As I built up the bike and started to stretch my legs on day rides (and a few camping trips) around East Anglia, a vague plan started to come together for an inaugural tour.

I really like wild camping, and have never had a problem when it's not totally official (though my competence at the stealth aspect is certainly questionable). And while I'm pretty comfortable rolling up to a bit of woodland in southern England and pitching tent once it gets dusky, there's still some trepidation on doing this in a foreign land, where I don't speak the language and the laws aren't so mercifully (un)clear. On the other hand, the alternative of organised camping every night doesn't really appeal.

So this is where Scandinavia has great appeal. Wild camping isn't just tolerated or accepted - it's actually formally legal (indeed, in Sweden is even written into the constitution as "allemansrätten") - and there's such an abundance of empty space and beautiful scenery, it's easy to take advantage of this. While Norway is very beautiful, it's also rather mountainous (especially considering my relative lack of fitness) and somewhat more expensive (especially when it comes to vital, muscle-relaxing alcohol). My thoughts, then, turned towards a trip through Sweden - preferably somewhere I could really strike into the wilderness.

The first problem was how to get there. Very sadly, all the direct ferries from the UK to Scandinavia - including Denmark and Norway - have now shut down. Up until very recently, you could still buy passage on the cargo ships that sail to Esbjerg from near Hull - but changes in security policy mean this is unfortunately no longer possible. This closes the classic easy route to Sweden (Harwich - Esbjerg - Cross Jutland - Goteborg etc). On my non-cycling holidays the first alternative I'd look for is long distance internationally train routes - but these are also surprisingly bike-unfriendly (the excellent Man in Seat 61 has a lot of good info on taking the bike on trains throughout Europe). Shipping the bike by Eurostar is not straightforward, and international trains to Denmark and Sweden will generally not take bikes unless they are boxed.

But I didn't want to fly. The stress of packaging the bike and praying it was undamaged, and the added complexity of packaging it back up again at the other end did not appeal. Instead, I took to combing the ferry routes and train timetables, looking for another viable route to Sweden. And I found one which, while requiring more time, was not dramatically more expensive than flying.

The idea was to use the Dutch Flyer to get to Hoek of Holland from Harwich. From here, domestic Dutch and German intercity trains - all accepting bikes for a small fee - could take me to anywhere in Germany. Places like the Baltic ports - Lubeck and Kiel, which do a healthy ferry business to points in Sweden and Norway. TT line sailed from Travemund (near Lubeck) to Trelleborg, on the Southern tip of Sweden. And Colour line sailed back from Oslo to Kiel. If I could put together a tour over 12 days or so to get me through Sweden, this could work, and I could say I'd cycled from Sweden to Norway.

There have been a few journals relating tours across this part of Sweden. In general, they take two routes: first, hugging the coast, via Halmstad and Goteborg. There's certainly much to recommend this route - the coastal scenery is good, and there are lots of services - but in general it is fairly populated and less wild. The second is of less direct use to me but gave me a glimpse of the interior: West-East between Goteborg etc to Stockholm (or vice-versa). While there were some complaints of excess pine trees - this sounded pretty good to me.

I got hold of some maps - Marco Polo Sweden at 1:800,000 (good for an overview but not really detailed enough to avoid major roads), and the excellent Freytag & Berndt 1:250,000 which never let me down. Sitting in the Spring sunshine and plotting my course, I added up the miles and figured that a coastal route would be very leisurely over 12 days even for me - as the crow flies it's of the order of 350 miles. I was certainly up for exploring some of the wilder, less populated, and less storied regions of middle of Sweden - a route between the "great lakes" of Vanern and Vattern would raise the total to around 500.

But it seemed to be lacking a specific destination in Sweden. With all the possibilities my maps seemed to offer, my eye was drawn to Dalarna and Lake Siljan. My general guidebook rhapsodised this place, it seemed to be very particular to the interior region, and I would truly be leaving Southern Sweden for the vast expanse of Central Sweden. Could I really make it in 12 days or so? My calculations made it roughly 700 miles...