Copenhagen Activities Worth Your Time
Copenhagen’s most interesting activities are not museum tickets, they are ways of using the harbor and its edges. A working waste-to-energy plant grew a rooftop hiking trail. A non-profit lends kayaks for free if you help clean the water. That is the city in a nutshell, and it makes for a cheaper day than the guidebooks suggest.
CopenHill: a power plant you climb
Amager Bakke, better known as CopenHill, is a functioning waste-to-energy plant at Vindmøllevej 6 designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, with a 400m dry-ski slope on its roof and the world’s tallest outdoor climbing wall. The stepped rooftop hiking trail to the 85m summit is completely free, open daily roughly 10:00-19:00, and the view over the harbor and Øresund is the best free vantage point in the city. Skiing costs about 175 DKK per hour including equipment, booked via copenhill.dk . Take bus 37 or 2A to Refshalevej, or cycle 15 minutes from Nyhavn.
Self-drive electric picnic boats
GoBoat, based at Islands Brygge 10, rents silent, solar-powered boats built from recycled plastic bottles, each with a central picnic table and room for up to eight people. No license or boating experience is required. An hour runs roughly 499-549 DKK per boat, split among the group it is one of the cheaper afternoons on the water. Check GoBoat’s Copenhagen availability before a summer weekend, since slots fill days ahead. The driver has to stay under the 0.5 promille maritime limit, and the route is restricted to the central harbor and Christianshavn’s canals.
Kayaking, paid and free
Kayak Republic, at Børskaj 12 beneath Knippelsbro, rents sea kayaks for exploring Christianshavn and Slotsholmen: about 295 DKK for a single, 495 DKK for a double, for two hours, life jacket included. Book direct at kayakrepublic.dk , or browse guided Copenhagen kayak tours on Viator if you want commentary along the way. If budget matters more than convenience, GreenKayak lends a two-person kayak free for two hours on the condition you collect floating trash and post a photo; it runs April through October from a handful of spots including Kayak Bar, booked at greenkayak.org .
Harbor baths and saunas
Havnebadet Islands Brygge is a free public harbor bath with five basins, including a 50m pool and a diving tower, open 1 June to 30 September with lifeguards on duty 10:00-19:00. Stay inside the enclosed platforms; the open channel outside is a working shipping lane and jumping off nearby bridges carries a 1,000 DKK fine. For something warmer, La Banchina on Refshalevej 141A rents its wood-fired harbor sauna by the hour for about 60 DKK per person, with a direct plunge off the pier into the harbor between rounds.
Where to eat after
Reffen, Scandinavia’s largest open-air street food market, sits nearby at Refshalevej 167 with more than 30 stalls from 18 different countries, open seasonally from April through October. Check the day’s hours at reffen.dk before you go, since the market closes for winter.
Before you go
Buy a Rejsebillet app ticket or just tap a contactless card at the barriers; the old plastic Rejsekort was retired across the city in June 2026. For a full day of sights strung together with these activities, see the Copenhagen sightseeing guide or the 3-day Copenhagen itinerary .