How to Live in Denmark: A Fun Guide for Foreigners in Denmark and their Danish friends

Authenticity and the Danish summer light

These are the light times in Denmark. In summer, it’s light until around 10 or 11 in the evening and then the sun is back around 4am.

It’s a nice contrast to the dark times in winter, although all that light can make you feel a bit jittery and overstimulated.

It’s also one of the few times a year that the Danes close their curtains. They do that so the first rays of sunshine won’t wake them up at a painfully early hour.

At other times of the year, the curtains to homes and apartments are often wide open, and visitors to Denmark are sometimes surprised that they can see right into people’s homes as they eat dinner or watch TV.

Keeping curtains open makes sense for the darker times of the Danish year when you’re desperate for as much sunlight as possible. But it’s also a sign of confidence in who you are and what you are presenting to the world, that you have nothing to hide. This is me. This is who I am.

Warts and all

Authenticity is a basic Danish value, just like trust and transparency and having a sense of humor about yourself. Denmark is not a status culture, it’s not a place where you fake it until you make it. It’s a place where you’re expected to present yourself warts and all.

May 28, 2026 by Kay Xander Mellish

Books, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

New Book! The Danish Year, 12 Months of Customs, Quirks, and Rhythms of Everyday Life in Denmark

Why do Danes “hit a cat out of a barrel” in February, set a single candle in the window in May, disappear for three weeks in July, and set out a bowl of porridge for a mythical “nisse” in December?

What are the aspects of the Danish year that aren’t on any calendar?

You’ll find the answers to these questions and so much more in our new book, The Danish Year: Twelve Months of Customs, Quirks, and Rhythms of Everyday Life in Denmark, available exclusively on Amazon Kindle for only DK35/USD 5.

(If you don’t have a Kindle, you can still read this short book on your tablet or phone using the Kindle app.)

Why is this book electronic-only?

After more than 10 years of putting out print books, I’ve chosen to debut this one as electronic-only on Amazon Kindle.

Why?

🔴 It’s short – only 89 pages – and going online allows me to sell it at a modest price that’s within most people’s budgets. And online publication allows for color illustration, which would make a print book very expensive.

🟡 Short books fit the way people read now. Our attention spans are fractured, sadly, and as a passionate reader myself, I have plenty of half-read books around the house.

The Amazon Kindle app allows people to read the book wherever and whenever they have time, on their tablets, phones, and or Kindle readers if they have one. (I do.)

🔴 Online books can be revised as circumstances evolve. Although this book isn’t really a news book, small facts do change (such as the name of the Danish prime minister), and it’s nice to be able to revise information that would otherwise make the book look dated.

New strategy

My new strategy is this: as opposed to writing one big book every few years (How to Work in Denmark, my previous book, came out in 2022) I plan to write 1-2 short books per year.

Some will also be published on paper, and some will just live online as part of my new “𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬” series on Amazon.

April 22, 2026 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

The Spontaneous Dane: Why Friendship Needs a Calendar

People who move to Denmark often complain that Danes are not spontaneous. Trying to strike up a conversation with someone in the street or in public transport is usually a non-starter. Even when you know people, getting together has to be planned well in advance. Calendars fill up quickly.

There’s an old joke that if two Italians meet in the street, having not seen each other in a long time, they’ll go get a spur-of-the-moment cup of coffee and catch up.

Two Danes run into each other – they’ll both reach for their calendars and figure out when, in the near future, they might have time to catch up.

What about next Thursday afternoon after work and before dinner? No? How about the following Wednesday?

Spur of the moment beer by the water

The only exception is spring. This time of year, when the snow is gone and the buds finally start to come out on the trees, an unexpected afternoon of sunshine is a great excuse to toss aside all of your pre-existing plans and go have a beer by the water.

And there is almost always place to have a beer by the water, wherever you are in Denmark.

March 30, 2026 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danish dinner party customs, and why it’s OK if you break your Royal Copenhagen dishes

Some might say that the most Danish piece of furniture is the chair. The Swan Chair, the Egg Chair, the Wishbone chair. They’re all international design classics. You can buy a poster with 100 of the top Danish chairs, and if you go to Designmuseum Danmark there is a hall of chairs you walk through, the display cases stacked three high. Chairs, chairs, everywhere.

But I think the most Danish piece of furniture is the table. It is where traditional Danish cuisine is enjoyed, and sitting around the table, and sitting and sitting and sitting there for hours after a long meal, is where hygge reigns and people are included – or excluded, as the case may be.

February 15, 2026 by Kay Xander Mellish

Books, Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

Danish Movies and TV as a Guide to Danish Culture

Watching movies and TV is a great way to get through the long Danish winter, and if you watch Danish movies or TV series, it’s also a great way to learn Danish or learn about Danish culture.

Many newcomers to Denmark tell me they’ve been watching recent shows, like Borgen or The Bridge or The Killing. Or maybe movies like Another Round, which won an Oscar for Best International Feature, or The Hunt, both of which star Mads Mikkelsen, Denmark’s most recent contribution to the world of movie stars.

I saw Mads at the Copenhagen Opera recently, just standing by himself in the lobby with a glass of champagne, no one bothering him.

When you start watching Danish films, you’ll probably want English subtitles, but as your knowledge of Danish grows, it’s great to try out the Danish subtitles. That will help you bridge the gap between spoken Danish and written Danish, which don’t always resemble each other if you’re not a native speaker.

January 22, 2026 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark

How to Live in Denmark audiobooks free on Spotify

Got Spotify Premium? Then you have access to all five of our How to Live in Dennmark audiobooks for free!

