Photo by Airbnb
In 2017 Sweden launched a new kind of tourism campaign.
Instead of highlighting specific places to visit, or things to do, Sweden announced the entire country would be listed on Airbnb – and that you were invited to ‘explore the freedom to roam.’
“Allemansrätten – or the freedom to roam – is a principle protected by Swedish law that gives all people the right to be free in Swedish nature,” the country’s tourism board explained.
“In other words, Swedish nature isn’t just a piece of land with trees and lakes and cliffs—it’s a home with all the necessities and amenities that any great home should have.”
“It’s a place where you can eat berries from the ground, sleep under the stars, swim in the lakes and roam freely. To make this home available for everyone, Sweden has listed the entire country on Airbnb.”
An accompanying campaign website enabled people to discover ‘Roam Free’ points of interest, from a beautiful forest camping spot to an archipelago of 30,000 quiet islands, with actual Airbnb properties available to rent nearby.
It was a brilliant, award-winning campaign that attracted global media coverage.
And it also highlighted just how different things are in England, where half of the land is owned by less than 1% of the population.
The right to roam in England is heavily restricted in comparison, not only to Sweden, but also to Norway, Estonia, and our nearest neighbour, Scotland.
“In England, you are allowed access to just three per cent of rivers and eight per cent of land. The rest of England is fenced off not just by barbed wire and walls, but by an orthodoxy that accepts that by simply being in nature you are causing harm,” argues Nick Hayes, author of the brilliant ‘Book of Trespass.’
“The Right to Roam legislation, as practised in countries such as Scotland, Norway and Sweden, is not a free-for-all in someone else’s back garden, as commonly conceived in England, but actually a code of connection, a rigorous set of responsibilities to nature and land workers that balances the rights of individual title holders with the rights of the public – the rights of ownership with the rights of belonging.
“The public is not a threat to nature, but its last line of defence.”
