 The day is finally here. I'm going to Sweden. So I was a Swedish exchange student back in 1997-98, and I absolutely loved it. This is a dream trip. When I lived in Sweden as an exchange student, I always wanted to go north, way north, and experience the midnight sun. But I never made it happen. Until today. Luckily, I have a late flight, which means I can have a leisurely morning and go to breakfast with two of my favorite people. Last little bike ride in Boulder for a while. All right, I pulled off to the side of the road to show you how beautiful Boulder looks right now. It's all green and glorious. There it is, the famous Duzerito, and I'm with Santa and Dana. Thank you. I love you too. I'll miss you. Oh, it's time for Mexican food. I won't get a lot of this in Sweden. Oh, beautiful Boulder. I love you. I am getting in one last run because from here on out for the next three weeks or so, I'm going to be on a bike, and you know I love running too. Hey, look, it's Amelia Boone. Why aren't you going to Sweden? Because I have to work. Oh, you have one of those nine-to-fives. Have a good one. I will see you down the road. I'll think of you when I'm way up at the top of the world. I'll say hi to Santa Claus for you. And now I am in a car, not driving because I don't really drive. We're heading to the bus station, and the bus will take me to the airport. You want to know who's driving? It's my mama. It's mommy. How you doing? I'm good for your adventure. Oh, thanks. You've taken me and dropped me off in a lot of these adventures. I appreciate it. Many. Many, many. You don't worry anymore, right? No, that's not true. Her hair is a little bit gray. Those are all because of me. But I'm wishing you well, and I know you're going to have a great time. Thank you. I love you. Love you too. You be safe. I will be. I promise. Bye, Ryan. Love you too. You have the best time, and you be safe. I will be safe. I promise. I promise. I love you. Here we go. I'm on my personal limousine. Check it out. This is the bus that I've been taking to the airport forever. All right. I'm at the airport in this cool little outdoor hangout zone, and I am just so excited to be going to Sweden. I was an exchange student there back in 1998. It was a very influential year of my life. I had never really traveled outside of Boulder. I hadn't been away from my family and my brothers and sister and my mom, and I grew a lot, and I really owe a lot to Sweden. I love it with all of my heart. I love my host family. I love my Swedish sister, Sofia and Carl and Gustav, and I am just overjoyed that I'm on my way now to Sweden, and I'm going to stop talking because I need to go get on my flight. But man, I'm just happy. I immediately felt at home in Sweden, and I owe a lot of that to my sister, Sofia. She made sure that I was included in everything. We went to the same school, both the final year of gymnasium, which is their version of being a senior in high school. She even introduced me to her best friend, Terace, who later became my girlfriend, my first love. In the beginning, I didn't know any Swedish, but after a few months of school and reading children's books with my Swedish mom, I started to get the hang of Svenska. Thank you, Pippi Longstocking. By the end of the year, I didn't want to go back to Boulder. I loved Sweden with all of my heart. So you're probably wondering where my bike is. Well, we sent it ahead of time with DHL, and I really hope it's there. Because if it's not, I'll be walking the length of Sweden. There's my flight right there. Oh man, we're getting so close. I have been wanting to do this adventure for a very long time. Last summer, I had everything packed, my bike packed, and 24 hours before my flight, Scandinavian Airlines went on strike and all the itineraries were cleared, so I couldn't go. But I'm at it again this year, one year later. Nothing's gonna stop me. I will never forget the moment that I left my family in this very room that was back when people could come to your actual gate before all the security stuff. I left my family in 1997, and I just had tears streaming down my face. I was scared. I had never done anything like this before, and I was getting on a plane and going to live in a foreign country for a full year. And man, was it hard. I was crying with my brothers and my mom, and I was a mess. And as you know, I'm a softie. I love these magic carpets because they're so smooth, great place to film. Anyway, I was scared to death when I got on the flight and when I got to Sweden and was embraced by my new host family. All my worries just