In many parts of the Northern European mountain regions economies have been heavily dependent on extractive industries. But with logging, farming, mining and fishing declining in labour needs, tourism often takes on a new meaning for such communities. Today tourism has become an important mean of potential economic and social development, while there are also concerns about the environmental impacts of tourism. To understand the complex social and natural systems that many mountain regions feature one must first describe its components, but there is often a lack of comprehensive data about tourism and recreation. This paper will focus on recreation patterns and trends in mountain tourism in Sweden for the last 20 years, with comparisons to other mountain regions of Northern Europe. In Sweden, mountain tourism has both increased and moved south, closer to the large urban regions. Much of the increase is ascribed to a growth in mechanized winter activities such as snowmobiling and downhill skiing. Traditional mountain outdoor activities like hiking and cross-country skiing has been stable or declining over time. Similar patterns of change are found in Finland, Norway and Iceland. In the analysis, both societal changes and activity-specific changes are used to explain these changes in mountain tourism.