About Umeå

Umeå, located on both sides of the Ume river, is the capital of Västerbotten County in northern Sweden. It is the biggest city in northern Sweden and the 13th biggest city in Sweden, according to the newest available statistical data. Much of the importance of Umeå is thanks to its University, whose establishment in 1965 turned the city into a center of education and technical and medical research. Today, Umeå University has about 32,000 students, which means that every fourth person you meet in Umeå is a student, making Umeå a very young city with a vivid cultural life. The city was a European Capital of Culture in 2014 (together with Rīga, Latvia).

Reaching Umeå

Umeå can be reached by train from Stockholm or by plane via the airport Stockholm Arlanda. There is an airport buss (“Flygbussen”) that takes you to the city centre’s main bus station Vasaplan within 10 min.

The Conference Site and Local Travel

The conferences take place on campus. You can take a bus from the main bus station Vasaplan in the city centre (about five minutes walk from the hotel) or, if you don’t want to sit all day, walk.

Taking the bus is quite straightforward. You are aiming to take either:

• Line 2 in the direction “Universitetet”,
• Line 5 in the direction “Strömpilen”,
• Line 8 in the direction “Tomtebo via Ålidhem”, or,
• Line 9 in the direction “Carlshöjd”.

In any case you get off at the stop “Universum”, from where it is a very short walk to the conference location. The buses are frequent, and the travelling time is 5–10 minutes. You can buy your bus ticket onboard the bus using a credit card or your smartphone or from a ticket machine at Vasaplan.

If you decided to walk to the campus, you will enter from the same direction as the bus, so the following applies to pedestrians as well.

Once you get off the bus at Universum you should see signs, but if not, just continue into roughly the same direction as the bus faces, turning slightly to the left and crossing the street. After about 100 m you will reach the Universum building. Enter through the main doors and continue straight ahead, up one flight of stairs and further ahead. Enter the skywalk to the neighboring building. The conference lecture halls are right where you enter this building to the left (WORDS) and to the right (DLT and common sessions).

Here are MazeMap links (if you followed the above directions, you are coming from the left):

• DLT & common sessions
• WORDS

Hotels

There will be a way to book hotel rooms via the registration page of DLT & WORDS 2023, but feel free to make your own choice from the hotels in Umeå and book directly. Some of the possibilities are:

• Comfort Hotel Winn
• Elite Hotel Mimer
• First Hotel Dragonen
• U&Me Hotel (modern hotel with “digital check-in”)
• Hotell Pilen (nice independent hotel next to the Art Campus and 10–15 min from the conference site)
• Hotell Gamla Fängelset (the “old prison” – a slightly different experience, also about 10–15 min the conference site)
• STF Youth Hostel Umeå (the low-budget version)

Dinner Places

There are plenty of restaurantsin the city centre. Some suggestions are:

• GP’s for a mix of comfort foods.
• Rost for coffee and lighter meals (primarily lunch, they close at 18:00), vegetarian or vegan.
• Malala as another vegetarian or vegan option, punjabi food.
• Sjöbris for a lovely river view and some fairly Swedish meal options.
• Tonka (or sister bistro Rus) for (fairly expensive) fine dining.
• Köksbaren for (fairly expensive) high end grilled meats and similar options.
• Orangeriet for mid-end dining and possibly playing some boule.
• For pub visits some options are Rådhuskällaren (enter Rex, immediately turn right down the stairs) very large craft beer selection), Bishops Arms, or, for extremely fancy cocktails (with all local, though expensive, ingredients) Facit.

Find all of them marked on a map here. These are a fairly arbitrarily chosen list, there are many other nice places, explore yourself or ask the organizers!

Activities and Places to Visit

If you happen to arrive early or do not leave directly after the event, there are various things you can do, depending on interest and how much time is available. Here we have collected some suggestions. Some of the places are a few minutes walking distance from the conference site and require only one or two hours of spare time while others are slightly more difficult to reach or take more time to visit. Please let us know if you are interested of something and we will be glad to help by providing further information or by organizing something.