Buying a $20K Cabin in the Woods (Sweden is CHEAP)

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My suggestion is to rent a place you love for a year so you can experience all conditions. Then decide if it feels like a fit for the long haul. Some travel and some stability might be a nice mix.

Roaming Wild Rosie is fixing up a Swedish cottage and she started with hand tools and still has no car. She produces the most beautiful and relaxing videos.

Hi guys, just my tuppenceworth; like you I have perpetual itchy feet and actually physically vomited when we signed our mortgage in UK 18 years ago. That house has been rented out for a fair chunk of that time while we've been travelling. One of the places we have lived in is Sweden. Now I know it's not fashionable to say anything against the perceived paradise that is Scandinavia, however, having lived for 7 months through Winter, Spring and Summer on the islands off Gothenburg, the thing I struggled most with was the light. For 5 months of the year you will find it dark and miserable. I found the UK winters got me down and with Emma's history of depression that is definitely something to take into consideration - the snow and cold are dealt with very well there - the right housing insulation and clothing can work wonders, but they don't do anything about the light. I found it too dark for January to April, really, the days were just too short, then in Summer the days are too long and you have to learn to sleep in the light only having 2 hours of actual darkness per night - which yes, you can get blackout blinds, but that stops the airflow in the house - and it gets warm, so that's definitely something to think about. If you're thinking of homestead style life, the growing season is SHORT unless you have a top notch greenhouse setup. Then there's the taxes. They are very high. You get your money's worth, but it is something to consider. Also groceries and produce are expensive. Swedish people are generally incredibly nice, but they have their friendship groups and aren't naturally seeking to meet more friends, so building your community can take time. That said when you do 'crack the nut' you have true friends for life! A cheap house isn't the only thing, but I can understand how it's enticing on the surface.

I sold my large four bedroom house in Chicago and moved into a two room house, just five minutes from the beach in Mexico. I couldn't be happier.

A small "stuga" (cottage) in the forest my seem romantic, but you would find a lot of difficulties coming with it, especially in our long winter. School is compulsory here, and you need the proximity of it for your son. The northern part of Sweden is enticing, but the summers with mosquito clouds are a curse. As soon as you come closer to civilization, the house prices shoot up. Lots of stuff to consider. Anyway, it was so cool to see you two considering my country :)

My advice, as a parent of three, now adults, get your travelling itch in as much as you can now, while Noah is still a little one. Once he gets to school age it's really not fair to be dragging him around all over the place preventing him develop friendships and routines. Do the settling down stuff at that stage. You can still go on travelling stints in the school holidays. it's also all very easy when things are okay, but if something goes wrong, you need your support network around you.

I think sometimes our indecisions come from a place of not wanting to take responsibility for what we may perceive as a mistake. ( it comes from fear ) Maybe changing words like mistakes... to learning valuable lessons, is the key. Stop avoiding the lessons and take one step at a time. Make a decision, it's okay. Remember, there is no failure, just lessons learned.💚💙

You’re never really tied to a house. Having bought and sold three, and lived in 14 different flats, you soon realize nothing is permanent. ❤

I’m going to impart some advice here. I’ve worked in the movie business for 30+ years on various film sets from Vancouver, to Texas, to NYC, to Budapest and all places in between. I’ve been on a long run of living like a nomad. Staying in one place too long made me itchy to go on the next adventure. Ok, sounds like fun, but here am, several decades from when I started, and I have no home base with community that I’m connected to. It’s given me a whole pile of regret for a home and connected life I didn’t even know I wanted. Be careful waiting too long to set down some roots. It’s a daunting prospect if you think “this is it, the place I’m stuck with for the rest of my life?” But Establishing a home. . . It’s a journey, just like travels are. No one says you’re stuck in that one place for the rest of your life. You’re young. Try someplace out. It might not be the perfect place…..but it just might be the perfect place.

Welcome to Sweden. Me and my family live in a house in the woods since 4 years. We moved from Stockholm and we love it. The silence and the wildlife are amazing.

Do it! I moved to Canada 13 years ago. I live on three acres on a beach, no close neighbours, we are safe, don’t shut our doors,20 minutes from a small harbour, 2 hours from big shops but I love it. I go back to England and it’s terrifying. Everyone one is busy, aggressive, drive too fast, don’t have time, live too close, less and less green space as they add more and more houses. I don’t always feel that safe, I can’t wait to get back to see deer in the garden and eagles. I’m not even sure I could afford to move back to the UK. .

