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Hi! As a kid I was building kites and flying simple stunt kites with my brother, but lost track of this great hobby. Now that I have kids myself I got inspired to start flying again, not just with the kids but for my own soul as well. I was thinking about starting with two lines and see where the wind takes me from there. I live in Sweden now and shops are basically nonexistent around here, even ordering online within Sweden seems to not exist, so where is a good place to buy within Europe? And what would kites should I be looking at to get a good balance of fun to fly, room for growth and economy?

Hi :-) Metropolis Drachen in Germany have excellent service. You can call them anytime for help! Drachenmarkt is offline at the moment. Feine Drachen sells Quads from China for small money. Always the first address for entry into 4-line . There you can get a R2F package with handles and lines. Paddestoel in The Netherlands has a great selection, good service - but are always a tad more expensive. Korvokites from Germany builds you everything in excellent quality from 1-, 2- and 4-lines. One of my favorite kite builders! Space Kites from Germany is a very good manufacturer with a very good reputation - but long delivery times. Besides Polo from France there is also Los Hermanos from Spain. They build besides SLK still the excellent Detox. (Next to Djinn my favorite Quad). Finally, there is Thomas Horvath in Switzerland, who builds incredible zero wind kites.

Hello @hallthor, Another Swede – that is not every day one shows up on KL! I agree that there are not so many options here, but we are not completely without shops. You can get a Prism Quantum from “Fler Bollar i Luften” an HQ Yukon from “Drakjohan” (I bought a HQ Photon (a fighter kite) from him two weeks ago btw) and also from “Skånehobby”. If you want real fancy kites try Sportkitedesign (though it seems like SKD “ is currently taking a break and not taking orders”). OK, so abroad I have tried: Metropolis Drachen, Drachenmarkt, Bilboquet, Spiderkites, Elliot, Andykites and Kiteworld. I have never been disappointed with the delivered goods. I’m currently waiting for a delivery after a recent order from Polokites (but custom kite orders tend to take a while compared to something that is already in stock). I have not tested De Paddestoel, Korvokites, Space Kites, Kitehouse or Feine-Drachen yet (I’m sure I have omitted several shops here unfortunately). You can also buy used gear/kites from Fractured Axel (For Sale & Wanted) and Drachenforum (Börse). Funny, kids had the opposite effect on me. With few exceptions I took a 15 year break from kites when the children were small... Good luck with your return to your hobby! Added 19th Sept 2021: I forgot (in addition to Kite-Lab/Thomas Horvath as mentioned by @Bunduki Vlieger) to mention the shop Kitebg. I have not yet tried their services though. Perhaps not a very large stunt kite relevant assortment. On the other hand gokitinggr, (to my understanding) the corresponding Youtube channel, is much varied.