In the summer months, temporary fleamarkets open up in farmyards and cottage gardens in every village and in every part of Sweden.

The locals lay out their unwanted objects in the hope that city Swedes, their judgements weakened by weeks of lounging in the sun, buy them and take them home. 

You’ll see the clumsily painted signs on country roads everywhere saying “loppis”, short for loppmarknad or “fleamarket”, often with arrows directing you to a garden crammed with unlikely objects. 

Holidaying Swedes love to spend an afternoon doing what is called a loppisrunda, or “loppis-round”, where they’ll visit several fleamarkets in one day, devoting a morning or afternoon to studying lace brocades, pots and pans, and old electronics, or considering whether or not to buy a rusty old bicycle. 

As well as the individual loppises, there are also more organised car-boot-sale type events, held at a local football pitch or park on a set day, where visitors peruse dozens and dozens of stalls, all run by locals seeking to offload their old junk. 

There are also auctions, where objects are grouped together in lots, each of which is auctioned off by an auctioneer. 

These bigger markets might offer stalls settling hotdogs, coffee and cakes, and might even feature live music or activities for children. 

What’s the attraction? 

Swedes both hate wastefulness and love a bargain, so the attraction of a loppis is obvious.

In a country where most people live in urban apartments with furnishings most from IKEA, holiday loppises also offer the chance to explore an older Sweden, and bring home furniture and decorations with a bit more unique character. 

You might find a charming cabinet made by a local carpenter 50 or 100 years ago that has been salvaged from an farmhouse or torp, complete with colourful painted decoration. You might find some classic 1950s Höganäs pots or plates. 

There’s a social aspect. It’s a chance for the holidaymakers who have come to a more rural part of Sweden to interact with the locals, and also with one another.

Friends holidaying in the same area might agree to meet at one of the bigger loppises on a day trip, as an alternative to the beach, emerging from the seclusion of their holiday houses or stugas for a few hours to meet others. 

Tips on how to get the best out of a summer loppis 

As with such markets anywhere in the world, the early bird catches the worm (or maybe the flea). So try to arrive as soon after the official opening as possible, when you should rush around the stalls as quickly as possible, buying up anything you simply must have immediately, and mentally noting down the things you might like but aren’t sure about. 

It can be helpful to turn the Google Lens app on your phone on any pottery or glassware. You might discover it being sold on an online auction site for 20 or 30 times the price offered where you are. 

Finally, keep in the back of your mind the knowledge that anything you buy at a summer loppis is likely to first spend five years clogging up your garage or storage area before you finally get so sick of it that you take it to a second-hand store (or even to another summer loppis). 

This is especially the case with the auctions, where one attractive object is often grouped together with three or four bits of absolutely trash. 

So choose carefully!