She moved from California to Sweden in search of a new adventure — she wasn’t prepared for the quiet

Arabella Carey Adolfsson, originally from California, moved to the island of Torpön in Sweden after coming across an online advertisement for a "beautiful" home in the destination. (Arabella Carey Adolfsson via CNN Newsource)

There are few things Arabella Carey Adolfsson enjoys more than going fishing near her lakeside home in Sweden during the summertime, or getting her camera out and taking photographs of the natural beauty surrounding her.

She and her husband Stefan, a Swede, often take their boat out from Torpön, the island where they live, onto the waters of Lake Sommen, savoring the picturesque views of the surrounding fields, forests and cliffs.

“It’s gorgeous here,” Adolfsson, who was born and raised in San Diego, tells CNN Travel. “Sweden is beautiful. The lake is beautiful. The air is clean. There’s no traffic.”

Since moving to Scandinavia in 2022, after spending much of her life in California, she’s come to appreciate the rhythm of having four distinct seasons — though Swedish winters, she admits, “can be quite brutal.”

Serendipitous moment

There are other pleasures too. Adolfsson says she enjoys being close to the rest of Europe. The couple sometimes drive to Copenhagen and then fly to Portugal, or drive to Stockholm, four hours away, where they can “jump on a plane to Latvia or Hungary.”

And yet, nearly three years into the move, Adolfsson says that settling into life in Sweden has come at a cost she hadn’t fully anticipated.

She and her husband, who met and married in 2009, had long imagined splitting their time between Sweden, Mexico and California. Stefan and Adolfsson who is Mexican American, have three children and three grandchildren between them.

They first tried living in Sweden together in 2016, moving to the southern city of Lund, near Malmö, but after two and a half years Adolfsson returned to the United States, homesick.

They decided to try again after what she describes as a serendipitous moment in August 2022, when she came across an online listing for a “beautiful” furnished lakeside house on Torpön. Within a month, they had bought the property and by October, they had moved in.

Only after arriving in Torpön did Adolfsson realize that their new home was “in the middle of nowhere.” The island, small and sparsely populated, is at least half an hour drive to what she calls “civilization.”

Despite having lived in Sweden before, moving to such a remote part of the country proved to be a culture shock for Adolfsson. Days can pass without her seeing anyone other than her husband.

“I’m very much a person who loves people and gets my energy from being around people,” she said. On Torpön, she added, residents tend to keep to themselves. Making friends has been difficult.

Back in San Diego, Adolfsson was surrounded by her large extended family. The absence of that community has been one of the hardest adjustments for her.

“There was a huge slice of my life that was taken away,” she says. “And I still haven’t figured out what to replace it with.” She is, however, grateful that her sister lives in Germany, which is in the same time zone as Sweden.

Mental reset

She recognizes that life might feel different in a city, rather than on an island with no public transportation and a single restaurant.

Torpön hums with activity in the summer — kayaking, paddleboarding, boating — but winters are long and quiet, the island more or less deserted.

Adolfsson and Stefan, who works as a substitute teacher, plan their grocery shopping trips to the mainland carefully, stocking up before retreating indoors. When a foot of snow is on their doorstep, they “huddle up in the house and eat and drink.”

Adapting, she has learned, requires a mental reset. “It’s a matter of reworking the program in your head that you were used to running,” she says, “and running a new program.”

Adolfsson’s “new program” involves seeing as much of Europe as she can. She’s traveled to Slovenia, Latvia, Portugal, Germany and Mallorca since moving to Sweden, making collages of her photographs for family and friends and writing a children’s book inspired by her grandchildren.

“This allows me the time to be creative,” she says.

Video chats keep her in touch with family and friends back in the US. Adolfsson cherishes her Sunday calls with her family, describing how her three-year-old grandson “hugs the telephone” before saying goodbye. “Thank God for the technologies that we have now, so that we can be expats and stay connected,” she says.

Language has been another hurdle. Although she had some Swedish before moving, Adolfsson was far from fluent. Classes have helped her better communicate, but her limited skill proved a barrier to integrating with Swedes. The reserve she perceives in Swedish culture has also required her to make some adjustments.

“I’m Hispanic, and we’re like PDAs all over the place,” she says. “The Swedes are more reserved. So you don’t have a lot of hugging and kissing.”

There are plenty of upsides. Her new life may be much quieter than the one she left behind in San Diego, but Arabella Carey, who works remotely, says there’s a distinct “lack of stress,” which she’s grateful for.

Down to earth

The cost of living is more favorable, too. “Everything is cheaper” in Sweden compared to California, Adolfsson says — particularly housing. The water in her home is free “because it comes from the lake.”

Health care in Sweden is far less expensive than the U.S., she says. When she spent five days in hospital after a fall a few years ago, she was amazed to receive a total bill of less than US$100.

While she has grown to appreciate many aspects of Swedish life, the cuisine is not among them. She misses easy access to good Mexican food and says finding “a decent tortilla” has proved elusive. And, having come to appreciate the “finer things of life” as she’s gotten older, she finds herself at odds with “down to earth” Swedish culture.

She misses the ease of some aspects of life in the US, stressing that “Sweden is not a convenient country.” She’s bemused by what she describes as the do-it-yourself culture, which she finds “very admirable but way over my head.”

Looking back, Arabella Carey believes that the move would’ve been easier and simpler at a younger age. “Change is more difficult the older you get,” she observes.

She wishes she’d had more of an understanding of the techniques and behaviors required “to explore, integrate and assimilate” in a new place with ease before leaving the U.S., and feels that these are becoming “necessary skills” the “more global we become.”

For now, she plans to remain in Sweden, returning to San Diego every few months and hoping, eventually, to return back for good — if she can persuade her husband.

Her advice to others considering a similar move later in life is to ensure they “have a connection” to the place, and “understand that it’s going to take time.”

“You’re going to be lonely and alone at times,” she adds. “And you’re going to have some tough days where you wish you were home. But you’re going to make some great memories.”

By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN