VisitSweden Development Blog

Win SJ train travel in Sweden worth SEK 5,000!
Sweden has 25 provinces and they all have something amazing to offer. By entering a travel story in english from your favourite province you have a chance to win some great prizes!

That sums up the competition in a nutshell. Now it’s time to present the winners!

Cedric Pieterse has won the 1st prize! He’s recently moved to his girlfriend in Uppsala from South Africa. He wrote a story about bicycling in and around Uppsala. Read the entire story here.

The visitors on the competition site voted and the VisitSweden jury chose a winner.

Here’s the jury’s comments:

“The winner has written an inspirational description of a relaxed and enviromentally friendly way to discover one’s surroundings, rich with facts and with personal insight into the richness of the city and nature environment.”

We also asked Cedric a few questions.

Where will you go with the SEK 5,000 in SJ travel checks you’ve won?

Well, Sweden is a big place, and I have not seen much of the country, so I will look at the maps and make a choice. I am going to Kiruna soon, so maybe South will be a good place to start…

Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to Sweden.

I am from South Africa, and I had an engineering company that I sold so that I could travel. I had been travelling for four years, and had a lot of travel partners from Europe that joined me on my trip in Africa. I drove an old Land Rover, so there was always space for people. One day a very nice Swedish girl came on board, and well here I am!

Why did you choose to write about bicycling and Uppsala?

I have always enjoyed cylcing, and did a lot of it in South Africa, so when I got to Sweden, I decided to buy myself a bicycle to explore the area a bit. I do not own a car yet so cycling is the natural choice. One really get in touch with yor surroundings on a bicycle, the sounds, smells, and the hills! Uppsala, well this is where we stay, and my girlfriend is working, so I had a lot of free time to explore the area. I am currently busy with SFI, a Swedish language course for beginners, so I do not cycle so much. I do cycle to class every day, come rain or snow. It is the ice that makes things rather interesting. Read my story “The ministry of funny walks” in the communityofsweden.com website.

You’re also a member of Sweden’s official online community CommunityOfSweden.com How do you like it?

I think it is brilliant! It is a fantastic way to get to know the culture, and the place a bit better. It is also a nice place to meet other people online, that shares the same interests. There are some nice photos as well, and this is an excellent tool to market Sweden as a travel destination.

What about Sweden do you think is most peculiar?

The language is pretty much out there as a peculiarity, also the way people stop for you at pedestrian crossings. I am not used to that. In Africa, no-one will stop for you. Every time I get to a pedestrian crossing here, I feel sooooo guilty for making a car stop. I tend to wait in the background untill there is no traffic before I cross over!

Cedric won train travel from SJ worth SEK 5,000. The other winners for their respective provinces won the photo book “Swedish!”. Here are the other winners:

Bohuslän
Åke Svensson

Gästrikland
Stellan Eriksson

Halland
Siw Christensen

Jämtland
Markku Pispa

Lappland
Jeff Perro

Norrbotten
Thomas Lahtinen

Skåne
Karin Hoffman

Småland
Rickard Nordin

Södermanland
Eva Westin

Uppland
David Jaffray

Värmland
Entered by “Värmland”

Västergötland
Kerstin Thorell

Ångermanland
Annica Sjölander

Öland
Annika Wilks

The books are in the mail!
We would like to thank you all for your participation and of course SJ for their great 1st prize.
Thank you!

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