Enjoy:

📕 How to Live in Denmark: Are you moving to Denmark, or already living in Denmark and trying to fit in? Kay Xander Mellish, the voice behind the long-running “How to Live in Denmark” podcast, offers a humorous look at the joys and absurdities of daily life as a non-Dane in “the happiest country in the world.”

📙 How to Work in Denmark: With its high salaries and good work-life balance, Denmark is an attractive place to work. But the Danish workplace, like Danish culture as a whole, is built on unwritten rules and unspoken expectations. “How to Work in Denmark” explains some of the rules of the road in the Danish workplace, as well as how to find and keep a job in Denmark.

📘 Top 35 Mistakes Danes Make in English: A fun guide to small but significant errors Danes make when speaking otherwise excellent English. Is it “customer” or “costumer”? Should you translate “derfor” and “hermed” directly in your English text? Are you “living in a hotel” on your next vacation? This entertaining book will help you avoid common mistakes.

📕 Working with Danes: Tips for Americans Denmark is a great place to do business. Infrastructure is good, corruption is minimal, innovation is respected, and business structures are flexible. Most people speak excellent English. Still, many Americans put a foot wrong. This fun, easy-to-read book by an American who has worked with several Danish companies will help you avoid simple mistakes.

📘 Working with Americans: Tips for Danes Doing business in the US is challenging and exciting. The size, wealth, and diversity of the American market is hard to beat. But when it comes to business culture, too many Danes assume that the US is basically just like Denmark – only bigger. This can be the first of many expensive mistakes.

Just do a quick search for “Kay Xander Mellish” and all 5 books will appear, or follow the links above.

January 14, 2026 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

December, Little Nisse, Big Money: The Danish Year Part 12

I’ve referred to “The Danish Year” before on How to Live in Denmark. It’s a series of events that are simply expected to happen every year in Denmark, even if they aren’t formal holidays. In 2025 I’m going to try to do a podcast every month about aspects of the Danish year, and how they fit into the overall context of where Denmark is coming from, and where it’s going.

The nisse is a centuries-old figure of folklore in Denmark, and in December Nisse get a lot of attention – all month, while Julemanden (Santa Claus) only has one big day near the end.

With their very short stature and pointed red hats, nisse are often confused with Christmas elves, although they are not the same.

Elves exist mostly to help Santa in his workshop, but Nisse have busy lives of their own, closely related to an individual household.

They live in the walls of the home and get up to mischief, like hiding things, or turning milk different colors. They expect a bowl of rice pudding on December 24 and will create trouble if they don’t get one.

December 3, 2025 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

November Rain and “daylighting” buried rivers: The Danish Year Part 11

I always thought November was the rainiest of Danish months, but it isn’t, actually. That’s October. But November feels rainier, because the sky is so grey, and it gets dark so early, and the rain sometimes comes down in little freezing pellets.

Denmark is a watery country, not just its long coastline and many rivers and lakes, but also the fact it is mostly near sea level. Like the Netherlands nearby, it is extremely vulnerable to flooding.

Climate changes in recent decades have made it worse, and sudden cloudbursts – or skybrud– cause a lot of damage.

So retrofitting Denmark for even more water in the future has become a national obsession.

Officially, a skybrud or a cloudburst is defined as more than 15 millimeters of rain in less than 30 minutes, or 3 centimeters of rain in an hour. In these intense downpours, there is so much water that the soil and the drainage systems can’t absorb it.

November 22, 2025 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

October, Democracy in Denmark, and competitive poster hanging: The Danish Year Part 10

I travel a lot around Denmark, giving speeches in various cities and towns, and I usually travel on the on the Danish train network, DSB. Danes love to hate DSB, but I kind of like it. The trains are clean, generally on time, and you even get frequent traveler miles for your trips that you can use to buy ice cream or other snacks. And the trains have big windows that you can look out and see this lovely, flat country roll by.

The name of this podcast is How to Live in Denmark, but Denmark is not a uniform thing. The landscape differs – a few hills in some places, forests in some places, water to cross over – and the government differs. While the Parliament in Copenhagen decides on big issues like defense and immigration, local authorities are in control of things that really matter to everyday life.

October 13, 2025 by Kay Xander Mellish

Podcasts, Stories about life in Denmark, The Danish Year

September, elite sports in Denmark, and the not-quite death of Jante Law: The Danish Year Part 9

September is when fall sports season starts in Denmark. The badminton league begins, so does volleyball and basketball and hockey.

Most importantly, the handball season kicks off, and while I’m not a handball fan myself, I always know when that season is underway because my otherwise mild-mannered downstairs neighbor begins screaming at his flatscreen, cheering on or scolding Denmark’s handball girls or handball boys. The teams are equally popular in Denmark.

Team handball was invented in Denmark – and like design, it’s a national passion. Danish teams have won several World Championships and many Olympic Gold Medals.

September 16, 2025 by Kay Xander Mellish

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Kay Xander Mellish is a US-DK dual citizen. She grew up in Wisconsin, USA, but has lived in Denmark for more than a decade. Kay is a popular keynote speaker on Danish working culture and offers practical advice to international professionals navigating Danish work environments.

In addition, she helps Americans and Danes avoid misunderstandings and improve their cross-cultural teamwork.

Kay is the author of "The Danish Year" (2026), "How to Work in Denmark" (2022 and 2018), "How to Live in Denmark" (2017 and 2014), "Top 35 Mistakes Danes Make in English" (2016), "Working with Americans: Tips for Danes" (2019), and "Working with Danes: Tips for Americans" (2020). Her books are also available in audio format.