So cool to see you experiencing the butterflies of Swedish country living for the first time. Before buying my cottage in Värmland in 2020, I lived vanlife between summers in Sweden and winters in Portugal, Spain and Italy for over 6 years. The beauty of Sweden is, that wild camping is allowed and even if you have your own place it is so easy to go on adventures with a van or tent and discover the rest of the country and potentially the rest of Scandinavia or even Europe. The biggest disadvantages I find worth noting are the long distance driving, especially in winter with icy road conditions, mosquitoes in summer and high taxes. But those are small compromises in my opinion for everything you get living surrounded by nature. It could be a good idea to rent and experience the seasons before committing, on the other hand, it is just as easy to sell a house here as it is to buy one... One thing to be aware of is that houses on a lakeside are quite a bit more expensive than those tucked away. But if you are happy with a small cottage you might be willing to pay extra for the beautiful view. Looking forward to seeing how your house hunting journey will go from here on. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to hear more about my experience or have specific questions about the process. Greetings from my forest cabin, Karin

Sweden is a lovely place with a hellish amount of mosquitoes and a painfully short summer. If you do decide on it, go south to skaane and up above 80 meters and away from the coast some 40 KM minimum. You will have a relative easy access to Copenhagen. Godspeed. T.

A little advice that's been relevant for my family on making big decisions. First - buying a house is a choice and not buying a house is a choice. Both "tie you down" in a sense in that they limit your options. There is no avoiding making choices. Not making the choice is a choice in itself! Second, when we make one choice - like choosing a place to live - we are left with many, many more choices to make. It's kind of like getting married or having a child. It's one choice and it narrows your scope of other choices but you're still left with so many options - what to do for work, what vacations to take, what hobbies to embrace, what friends to make etc. Sometimes choosing something that will limit other choices is actually a gift because infinite choices can be paralyzing. Hope this helps!

I moved a lot when I was younger, so I definitely had itchy feet. At fifty, I accidently moved to my forever place. The itchy feet did calm down but it never totally goes away. Especially when a friend or someone takes a trip or moves somewhere. I am now 79. My advice is to do your exploring and adventures when your young. I am older and now have physical limitations, so I am not able to go exploring. I do miss it. I now live in Colorado, and I have deer, foxes, raccoons and the occasional bear that go by my house. Nature is very important to me. Good luck.

As you are aware it gets COLD there. Maybe revisit in Winter to get the real chill picture.

Growing up in the 70's, 80's and even through the 90's, I moved from country to country at the whim of the Military. As a child and as an adult myself. Often times just staying long enough to make a few friends just to say goodbye to them. I promised my oldest son (who was born in the midst's of all this) that once he starts school that we would not move again until he graduated school and moved out on his own. Now we're full time in the RV and travel again, because my wife hasn't had the chance to see everything that I did. Yeah, traveling we get to see the world, but for a child.... we rob them of never having a life long friend, often times major life events like Prom, school sports, and such.... I have no ROOTS, my children do though. That might be a thought.

Dear Beans, to satisfy your itchy travel feet and need to put down roots at the same time, I really recommend rooting into a place that either has a well connected international airport within 1 hour drive OR a place that has a lot of interesting destinations you can visit within a half day's drive. I say this because I used to be a US digital nomad traveling nonstop for a few years. Then I put roots down in a fairly remote part of a remote foreign country: Queenstown, New Zealand. But it has TONS of destinations you can visit in a short drive and an international airport to get you out of there. However, that airport is NOT well connected to get you anywhere truly different, and after about 4 years I'd seen everything in the local area multiple times in different seasons. So I got itchy feet to leave and put down roots in a more well-connected area. Thankfully I had rented, so it was fairly easy to move! I recommend renting first and staying in the area for at least 1 month during different seasons to see if you really might like to live in that place year-round and not just on a holiday for a week.

I don't know Sweden, but I know the feeling of wanting nature back. I've lived in a lot of different places, and I thought I couldn't settle somewhere. But I had the urge to buy something in a very small village near the ocean (somewhere with no shop, to give you an idea). It has been 2 years and I have absolutely no regret and no urge to move. Even traveling long distances as gotten something I don't really want to do anymore (exception aside). Because when you are surrounded by nature, things change constantly, you do not need to see as much new places because you have so much to explore already