How to get around in Copenhagen

First of all - many sights in Copenhagen are within a short distance of each other so walking or biking is an easy way to get around🚶

Many bike-shops offer rentals. You can rent for a few hours or several days. 

Recommended shops:

• BeCopenhagen

• Bike Tours Copenhagen

• MS Cykelcenter

• Swapfiets

There’s also the option of renting electric bikes and E-scooters on the go. There’s 3 big companies you’ll find all over the streets:

• Lime

• Bolt

• Donkey Republic

📣PRO TIP: Make sure to download the apps when you have wifi, so you save data on your phone. Also add your credit card to your phone to have a smooth check-out. 

Public Transportation

In Denmark there’s 3 main forms of public transportation. Common for all three are that they run all the time. So no rush.

Here’s a breakdown:

Bus🚌

Busses are yellow (or blue if it’s electric) and is just called a bus. 

✅Pros: You can get much closer to everything inside the city center.

❌Cons: You can get stuck in traffic (or worse: get stuck in a full bus)

Train🚆

There’s 2 forms of trains: regional- and S-trains (S-tog in danish).

You will mainly use the S-train. The S-trains are red and you can always spot a train station by the big red S-signs. 

✅Pros: You can travel far relatively quickly. 

❌Cons: Longer distance between stops. 

Metro🚇

The Copenhagen Metro has four lines M1, M2, M3 and M4 (they all go every 1-2 min.) M3 is also called the “city ring” as it goes in a circle under Copenhagen and will mainly be the one you’ll use.

Many train stations are directly connected to metro-stations, and you will most commonly change lines at Nørreport station and the Central Station. But sometimes you have to leave the S-station and walk a few meters to reach the metro. If you arrive in Copenhagen airport, there’s a direct metro-line (M2) from the airport to the inner city (takes 13 min.)

✅Pros: quick, easy and great accessibility to many sights.

 ❌Cons: there’s no system to getting on the metro, and often there’s a lot of people - so you have to PUSH forward (and no the next train won’t have fewer people).

⛴️ Harbour bus 

A bit misleading name as it’s actually a yellow ferry. This is the easiest way to get from the city centre to the Refshale island (Copenhill, refshale street food and the Opera house). They follow a schedule of going up and down the Copenhagen harbour and you just get on and off as you like.

📣PRO TIP: If you plan on using public transportation DOWNLOAD “Rejseplanen”. It’s a mobile-app where you can easily find the best route on how to get from A to B with public transportation. It tells you all the information you need, and lets  you know if you need to change from train to bus or metro. 

🎟️ How to buy tickets:

There’s no gates or other systems which prevent you from using trains, metros & busses without a ticket, but there’s inspectors, who will randomly join a ride. You HAVE to have a ticket - always. The controllers don’t care if you’re a tourist, and the fines are €100...

There’s many ways you can buy a ticket. Here's a few: 

• Machines in the station (they are big red (or silver) boxes)

• 7/11 stores

• In the App “Rejsebillet”

• Copenhagen Card (my recommendation)

Info about the Copenhagen Card:

It’s a city pass which allows you to have a smooth visit to Copenhagen. You don’t have to worry about bookings from many different sites, public transportation or having to pay more than intended for attractions.

You can visit +80 attractions with the card - and there’s no limit to how many places you can go to in one day!

The card is valid for 24, 48, 72, 96 or 120 hours, depending on which type of card you purchase. With the Copenhagen Card public transportation in the entire Copenhagen Region + trains to Roskilde, Hillerød and Helsingør are included!

Get it here