Top-notch restaurants, interesting culture and scary stories helped to put Sweden on Lonely Planet's list of the world's top ten countries to visit next year, ranking the country at number 4.

"Thanks to the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson, most people have a sense of what Sweden’s like, even in the far north – cold, beautiful and a bit scary", the travel guide explained.

It also said that the Nordic country is emerging with a new pop-culture persona. Perhaps not coincidentally, northern Sweden’s largest city, Umeå, is the European Capital of Culture for 2014.

Sweden was also hailed for its innovative restaurants.

"The capital has long been a stylish, top-notch destination for serious gourmands and boldly experimental chefs but lately the reputation and influence of Swedish cooking have spread beyond the country’s borders. Considering that Swedish cuisine is so strongly tied to locally sourced ingredients (be it seafood, game, berries, herbs or regional cheeses), it makes perfect sense to go to the source of all this fine food", it said.