I'll elaborate here more than most posts in this thread.
When we first went to Swedish Lapland (2002) it was for a wedding (the couple that we now share the house above with). I had no idea what to expect beyond Saabs, Volvos, blondes, trees and lakes. We stopped in Stockholm before driving up. The check out girl on the desk at the Hilton said "Where are you going?" I replied that we were heading for Arvidsjaur. She said "What for? There's nothing there except flying tigers" ... meaning huge mosquitos.
We had a rented car and set off on the long journey. The first real wow was somewhere a couple of hours north of Stockholm. A roadside picnic area with cafe. It was on a lake. There were beaches with people swimming. The car parking spaces were plentiful. There was no litter. There were communal firepits dotted around in amongst the lakeside trees with families having bbq. The cafe was clean and the toilets were immaculate and very modern. This was all, it would turn out, to be representative of Sweden as a whole.
The roads were great and, when we finally got up north and left the main E4 I found myself driving on a good, long, straight road with no other traffic. We started timing the intervals between cars and the longest was about 20 mins. Just trees. The occasional lake. And BIG skies.
Arriving in Arvidsjaur we stayed in the only Hotel ... Lapponia. It was, to us, really cool. 70s leather furniture, weird wall hangings, a stuffed reindeer and the vibe of Northern Exposure.
After the wedding, on a glorious summer day, in a small village, by a lake, we stayed for a 2 week family holiday. Most of which was spent travelling around, learning about the Sami people and culture, spotting reindeer and spending lazy days by stunning forest rivers ... fishing, enjoying the tranquility of it all. My preconceptions that there would be nothing but basics in the shops were shattered. The bigger supermarkets were better than anything we have ... chainsaw? No problem. Smoked moose? How much would you like? Canoe? Would that be inflatable or aluminium sir? And, whereas the peope in the South were as stand-offish and reserved as was expected, the people of Northern Sweden were like those of Northern England ... welcoming, warm, friendly ... if you lock the doors on your house you'd be considered a weirdo. Suffice to say, when we left, we realised that we had fallen madly in love with the place.
A series of unfortunate events led to the happy accident of us buying a share of the place we now love a couple of years later. Just about everything up there has exceeded my expectations since. What do I love most? Lazy summer days by the lake, eating, drinking, swimming, fishing. The endless sunsets. The fact that you can walk out of the door and find yourself facing a reindeer, a huge moose, a red squirrel (not had a bear ... yet) and you might have a Golden Eagle swoop across your path, or an Osprey diving for fish 20 metres away. Above all, the silence (hard to describe) and tranquility. Standing on the porch looking at the Northern lights. And the absolute, total absence of any cares, stress, worries.