flew away because they're just so loving and welcoming and kind, and I am so excited to see them. I'm going to ride my bike from the top all the way to the bottom where they live, and I'm going to hug them and kiss them, and it's going to feel so good. This is cool. You were never able to do this before. You could never just walk outside, and now you can, and I love it because fresh air out of an airport is quite a luxury. I'm just standing here looking at beautiful Colorado summertime, and you know one of the main reasons why I'm so excited about this is I get to visit an entirely new part of Sweden and travel through Sweden in a way that I've never done before. I get to ride my bike 1,500 miles from the very top to the bottom and most of the top part of Sweden is just woods. It's going to be fascinating and this sun right here is never going to set when I'm way up north. How cool is that? Maybe I'll ride my bike till midnight. Here we go, here we go. Okay, I'm going to be the buffering. I have 20 minutes to my next flight boards. And this, my friends, is why I wear running shoes to the airport just in case you need to run. I made it. Ooh, that was a close one. And I'm in Sweden. Do you know what this is? This is a chocolate ball Hukladboll I've loved these since day one in Sweden. Oh yeah, I get to walk outside I get to breathe a little Swedish air now. Oh man, I can't tell you how happy I am right now. I just got to speak some Swedish with the lady at the desk and look, there's my plane and it's taking me to the North Pole. It's raining a little bit but it feels good. It's like 9.15pm and totally light out. It's like that. This is a tiny airport. I'm out the door and on my way to the hotel. Here I am on the streets of Kyruna and I'm ready to sleep but maybe I'll put the bike together first. I don't know. I heard that it's here. Very good news. I got confirmation at the Stockholm Airport that they have my bike. Thank you, DHL. Head Adam Taximika Here we go. It's pretty amazing that I got here and my bike got here all as well. Check it out. Ryan Van Duzer's bike for Sweden This isn't the ideal area to put together a bike. It's kind of tight in this Scandinavian hotel room but the sun's still shining. It's almost 10pm. Now for the moment of truth is it all here? All right. I mean it looks like it's here. I should probably get some sleep. I've been up for about 24 hours now but I'm jacked. I'm wired. I want to get this thing together and then I'll fall asleep. Trying to get down to the bottom here. I love it when I'm smart. I packed this pretty early last week and I'm glad that I put my fig bars in there because I'm hungry right now. I'm going to eat this. Now I just have to get all of this stuff that's spread out all over my room onto that bike. This bike is the priority 600x and I designed it with my friends at priority bicycles. What makes it unique is the pinion and gates low maintenance drivetrain. If you want to nerd out about all the details I will put some links down below along with an entire packing list of everything I'm bringing. And check it out. I finally got a new bike computer. This is the solar powered Garmin 1040. I'm excited because we have lots of solar power. It is past 11 now and fully bright outside. All right. It's looking pretty good. It's not totally there but it is 1123. And this is just blowing my mind. It is completely bright up. I mean it's cloudy but hi mom how's it going? I'm up. I'm putting the bike together. I'm all wired and I thought get a head start on things. Anyway I just wanted to call and tell you that I love you that I'm safe and I'm at the top of the world. Look at that. Look at this. It is 1155pm I should be sleeping but I wanted to experience sunlight at midnight and it's fully bright out as you can see. Unbelievable. And I imagine if there were no clouds it would be even brighter. All right. I'm just going to go for a little walk, shake out everything. I've been traveling for a while and then hopefully fall asleep and then get up and then start the adventure. Okay. It is now 30 minutes past midnight and if I'm going to sleep I'm going to need to shut this down. Okay. Travel days are always just so discombobulating. It's been 24 hours since I left Boulder and airplanes just blow me away. I'm so grateful for airplanes and how they can just transport humans so quickly around the world. Now it's time to sleep. I got to get some sleep. I got to go to bed. Good night. Good night. And this my friends is what I look like with a little stubble. There's a couple adapters for Swedish plugs my box