Visit Sweden has unveiled a playful new campaign encouraging travellers to embrace boredom this winter, reframing stillness and quiet as a form of wellbeing. Olivia Palamountain reports

Visit Sweden has launched an provocative invitation to travellers this winter: come to Sweden and be bored. The national tourism board is using the idea of ennui as a counterweight to the hectic festive season, positioning the country as a place where people can slow down, disconnect and rediscover the pleasure of doing very little.

A neat twist on destination marketing, the campaign taps into a rising appetite for calm and simplicity at a time of year when many feel overwhelmed by noise, plans and expectations.

The initiative challenges the pressure to create perfect holiday moments. Instead of shopping, parties and packed itineraries, Visit Sweden suggests that boredom can be a restorative experience. They reference research arguing that short periods of mental idleness can spark creativity, improve emotional balance and help the brain reset after constant stimulation.

Sweden’s landscape – sparse, quiet and dominated by forests, lakes and natural darkness – is then presented as the ideal backdrop for this kind of unhurried reset.

By encouraging visitors to “make space to do not very much at all”, the campaign turns the idea of boredom into a form of luxury. It draws inspiration from Swedish culture, where the concept of lagom supports a balanced approach to life, including time for reflection. It also nods to author Astrid Lindgren, who once wrote that people must sometimes “sit and gaze”, suggesting that stillness can be meaningful in itself.

To bring the idea to life, Visit Sweden highlights places where travellers can slow down without distraction, such as remote cabins with no wifi, snowy forests made for gentle wandering and regions where the sun barely rises during the polar night. Rather than framing these conditions as obstacles, the campaign presents them as opportunities to think, rest and observe the natural world. Activities such as snowshoe walks, ice fishing, cold-water bathing and stargazing are described in ways that emphasise rhythm and patience over achievement.

The marketing approach stands out because it subverts traditional tourism messaging. Instead of promising excitement or constant activity, Visit Sweden positions boredom as a positive experience with its own benefits. It identifies a cultural moment in which people are seeking meaningful pauses, encouraging travellers to reset their expectations of what a winter holiday can be.

By leaning into quiet forests, soft northern light and the pleasure of open time, Visit Sweden’s latest campaign invites visitors to rediscover something simple but increasingly rare: the freedom to stop. In doing so, it turns one of the least celebrated human states into a compelling reason to travel.