Transform your summer with the Östersjöfestivalen (Baltic Sea Festival), a four-day folk festival in Karlshamn. Music, delicacies, and cultural experiences await you at this spectacular seaside party.

Five major ocean currents intersect at Lord Howe Island and the waters are teeming with tropical, subtropical and temperate species of fish. The island's shallow lagoons contain trevally, silver drummer, bluefish and the double-header wrasse. Join a fishing boat adventure charter for the chance to hook Lord Howe kingfish, silver trevally, tuna, wahoo, cod species, marlin and more.

Accessible only by air, this remote part of the country is known to have claimed lives of both beasts and humans (hence the macabre name) - whale carcasses still line the coast, serving as a grim reminder of the once flourishing whaling industry. One of the biggest "attractions" here is the Dunedin Star, a British ship wrecked in the 1940s. At Cape Cross, the scenery changes: this lively oasis inhabited with hundreds of seals and sea lions frolicking jovially by the water.

Further inland, in the southern part of the island, lie the so-called masticochoria (mastic villages). These well-preserved, fortified villages date from the 14th-16th centuries and were centres for the cultivation of mastic. Mastic is the sweet-tasting gum of the lentisk bush, which was exported all over the Mediterranean – and the area still produces around 300 tonnes of mastic every year. The most picturesque villages are Pyrgi, with its houses decorated in black and white geometric patterns called xysta Mesta, where towers and walls surround a baffling labyrinth of village streets as well as Olympoi and Vessa are all a worth a visit.