In October, Skåne in Sweden launched an unusual tourism campaign. The southern county was looking for travellers interested in staying in a cabin in the woods for a few days.
The experience was offered for free, but there was one catch. Participants had to keep all noise below a certain level; any sounds too loud meant the stay came to an abrupt end.
Johanna Holm, who is from the south of Germany and studying to become a teacher, was one of the participants of the ‘Stay Quiet’ challenge. Here’s what she learnt from a hushed weekend in a cabin in the woods.
Sweden offers a free stay in a forest cabin – with a catch
Visit Skåne launched its Stay Quiet campaign as a response to noise pollution, which project manager Josefine Nordgren calls one of the most underestimated environmental problems of our time.
“Studies show that constant exposure to noise increases stress, disturbs sleep, and affects both physical and mental health,” she says.
“Nature, on the other hand, has proven restorative effects. It lowers the heart rate, improves focus, and helps the body recover from stress.”
The team wanted to offer people the chance to experience what happens when everyday noise disappears.
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“The initiative became a kind of living experiment to see how participants would feel after spending a few days surrounded by nature, without screens, without distractions, and without noise,” Nordgren adds.
Visit Skåne also wanted to show that modern travel doesn’t have to mean doing more.
“Sweden, and Skåne in particular, offers something increasingly rare in the world: access to true stillness,” says Nordgren. “We wanted to highlight that silence is not emptiness but a resource, one that supports both human wellbeing and sustainable tourism.”
She also points out that in Sweden, nature is easily accessible thanks to ‘Allemansrätten’, a public right that allows people to roam freely (and respectfully) in nature, including on private land.
‘Who wouldn’t love to spend time in a little cabin in the woods?’
Visit Skåne launched an international open call in October and received over 200 applications from 30 countries.
Three pairs of applicants were selected to take part, from Denmark, Germany and the UK.
Holm applied with her sister. “Everyday life can be really fast and loud, so I thought this challenge could bring us back more to ourselves and to nature,” she says.
The two spent childhood holidays at campsites and continue to explore Europe with vans and tents, so Stay Quiet was exactly the kind of challenge they wanted to level up their leisure time.
A cabin with the noise levels of a library
The only real rule for the cabin stay was to keep sounds below 45 decibels – roughly the noise level of a library or quiet office.
Holm says sticking to that limit wasn’t too hard, other than occasional communication difficulties with her sister because they had to talk in whispers.
“For us, staying quiet in this peaceful part of nature just felt like the only right thing to do,” she says.
The only really loud noise she wanted to make was when she was “so fulfilled with pure happiness that I could have screamed that out to show the whole world.”
Cooking over a fire, writing letters, reflecting
Holm says there was plenty to keep the sisters occupied without noise – and without screens. They built fires to cook over, gazed at autumn foliage and spent time reflecting.
There were creative activities provided in the cabin, including writing a letter to your future self.
Holm says there was plenty to keep the sisters occupied without noise. – Johanna Holm
“It was full of new adventures and experiences, like going deep into the forest in the middle of the night without lights, cooking our food over the fire, feeling so connected with the nature around us, and becoming so calm and rested within ourselves, because of the silence,” she says.
“Staying silent as well made me feel so imbalanced and calm, which I haven’t felt like in a while.”
‘Staying silent empowers you to hear your inner voice’
Holm’s stay was a success for both her and for Visit Skåne.
As Nordgren explains, “The idea was never about strict silence but about awareness, helping guests understand how their own sounds interact with nature’s, and how stillness feels when it’s real.”
Holm says she wants to replicate the joy and tranquillity she felt in the cabin in her day-to-day life.
“I’ve felt so incredibly calm, happy, empowered and fulfilled during those days in the cabin, that I now want to find a place like this for myself and my friends and family as well,” she says.
“And above all, I want to stay silent more often, because it empowers you to hear your inner voice even more.”