of batteries and cables my Pelican case full of lots of SD cards my GoPro and this is a new toy. This is the Garmin In-Reach messenger and I pretty much got this so that I can let my mom know that I'm okay when I don't have cell phone reception. I am going to be in the middle of nowhere quite a bit. I have been told by pretty much everybody in Sweden that the mosquitoes up here are horrible. So I have this cool head net that's going to keep me safe. I don't know if I'll wear it while riding. Hopefully I won't need it while riding but definitely at night time and camp I'm going to be wearing this stylish accessory. Looks like a wedding veil or something in black. Okay. You want to hear something funny that's not so funny? Well, it's kind of funny actually. I did an almost perfect job but then I realized I don't have any shorts. All I have are my long pants and you know, I need some shorts. So shopping trip now. Okay. I'm at a Swedish dressing room now and I found some shorts here that I think will work. What do you think? Looks pretty good. I'm happy with it. And there's a bonus Swedish flag. Oh yeah. Now it's time to buy some Swedish food. You know they have Nutella. This is where I fell in love with Nutella when I was an exchange student. My mom brought it out the first morning I was here and I freaked out because it was so good. I'm always blown away by how much food grocery stores have. Even here at the top of the world, you can get any vegetable or fruit you could ever imagine. Oh, check it out. I found the Mexican section and I was an exchange student here long ago. It was really hard to find anything from Mexico. And look, they even have tortillas. But do they have beans? We'll find out. I am not seeing beans. Where are my beans? Beans, beans, beans. Oh man. Well, I didn't really expect them to have refried beans, but maybe I'll find something to put in these tortillas. In fact, did you know that Oatly is a Swedish brand? I drink this at home in Boulder. Look what I found. Nutella and even the generic brand Nut Cream. Nut Cream. Oh, and here's the peanut butter. You know, I feel exhausted just having packed all this up. It takes a long time. But I'm ready to hit the road, I think. It's about 12 30. It's not an early start, but hey, the sun never sets so I can ride forever. Okay, wide load coming through. It's a cozy fit, but it works. Thanks for everything. I really appreciate it. It's really nice. Okay, Ryan, let's do this. Ah, the fresh air makes everything better. I'm ready to cruise. There's my bike. There's all my stuff. There's my shoes. Here's me. Here's Sweden. Sun all day all night. There's my entire route here down Sweden. This is my route. A not so direct way to get from here in Kiruna to the bottom of Sweden. Why isn't it direct, you ask? Well, I want to ride the Swedish section of the Euro divide trail, which is mostly on remote dirt roads. In fact, a thousand miles a 100 mile route is on this trail. And check this out. The entire Euro divide is 4,700 miles long and goes from Portugal all the way to Northern Norway. Maybe I'll do that one another day, but for today I've created a route that will get me to the Swedish section of the divide trail and that's about 90 miles away. I'm back in Sweden. No crashes, no flaties no whammies all the way down Sweden. Ole, ole, ole, ole. Check it out. There's a sign for the world famous Ice Hotel. I wonder how much ice is happening right now. But I'm going that way. Sorry, Ice Hotel. I'll come back in the winter sometime and check out the Northern Lights. There's a lot more people up here than I thought there'd be. A lot of cars on the road and I'm guessing it's because the mid-summer holiday is tomorrow and Swedes love to go outside and celebrate mid-summer when the weather is nice. This is definitely one of the busiest roads I've ridden in a long time and I really don't like it. These cars are freaking me out and it's funny because there really aren't that many people that live this far north and I feel like every single person is on the road today. So I'm going to do my best to ride as fast as possible and get off this thing. Ah, the traffic. I picked the wrong day to be on this road. So a lot of the names around here are actually Indigenous. The Sami people who live up here in Swedish Lapland are some of the few Indigenous people in all of Europe and they heard reindeer and they live off the land just like a lot of Indigenous people around the world. And maybe I'll get to meet some. I don't know. I've never met a Sami person. It's going to be interesting to see if I can