AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Koön — written 'Koon' on Google Maps — is a small island in the outer reaches of Kungälv municipality on Sweden's Bohuslän coast, about 50 km north of Gothenburg. For most visitors it plays a single, memorable role: it is the last place you can drive to before stepping onto the car-free island of Marstrand. You leave the car on Koön and take the little Marstrandsfärjan across a narrow stretch of water in about two minutes.↗↗
Yet Koön is more than just a ferry landing and car park. It has its own shoreline, its own cluster of houses by the water, and a network of marked trails that run between the settlement and out to rocky viewpoints over the open Western Sea. On a summer day it is the calm, slightly rugged counterweight to the bustle of the tourist town a two-minute hop away — a good place to stretch your legs, watch the sailing traffic, or wait for the ferry without crowding.↗↗
The gateway to car-free Marstrand
Marstrand's old town and its hilltop Carlsten Fortress sit on an island where private cars are banned, so the journey has to end here on Koön. A handful of pay-and-display car parks line the island, the closest to the jetty being Hamnplan right by the ferry landing, with Brandstationen and Käglan just behind (both capped at 24 hours in peak season), and Hareslättsvägen a little farther in for longer stays of up to fourteen days. From there the Marstrandsfärjan shuttles passengers, bicycles and service traffic across the channel roughly every fifteen minutes, the crossing itself taking only about two minutes.
