Where to stay in Stockholm

Norrmalm is the part locals call City: Central Station and T-Centralen, Sergels torg, the department stores on Drottninggatan and Hamngatan, the concert halls, and the government blocks behind them. Every metro line, every commuter train and the Arlanda Express meet inside this one borough, and Gamla stan is twelve minutes away over a bridge.

Book here for logistics. If you arrive at 23:00, leave at 06:00, or are in Stockholm for two nights and want to spend none of them working out which tram is which, nothing else comes close. It also has the deepest hotel stock in the city, which is why it is usually the district with rooms left in July.

The cost is that almost nobody lives here. This is a central business district with 4- and 5-star hotels priced accordingly, the restaurants near the station are chains aimed at people catching a train, and on a Sunday evening the streets between Klara church and Vasagatan are as empty as an office car park. Walk ten minutes north into Vasastan and you are eating with residents at two-thirds of the price.

Södermalm is the big island below Gamla stan: Slussen and the heights at the north end, Götgatan running south through Medborgarplatsen to Skanstull, the SoFo blocks east of it, and Hornstull and the Långholmen bathing rocks at the far west. It was the working-class island until the industries left, and it has spent thirty years turning into the part of Stockholm people book on purpose.

The practical case is strong. From Slussen or Mariatorget you are 15 to 20 minutes on foot from Stortorget, every red and green line train stops at Slussen, and the Djurgården ferry leaves from the same place. Food and drink cost noticeably less than Norrmalm or Östermalm for the same quality, and the northern ridge - Monteliusvägen, Fjällgatan, Skinnarviksberget - has the views everyone else queues to pay for.

Two things to check before you book a street. Söders höjder is a genuine cliff, so a room 300 metres from Slussen can still mean a flight of stairs with a suitcase; and the island is four kilometres end to end, which makes Hornstull a 35-minute walk from Skanstull rather than the same neighbourhood. Götgatan and Medborgarplatsen are loud at weekends until the bars close at 03:00.

Östermalm runs east from Birger Jarlsgatan: the 19th-century blocks around Östermalmstorg and Karlaplan, the waterfront at Strandvägen, and then the open drill field at Gärdet with the universities and the ferry harbour behind it. It has the highest incomes in Sweden and the pavements to match - wide, flat, well lit, and empty by mid-evening.

For couples and for families it is the most comfortable base in the city. The red line runs the length of it, tram 7 goes from Nybroplan straight to the Vasa Museum and Skansen in about ten minutes, and the Saluhall market hall at Östermalmstorg is the best lunch in Stockholm that does not require a booking. Nothing here is loud.

The two costs are money and distance. This is where the most expensive restaurants in the country are, and the walk to Gamla stan is a solid 22 minutes rather than the ten the map suggests. The exception to the quiet is Stureplan on the Norrmalm border, which is the nightclub district: queues, cover charges and drunk crowds on Friday and Saturday within one block of some very expensive hotels.

Vasastan is the northern half of the Norrmalm borough: Odenplan, Sveavägen, Odengatan, the second-hand and record shops on Rörstrandsgatan, and the Stadsbiblioteket rotunda. Same grid as the centre, same architecture, a tenth of the tourists, because there is no single thing here anyone flies to Stockholm to see.

That is exactly why it is worth booking. Restaurants and bars around Odenplan and Rörstrandsgatan are priced for the 60,000 people who live here, the green line runs the length of Sveavägen, and Odenplan has its own commuter rail station, so the airport train connection is one change. For a stay of four nights or more the arithmetic beats Norrmalm comfortably.

What you give up is walking distance. Odenplan to Stortorget is about half an hour on foot, so you use the metro daily rather than occasionally. The northern edge at Hagastaden is a building site scheduled to run to about 2030, and the blocks along Sveavägen carry four lanes of traffic, so ask for a courtyard room.

Gamla stan is the island Stockholm started on: Stortorget, the Royal Palace, the alleys off Västerlånggatan, and Riddarholmen with its palaces across a small bridge. It is genuinely beautiful, it is 200 metres from the Palace to your front door, and the metro station at the south end takes every red and green line train.

The problem is that it is a working tourist attraction with 7,000 people living in it. Cars are banned inside, the cobbles are unevenly paved and there is nothing soft to wheel a case over, the buildings are 300 years old and most have no lift, and rooms in them are small - one of the mid-range hotels advertises its rooms as cabin-sized and charges 1,850 kr. There is one ordinary supermarket on the island.

Book it for two nights if waking up inside the old town is the point of the trip, and pick a street off Västerlånggatan - Baggensgatan, Kindstugatan, Stora Nygatan - rather than on it. Book anywhere else if you are staying a week, travelling with a large suitcase, or expect to eat dinner at a price a Swede would pay.

Kungsholmen is the island west of the centre, and most visitors see exactly one building on it: the City Hall where the Nobel banquet is held. Behind it the island is residential - Hantverkargatan and Fleminggatan running west to Fridhemsplan, the Rålambshov park on the water, and the bathing spots at Smedsudden and Hornsbergs strand that Stockholmers actually swim from in July.

It is a pleasant place to live for a week and an awkward one to book for three nights. Wikivoyage's own advice is to sleep in Norrmalm or Vasastan instead, and it is right: the island has a handful of hotels, several of which sell small windowless rooms, plus two hostels. What is here is cheap by inner-city standards, on the blue and green lines, and quiet.

The distances are the catch. City Hall to Stortorget is a pleasant twelve minutes, but the part of the island with the bars and the affordable rooms is Fridhemsplan, and that is a good half hour on foot from Gamla stan. Fridhemsplan is also the one corner with weekend drunk-brawl form, and Hornsbergs strand gets crowded and messy on hot evenings.

Djurgården holds the Vasa Museum, Skansen, Gröna Lund, the ABBA museum and Nordiska museet, which is why it is on every itinerary and why people try to stay on it. It is a protected royal park, cars are banned in summer, and it is the most pleasant square kilometre in Stockholm to spend a day in.

As a base it does not work, for a reason that has nothing to do with the island being unpleasant. There are three hotels on it. There is no metro station, no supermarket, no ordinary street of shops and no bar district: you get tram 7 from Nybroplan, bus 67, and the ferry from Slussen. All of them thin out in the evening, and when the museums shut at 17:00 or 18:00 the island empties and your dinner options are the museum restaurants, at museum prices.

There is one case for it: high summer with children, when Gröna Lund and Skansen are the trip and you want to walk home rather than queue for the ferry with everybody else. Even then, Östermalm is ten minutes away on tram 7 and has shops, restaurants and a metro line.