find one. I just pulled right off the road here. Check this out. I did not expect to see this way up here. A Tesla charging station. Nice. I guess Sweden has embraced the Teslas as well. I found a bike path along the highway. Yes! Any break from cars, car noise is a welcome break. But I know this is only going to last another a quarter of a mile, but I am going to enjoy it. I just want to point out something to you. So this is a Swedish summer house and they pretty much all look the same. They're red with white trim. Very classic and beautiful. And I'm going to show you a lot of these all the way down Sweden. I'll expand a bit on the Swedish summer house thing. You might be thinking, really they have a summer house? Are Swedes super rich? No, not really. But summer houses are usually very rustic. They're like cabins really. And it's a place where Swedes go to just enjoy nature and a lot of times they're near water. Swimming is a big thing in the summertime. And another reason why they have summer houses, the place to go to escape the city life is because Swedes have like five or six weeks of vacation every year. Which is way more than us in the United States. They know how to live life and enjoy it. That goes for most Europeans actually. And they go to their summer houses with their families and just hang out in mid-summer, which is going to be celebrated tomorrow. It's like the prime day for heading summer houses. Little red cabins with white trim. You'll see them all over Sweden. I feel like I'm getting into my groove a little bit. Got off to a little bit of a shaky start. Didn't sleep last night or really the night before on the airplane. But I'm moving forward I'm pedaling my bike and I'm enjoying life. And I feel like with every pedal stroke my blood pressure goes down a little bit. I'm in Sweden. I've been dreaming of this for a long time. Here's another cool road sign Myrvara. Looks like this one is in two languages. I'm guessing one is Swedish, one is Sami. Myrvara. Look at these crazy buildings way off in the distance. It's some sort of mining operation probably iron ore. That's what this area is known for. But it looks like a space station. So speaking of iron ore there is the largest, the world's largest iron ore operation in Kiruna. And I guess it's gotten so big that they're moving the entire town. Hello! They're moving the entire town because they need more room for the iron ore operation and digging and excavating. And you want to know who I learned that from? My new friend Bike Touring Mike He's here on YouTube. I will link his stuff here. He makes great bike touring videos and he lives up here and he's been giving me all sorts of good tips about northern Sweden. It is now 9pm. I have officially been in Sweden for 24 hours. Woo! Yeah! And on a normal bike tour I would never ride my bike until 9pm. I usually finish my days by 4 or 5 so I can set up my tent before it gets dark. But that's not a thing here so I'm taking advantage of it. Another reason why I'm still riding is because I have severe jet lag. I'm still on Colorado time and back home it's like midday. So I've got energy. My hope is that if I ride hard enough today I will be so tired I will just fall fast asleep. I hope. If not, we're in real big trouble tomorrow because I can't go without sleep this long. You see it back there? It's kind of hard to tell. But there's a reindeer my very first Swedish reindeer. And finally off at highway E10 I hope to never see you again. Oh, this is much better. I haven't seen a car in a little while now and it's all downhill. Thank you for the warm welcome. Uh oh, I'm going up a hill at a slow pace which means the mosquitoes can keep up with me. And yeah, they're coming out in force. I didn't notice them last night in Kiruna but every time I stopped my bike to do anything they descend on me. I start the day off with bug juice on my body but I might have to do that from now on. They're everywhere. The worst ones that are the ones that get like in my helmet vents and start biting my head sucking blood out of my head and I can't do anything about it. I'm helpless. It sucks. Ooh, I see another reindeer. I see a reindeer. Look at him. So cool. My first time ever with a reindeer in real life except in Christmas movies. That's so cool. Oh my god, I can't do this. The mosquitoes are all over me. It's going to be a problem. Goodbye reindeer. The antlers are so cool. They look like they're covered in felt. Just like in the movies. Hey buddy. He doesn't care about the mosquitoes all over me. Oh man. I've seen some clear cut areas like