Nämdöskärgården National Park: Stockholm's Marine Park

Nämdöskärgården National Park, in the Stockholm archipelago, is Sweden's first national park on the country's east coast. Parliament approved it in the summer of 2025, and its official opening was in September 2025.

The park covers 25,000 hectares and more than 1,000 islands, skerries and reefs. About 97 percent of it is water. So the postcard view may be a tiny island on the horizon, but the real park is largely underneath your boat.

What lives below the Baltic surface?

Visit Sweden describes underwater habitats such as seagrass meadows, bladderwrack belts and mussel banks. Shallow bays and a complex seabed give young fish important places to grow.

These habitats are easy to miss when the archipelago sparkles above the water. They are also what makes this place more than a pretty boat trip. A seagrass meadow does not look like much from the surface. Underneath, it is a nursery.

How to explore the park gently

The park invites visitors to explore by kayak and to camp. The rules are written in the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations for the park, NFS 2025:3, decided on 14 August 2025 and in force since 15 September 2025. Some areas, marked on the maps attached to the rules, are closed to visitors from 1 February to 31 August, and others from 1 April to 31 July, which is when birds and seals need the quiet. Fishing is also banned in those closed areas during the same periods.

Outside some marked areas where tents are not allowed at all, you may not pitch a tent, tarp or hammock in the same place for more than two days in a row, or seven in one marked area. A boat may not anchor or moor in the same place for more than two days in a row. Fires are only allowed at marked places, or in a grill on legs or a camping stove. Dogs stay on a leash, disturbing noise is not allowed, and you may not remove algae or mussels attached to the rocks. The closed areas are shown on maps, so check the current park guidance from the County Administrative Board of Stockholm before you go.

Keep clear of bird colonies and other wildlife. Use the marked landing areas. Leave plants, shells and other natural material where they are, so the next visitor, and the next fish, finds them too.

Getting there

According to Visit Sweden, the park is about an hour by boat southeast of Stockholm. Summer boat connections have been described from Stavsnäs. Schedules change, so check transport locally.

For more about Sweden's marine places, see our Sweden ocean guide. You can also read about why seagrass meadows matter.

A thousand islands above the water, a whole other world below. Go slowly, and look twice.

Questions people ask

Wildlife encounters are never guaranteed and never forced. Ocean Calling works only with vetted, ethical local operators, and every animal is free to approach, or not, entirely on its own terms.