In the newly published Nordregio report ‘Planning for sustainable tourism in the Nordic region’ , over 100 tourism development plans (TDPs) from rural areas of the Nordic countries were collected, coded and analysed. The mapping of these documents – which are formulated at the lowest geographical level – provide an insight into how the regions and define themselves in relation to tourism, what their strengths and focuses are, where they see opportunities, what they consider their main challenges, and how sustainability concerns are – or are not – integrated into the tourism plans. The process of thoroughly mapping, coding and analysing the TDPs revealed some common challenges in tourism development and tourism planning which are shared among many Nordic regions while other challenges are more place specific.