By Robin McKelvie

Copyright independent

There are a lot of tough sells as a parent. Explaining to two teenage girls why we are spending three hours on a train so we can pick up litter at the other end is one of the tougher ones. Then again, we’re bound for Copenhagen, a city just voted the world’s happiest.

“What makes a city the world’s happiest?” quizzes 17-year-old Tara as we ease into Copenhagen’s central station. It’s a good question, one the Institute for the Quality of Life answered in their 2025 ‘Happy City Index’, which rates indicators of happiness across 82 quality of life categories, such as Citizens, Environment, Health and Mobility. They look at how policies actually impact people, with Copenhagen pulling away from a pack that included Zurich, fellow Scandinavian charmer Stockholm and another Danish city, Aarhus. For the judges, Copenhagen excelled on its green spaces, sustainability and median salary.

Hauling a family of four around a Scandinavian city on the face of it is a daunting financial prospect – that quality of living comes at a cost, which works fine if you’re a Dane in a country where the average wage is a smile-inducing £67,000. Ever innovative, the perennially upbeat tourist authorities, though, have conjured up an ingenious plan to save visitors and residents cash, while improving the city in a sustainable way.

Read more: I took a family of four on a Copenhagen city break for under £1,000

Copenhagen’s pioneering programme is called CopenPay, the idea being that ‘conscious actions’ are rewarded. Søren Tegen Pedersen, CEO at Wonderful Copenhagen, explains, “CopenPay now rewards our visitors’ choice of means of transportation to the destination – for example, if they arrive by train. By raising awareness about the impact of their choices, both at the destination and when getting there, our hope is that this way of thinking will live on in our visitors – back home and on future travels.”

CopenPay does reward our choice to arrive by train – we snare four vouchers to use with the ‘Too Good To Go’ App. This offers us free meals from businesses that would have discarded the food otherwise. First up is 7-Eleven at the station, where we snare enough pastries for breakfast for all four of us. We basically get four free meals across our stay, which really eases our costs.

CopenPay does not stop with just rewarding your choice of travel. The scheme – now in its first full year after a wildly successful launch in 2024 – currently includes almost 100 businesses. At the Copenhagen Museum we prove we’ve arrived using the city’s excellent public transport system and are served a free coffee. The Danish Architecture Centre brings a free guide with our veggie lunch. My daughters soon warm to what they dub our “eco-friendly treasure hunt”.

The fun continues at Tivoli Gardens, a historic attraction that is very Copenhagen: an oasis of pure joy for locals and visitors alike right in the city centre. Forget newcomers like Disney and Universal, the Danish capital has had a brilliantly engaging theme park and garden right on this prime slice of real estate since 1843. At the Tivoli’s superb Bryggeriet Apollo we each enjoy a free CopenPay drink with our delicious lunch of prawns from Jutland.

Our CopenPay highlight comes at GoBoat. These battery-operated electric boats, which are charged using green electricity, are the best way to explore the city’s impressive maze of waterways. When we vow to pick up litter en route we’re rewarded with a free self-guided boat trip. GoBoat marine biologist Izzy Smith enthuses: “CopenPay works on every level. Visitors love doing a good deed and getting rewarded with a free trip. And we get a cleaner city and raw data on the type of litter they pick up that we are now using in research, which chimes with our association with WWF and biodiversity programmes.”

It’s a surreal experience easing around a major European capital, below the hulking palaces and grand architecture, armed with green fishing nets, hauling out soft drink cans and chocolate bar wrappers. We’re not alone – there are ducks, swans, rowers, other GoBoat vessels and also kayaks from GreenKayak, which come equipped with wee litter bins for collecting more rubbish. My daughters by now are thoroughly embracing Copenhagen, with 14-year-old Emma vying with Tara for the title of ‘Top Litter Picker’. It proves a diplomatic tie for first place, judged by mum, with both winners crowned with ice cream.

Even hotels are getting in on CopenPay. Our hipster first hotel in the centre, the 25 Hours Hotel Indre By, rewards us with free iced coffees when we show on our phones that we’ve walked 5,000 steps. Then at our second hotel, the Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers by IHG, handily just a five-minute train ride to the airport, we can have a free CopenPay yoga session. We can also secure free bike rentals, more free food, endless coffees, go wild swimming and myriad other delights in an initiative that is expanding as it goes.

Read more: The best hotels in Copenhagen, reviewed

CopenPay is sending out positive vibes to other cities too, with the people behind it telling me that countless other destinations have been in touch to find more about how it works. But there are far more reasons to savour the city beyond one seriously impressive scheme. It’s even a joy getting around, which we do on two feet, cycling and using a slick public transport network that includes ferries as well as an underground. “I wish we could cycle everywhere back home,” chips in Tara.

Copenhagen for me has always been a city that makes you think about how cities can be, a metropole resolutely committed to giving its citizens the best life it can rather than just racing to make ever more money or constantly overdevelop. Over our stay, as we ease around on boat tours by lovely wee houses with gardens right in the centre, and enjoy a city awash with green spaces. Here, hygge is not just hipster; more a way of living that steers life-affirmingly on the right side of work/life balance.

We tick off the sights visiting that tiny mermaid, flitting through palaces, nosing in galleries, checking out the bountiful food markets and wandering around the local zoo. And the best part? Maybe one of these attractions or the TikTok star of Nyhavn? “It’s just fun hanging out in the world’s happiest city and doing our bit to make the city even nicer,” smiles Tara, as we hop back on our bikes and head off in search of another free coffee and a litter-picking kayak adventure.

For more tourist information visit wonderfulcopenhagen.com.

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