the path opens onto two small parks. Kids can spot pieces of old millstones set into the retaining walls.
The Djurgården ferry is SL's line 82, a short public-transport crossing from Slussen to Allmänna gränd on Djurgården, with a request stop at Skeppsholmen. The boats are built the same at both ends, so they never turn around, a design used since the line began in 1897 for the Stockholm Exhibition.
The Djurgården landing is close to Gröna Lund, the Vasa Museum and Skansen.
Eriksdalsbadet is the City of Stockholm's big public swimming complex beside Årstaviken, and Sweden's national arena for competitive swimming. Indoors there are 50-meter and 25-meter pools, a diving pool with a tower and a teaching pool.
The adventure pool has water slides, several whirlpools and a section where you can swim out into the open air. A large outdoor 50-meter pool opens in summer.
Långholmsbadet is the public swimming beach on the north shore of Långholmen, a green island between Södermalm and Kungsholmen, right beside the Västerbron bridge and facing Riddarfjärden.
A path follows the shore around the whole island, past the old prison buildings. East of the bridge sits Långholmens klippbad, a rocky swimming spot first laid out as a bath for women and children.
Tantolunden is one of the largest parks in the inner city, spread over a hill that slopes down to Årstaviken. Winding paths lead up to the top, and the slopes fill with sleds once snow falls.
There is a playground, a beach volleyball court, minigolf and a frisbee golf course. Up the hill, more than 100 allotment gardens with small cottages have been tended behind their fences since 1915.
The play area on Mariaberget follows a countryside theme by artist Tor Svae: small farmhouses, a barn, and wooden farm animals kids can climb on, plus a small artificial-grass pitch. A huge hollow ash tree stands by the Bastugatan entrance.
The park is named after author Ivar Lo-Johansson, who lived across the street, and looks out over Riddarfjärden and Gamla stan. In winter, the south slope is a sledding hill.
A themed playground built like a small shipyard, with a tugboat, a carpentry shop and a workshop with tools for pretend repairs. The design honors Anders Franzén, the naval archaeologist who found the wreck of the 1628 galleon Vasa in 1956.
The park also has a skate park, so older siblings have something to do while younger kids play.
Bryggartäppan recreates a Södermalm workers' neighborhood from the late 1800s at child scale. Small wooden houses, among them a workshop, a smithy, stables and a factory building, give kids a whole village to run between and play inside.
Old fruit trees and lilac bushes frame the grounds. In summer there are outdoor pools for splashing and a café selling waffles, coffee and ice cream.
The King's official residence has more than 600 rooms over eleven floors, and much of it is open to visitors. Kids can walk the state apartments, see the crowns and regalia in the Treasury's cellar vaults, and pass through the medieval gate in Museum Three Crowns.
An animal safari map from the front desk sends kids hunting for animals hidden on walls, ceilings and furniture.
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.
Two islands a short walk apart, and plenty to fill a day with kids. Gamla Stan is the old town: cobbled lanes, royal history and winter markets. Södermalm, just south, is where local families go for hilltop lookouts, big parks, playgrounds, swimming and outdoor ice rinks in winter. This list gathers kids' theater, museums, seasonal events and places to run around on both sides of Slussen.
Häpp! is a gentle dance show by ZebraDans about two friends, two wooden stools and the simple joy of dancing together. With soft live music, a bit of humor and a little magic, the friends make the stools float and spin.
There is very little talking, so kids who don't speak Swedish can follow it. It suits toddlers and preschoolers who do better with a calm show.
Kurt and Kio are bored, the stare-at-the-ceiling kind of bored, until Kio decides a fort will fix everything. They just don't have one. What follows is an adventure around the living room, told mostly through movement and humor by two mime-trained actors. It's based on Lisen Adbåge's Swedish children's book Kurt och Kio vill ha koja, and suits kids who like silliness more than a long story.
Gräv (Dig) is a new puppet musical by Miriam Forsberg. Every morning Billie walks past a building site on the way to preschool, until one day the digger turns and looks back. A friendship grows from feeling different, and Billie's fascination brings back the digger's lost spark.
Songs carry the story. The director calls it a tribute to kids with special interests, so it lands well with machine-obsessed preschoolers.
A hands-on chemistry session in the workshop of the Nobel Prize Museum, in the middle of Gamla Stan. Kids run two experiments: they start a chemical reaction inside a plastic glove and make a substance that wasn't there before, then use what the museum calls "fart juice" to watch liquids change in front of them. It suits kids who like to mix things and see what happens.
Språkfesten (The Language Party) is Stockholm City Library's day about growing up with more than one language. Authors and illustrators read picture books aloud, often in two languages, and kids can ask them questions and get a book signed. A book fair carries children's books in Swedish and about 20 other languages. It suits multilingual families most; the main stage leans adult, so head for the kids' stage.
Dröse & Norberg's own stage version of The Jungle Book, with Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Kaa and Shere Kahn alongside a troop of monkeys and their King Gibbon. It mixes original songs, humor and acrobatics, played by a large cast of Swedish musical performers in big fur-and-feather costumes. The show has drawn over 200,000 people and suits kids who can sit through a full-length theater show with an intermission.
A solo physical theater show for toddlers and preschoolers about how hard it is to learn something new, and how proud you feel when you suddenly can. Per Dahlström sweeps, stumbles, whistles and rides a unicycle, losing heart along the way until a small green horn turns into a cheeky bird that won't let him quit. It suits kids learning to try again when something goes wrong.
Lorpan längtar (roughly "Lorpan longs") is a puppet play from Dockteatern Tittut, a Södermalm theater that has made stage shows for the very youngest since 1977.
It is performed in Swedish, so it works best for kids who understand the language. A good first theater trip for toddlers and preschoolers.