this behind me. There's always a few trees left growing tall and I wonder did the machines just not pick up those trees for some reason? Did somebody choose not to because those trees are sacred? I don't know but I love it. They look pretty staggering standing out by themselves. I'm having quite a nice evening all out here by my lonesome and the mosquitoes and the reindeer. Okay. I am officially on the European Divide Trail. Which makes me happy. I'm hoping that they don't have riders go on big roads like the one I was on earlier today. So I'm guessing it's going to be like this. The only thing annoying me are going to be mosquitoes. And I'll take that over a raging semi-truck any day. It only took me 90 miles to get here. And now it's past 10 p.m. and I think I'm going to start looking for a campsite. So there's this really cool thing in Sweden called Allemandsretten and it pretty much means you can camp anywhere you want. Maybe not in somebody's garden but anywhere. Which is really cool and I've never taken advantage of it. I remember learning about it when I was an exchange student and I thought that's fascinating because there aren't many places in the world like that where just all the land is open for people to recreate on. Which is pretty cool. Alright I pulled off that road and I'm looking for flat ground. It's pretty lumpy around here and wet so I'm hoping this road will present something to me. The other challenge of getting all my stuff set up are the mosquitoes. I'm going to have to do this lightning fast. Because they're coming. They're telling all the friends. They're like oh, Ryan's here and he's full of good blood. I'm happy with this spot right there. That looks nice and flat right? It's time to dance. Oh god the mosquitoes are coming. Okay I've got a little protection now and I put on bug juice. This is nuts. This is so nuts. I put bug juice all over my legs. 100% deep. These mosquitoes in Sweden are hungry. I've never experienced anything quite like that. I mean I've been around mosquitoes but not like that. Oh my god everybody's stories are definitely true. Everybody warned me that the mosquitoes were going to be rough. Damn. What a day. What a day. I'm all cozy and safe. The first thing I'm going to do is eat this falafel. I've been dreaming about this all day. I mostly ate just snacks and bars and almonds and stuff. But this is going to taste good. And now I'm using my awesome little Garmin satellite messenger thing. Letting my mom and Amelia know that I'm okay. This is pretty amazing. This might be the best tasting cookie I've ever had. You can't get me mosquitoes, take that. But you know what? I'm a little worried about going to the bathroom. Every time I leave this tent they're going to go nuts and descend on me. Usually when I'm camping in places other than northern Scandinavia when the sun goes down the mosquitoes go away. But that doesn't happen here. I don't know how I'm going to deal with this the next few weeks. Hopefully. Maybe I'm just in a really bad spot. Maybe tomorrow night will be better. I don't know. Always look on the bright side. Positive side, right? Oh gosh. But I rode 90 miles today. Feel good about that. I'm on the European Divide Trail. Shouldn't have to deal with crazy roads anymore. And I'm in Sweden. I'm here. I'm living my dream. I chose to be here. Oh. And now it's going to rain. Anyway. Buenas noches. Thanks for watching the video. There'll be many more. Stay tuned. Man. This is not fun. I don't even care about the rain anymore. It's the mosquitoes. Huh. Hey. I just wanted to jump in and say hi. Hi. If you enjoy my videos and they bring value to your life please consider joining my Patreon. Your support will keep my channel alive so that I can continue making content for you to enjoy. And not only will you be supporting my channel but you'll get early release videos and videos with zero ads. And from time to time I do these really fun live zoom chats with my patrons where you can ask me all sorts of questions. About anything you want. So consider supporting me. I will link it down below. Also I wrote a book about my very first adventure called The Long Way Home and I think it's pretty good and my mom thinks it's pretty good so maybe you'll think it's good too. I will link this down below if you would like to purchase it. International orders are tough. The shipping is crazy so this is pretty much the end. Anyway, thank you so much for watching this video. This is going to be an awesome series and stay tuned for the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one. Hey doll!