What Copenhagen Taught Me About Life

My family and I just returned from a week in Scandinavia, visiting Denmark (Copenhagen and Billund) and Sweden (Malmo).

Whenever I travel, I think a lot about what the destination and the culture there can teach me about life and how I want to live.

This was my first trip to Scandinavia, so I didn’t have any expectations going in, except that I’d been told by a million TikTok videos that Copenhagen is pretty much the most kid-friendly place on the planet.

I found that to be true. We didn’t want for things to do with our toddler. But I also learned so much from the Danes and from their approach to life.

Here are a few of them.

Buy the flowers.

The Danish concept of hygge is absolutely real. There’ s no real literal translation for the word, but the closest thing to it is a “feeling of coziness.” It’s not just marketing — they really do care about feeling warm and cozy, which is important when your country is dark and cloudy and cold 300 days of the year.

One way to incorporate hygge into their lives is lots and lots of flowers. There were flower shops everywhere! I don’t think I’ve seen so many flower and plant stores in a city before. (Though I generally see them more in Europe than I do in the U.S.)

Even at roadside convenience stores, chain grocery stores, and gas stations on our way to Billund, fresh flowers spilled out of the automatic sliding doors. People carried fresh flowers on the subway, on their bikes, in their stroller baskets.

Flowers make us happy and comforted. Having nature around us contributes to our sense of well-being. It’s science. So, buy the flowers.

Summer is a state of mind.

When we visited, spring had just arrived in late May. We even saw the sun for a few hours each day, and for the Danes, it was like heaven.

While we Floridians bundled ourselves up in rain boots and trench coats, the Danish people were naked in the canal, laying on the beaches and decks, soaking up what little Vitamin D they would be afforded between May and August.

We took the canal tour and were accompanied on both sides by private or rented boats full of girlfriends and couples enjoying the sunshine and picnicking on the water. Everyone was out and about.

60 degrees for Floridians is much different than 60 degrees for the Danish. I learned to embrace the sunshine and soak it up whenever possible.

Do one thing at a time.

The majority of Danes use bicycles to get around their towns. The streets have huge bike lanes, there are bike parking lots everywhere, and the sidewalks are shared with all sizes of two-wheeled transportation.

Riding a bike means you can really only do one thing: Ride the bike. Look at your surroundings. Breathe the air. Be present.

I loved that, and I plan to incorporate bike-riding more in my life so I can do just that. I loved the Christiania bike buckets in the front of some of the Danish bicycles that would fit two kids or one adults comfortably.

Another thing I really didn’t see that drove this point home was that Danes don’t really eat on the go (except hot dogs, but they also sit down on a nearby bench to eat those), and when they’re with their families, I didn’t see one Danish mom or dad on their phones. They were all present with their kids.

That’s #goals.

Silence is golden.

Copenhagen is an introvert’s paradise. Some say that the Danes are unfriendly. I don’t think that’s the case — everyone we interacted with were perfectly kind. What the Danes are is practical and utilitarian. Unless interaction is necessary, they don’t see a need to strike up a conversation and make small talk.

I usually notice general things about a city when I visit — Vienna, for example, is the cleanest city I’ve ever visited. In this case, Copenhagen is the quietest city I’ve ever visited.

I think this is due to several factors. First, the general lack of cars. No honking, no loud muffler noises, no music blaring from car windows. Second, I got the sense that Danish people aren’t really talkers (totally fine with me). On the street, people walked side by side chitchatting in low tones (even children, though I could hear the occasional toddler wail a few blocks over a couple of times).

Generally, I work in silence, and I also prefer it in my daily life. There’s certainly something to be said about the energy of the hustle and bustle in the city (hello, New York City, Paris, and Lima), but it’s also nice to feel that energy bubbling under the surface rather than thickening the atmosphere above.