A physical comedy loosely based on Barbro Lindgren's books about Loranga, Masarin and Dartanjang. Kids follow Masarin home through the forest, past the junk heap and the giraffe, to where Pappa Loranga sleeps under the kitchen table. Then something rumbles in the distance. It must be tigers! The play tumbles through tiger hunts, pike shoals, bullfights and car races, all about being strong, scared and almost happy.
Tomtebobarnen is a dance and music show for toddlers, loosely based on Elsa Beskow's picture book Children of the Forest. Three performers in red mushroom hats play siblings through a year in the woods: they grow, squabble, play and learn about each other. Teater Tre tells it through dance, movement, music and play, and the room is small, so the youngest sit close to the action.
Nobel Week Lights is a light art festival that turns Stockholm's streets and squares into canvases during the darkest time of the year. International and local artists, designers and students build large-scale light artworks that interpret the Nobel Prize and the ideas behind it.
Kids walk from one glowing piece to the next, so it suits a toddler in a stroller as much as a curious teenager. Everything is outdoors.
Lucia is one of Sweden's best-loved traditions, and Storkyrkan, the medieval cathedral in Gamla stan, is a classic place to see it. The Lucia procession enters in white with a crown of candles, and choirs sing the Lucia and Staffan songs of the day.
This is the family performance of the cathedral's Lucia concerts. It suits kids who can sit quietly through a concert in a dim, candlelit church.
Kulturnatt is the evening when cultural venues all over Stockholm stay open late, each with a program of its own. Every place is its own organizer, so the night looks different depending on where you go, and there are guided walks outdoors too.
With small kids, pick two or three spots close together and leave it there. Older kids who like staying up get a rare night out in town.
Locals call it Stora Bleckan. At its center is a city-run parklek, a staffed playground with one of the city's biggest slides, a zip line, trampolines, swings, sandboxes, climbing frames, ping-pong tables and courts for basketball and bandy.
The parklek building has indoor toilets, a changing room, a play room and a clubroom for older kids, and pens hold pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs.
Zinkensdamms IP, known locally as Zinken, is a City of Stockholm sports ground from 1937, designed by architect Paul Hedqvist. In winter the whole field is artificially frozen into a big outdoor ice surface, and it is the home ground of Hammarby IF's bandy team, which plays in Elitserien, the top Swedish league. Public skating sessions share the ice with club training and matches.
A small outdoor ice rink set on Medborgarplatsen, the large Södermalm square locals call "Medis". In winter kids skate laps right in the middle of the square; in summer the same spot turns into a terrace with benches.
A big public library stands on one corner of the square, and the 17th-century Lillienhoff Palace sits diagonally across.
Monteliusvägen is a 416-meter walking path along the steep edge of Mariaberget, high above Söder Mälarstrand. Terraces and benches, some with fixed tables, look out over Riddarfjärden to City Hall, Riddarholmen and Gamla stan. Steps and cobbled lanes like Blecktornsgränd climb up from below, and the path opens onto two small parks. Kids can spot pieces of old millstones set into the retaining walls.
The Djurgården ferry is SL's line 82, a short public-transport crossing from Slussen to Allmänna gränd on Djurgården, with a request stop at Skeppsholmen. The boats are built the same at both ends, so they never turn around, a design used since the line began in 1897 for the Stockholm Exhibition.
The Djurgården landing is close to Gröna Lund, the Vasa Museum and Skansen.
Eriksdalsbadet is the City of Stockholm's big public swimming complex beside Årstaviken, and Sweden's national arena for competitive swimming. Indoors there are 50-meter and 25-meter pools, a diving pool with a tower and a teaching pool.
The adventure pool has water slides, several whirlpools and a section where you can swim out into the open air. A large outdoor 50-meter pool opens in summer.
Långholmsbadet is the public swimming beach on the north shore of Långholmen, a green island between Södermalm and Kungsholmen, right beside the Västerbron bridge and facing Riddarfjärden.
A path follows the shore around the whole island, past the old prison buildings. East of the bridge sits Långholmens klippbad, a rocky swimming spot first laid out as a bath for women and children.
Tantolunden is one of the largest parks in the inner city, spread over a hill that slopes down to Årstaviken. Winding paths lead up to the top, and the slopes fill with sleds once snow falls.
There is a playground, a beach volleyball court, minigolf and a frisbee golf course. Up the hill, more than 100 allotment gardens with small cottages have been tended behind their fences since 1915.
The play area on Mariaberget follows a countryside theme by artist Tor Svae: small farmhouses, a barn, and wooden farm animals kids can climb on, plus a small artificial-grass pitch. A huge hollow ash tree stands by the Bastugatan entrance.
The park is named after author Ivar Lo-Johansson, who lived across the street, and looks out over Riddarfjärden and Gamla stan. In winter, the south slope is a sledding hill.
A themed playground built like a small shipyard, with a tugboat, a carpentry shop and a workshop with tools for pretend repairs. The design honors Anders Franzén, the naval archaeologist who found the wreck of the 1628 galleon Vasa in 1956.
The park also has a skate park, so older siblings have something to do while younger kids play.
Bryggartäppan recreates a Södermalm workers' neighborhood from the late 1800s at child scale. Small wooden houses, among them a workshop, a smithy, stables and a factory building, give kids a whole village to run between and play inside.
Old fruit trees and lilac bushes frame the grounds. In summer there are outdoor pools for splashing and a café selling waffles, coffee and ice cream.
The King's official residence has more than 600 rooms over eleven floors, and much of it is open to visitors. Kids can walk the state apartments, see the crowns and regalia in the Treasury's cellar vaults, and pass through the medieval gate in Museum Three Crowns.
An animal safari map from the front desk sends kids hunting for animals hidden on walls, ceilings and furniture.
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.
