Land of the Fjords
So you decided you want to visit Norway. AWSOME!!! We can’t wait to have you. But maybe you need some help planning your travel, so here are my tips to travel to Norway.
I’ve been living in Norway for 1,5 years now, and there are so many amazing things here. But as a traveler you know each country has it’s own special things you need to account for.
…These are Norway’s peculiarities. Pay attention 😉
Currency
Let’s start with this so you won’t be confuse when I start putting prices in nok.
Please don’t try to buy things in Euros here. It is not a E.U country. We use NOK – norsk krone. I always use the site www.XE.com for my calculations. Today’s exchange rates are:
- 1 kr – 0,10€ 1€ – 9,8 kr
- 1 kr – 0,11$ 1$ – 8,7 kr
- 1kr – 0,09£ 1£ – 11 kr
Well to make things easier I always move the coma to the left in prices. It’s not exactly the exchange rate, and obviously when buying expensive things like flights or hotels you better use the exact rate. But for supermarket and such just round up
85 kr – 8,5 €$£.
You can write 1 kr or 1 nok. The difference is that kr is used for all countries that use crowns as coin, like Sweden or Denmark, while nok specifies it’s norwegian crowns.
Not in the winter
Yes I imagine you would like to see this winter wonderland full of snow. But depending on where you are in Norway it might not be that snowy even. Not all the country turns into a white paradise in Winter.
Norway’s main attraction is definitely the nature. You don’t come here with a urban interest even though there are beautiful cities with a lot of interesting things like the Viking ship museum in Oslo <3 . So the problem in winter is that a lot of roads and hikes are closed. Besides the hikes here are a serious thing. If you want to go to Preikestolen, Kjerag or Trollstunga they are hard and NOT recommended to go in the winter.
But we all think we are smarter than the experts right? Ehehe off course…I’m no exception. So I hiked Trollpikken (literally the Troll’s dick) in Easter. You can see all the snow! It’s an easy hike, and we even saw kids doing it (Norwegian kids…they are born hiking) but it’s slippery, super cold, you need to pay extra attention where you step so less time appreciating the surroundings and there’s gonna be rain and snow coming directly at your face. In conclusion, it’s unpleasant! Not your perfect vacay for sure
So unless you are going way up north to Tromso, Svalbard, etc. to see the northern lights or just to ski, I definitely recommend spring/summer.
It’s expensive
Yeah it is expensive. A meal out will cost you around 30€ per person (for a simple pizza or burger place) and a beer costs 8 to 9€. Just to make things easier a Macdonalds or Burguer King menu costs around 12€!
But there are ways to make it more budget friendly!
Just follow these tips to travel to Norway much cheaper:
♥ Go to the supermarket and buy some lunch. Norwegians are prepared for eating lunch straight out of the supermarket so there’s cheese on tubes, machines to cut your bread, tubes of jam, yogurts with plastic spoons and even takeaway hot food or salad bars. And in the summer there are plenty of parks or forests where you can enjoy lunch. On the other hand, you can’t drink alcohol outside (there are ways to go around this off course, but be careful just in case).
- Chicken breast – around 100 nok/kg
- Beer at supermarket – 25 to 35 nok for 0,5l
- Ham – 20 to 35nok for 200g
- Bread – 20 to 30 nok for a loaf
♥ Use public transports. Taxis are very expensive. And the public transports here work very well. Use google maps to help you out with the best options for your routes.
- Bus – 37 nok – 1 trip, 90 nok 24h, 280 nok 7 day trip – In Kolumbus with the phone app. Without the app they are more expensive so just download it. This is the bus company for the Rogaland area.
- For Oslo the bus company is Ruter, and it’s divided by areas, so 1 trip ticket can go from 36 nok to 128 nok, 24h ticket from 108 to 246 nok, and 7 days ticket from 285 to 761 nok.
- Trains for long distances work like flights, so you better plan ahead and book them. Since the prices change a lot it’s hard to give averages but for example – Stavanger – Kristiansand you can find them around 250 nok 1 way, Sta Oslo – Stavanger/Bergen or Trondheim from 450 to 1000 nok 1 way, on the other hand Stavanger – Bergen now costs up to 1500 nok 1 way. It changes a lot so plan ahead.
♥ Don’t invest too much on museums. Like I said the main interest here is Nature. There are obviously some I definitely recommend but maybe if you’re on a budget no point in going to a natural history museum or the canned fish museum. Here’s some of the best ones in case you’re still interested. These are adult prices.
- Viking Ship Museum – Oslo – 100 nok
- Norwegian (Folk) cultural history museum – Oslo – 160 nok
- Norwegian canning museum – Stavanger – 95 nok
- Norwegian Oil museum – Stavanger – 120 nok
- Vilvite Science center – Bergen – 180 nok
- Northern Norwegian Science Center – Tromso – 120 nok
- Polar museum – Tromso – 80 nok
♥ Don’t invest on paid hikes. Norwegians do hikes as has one of their main activity (if you don’t consider drinking on the weekend, off course) so their wilderness is prepared for people. You will find signs on the roads to the main hikes, google maps will help with smaller ones, all the paths are well marked on trees and rocks so you won’t get lost. So don’t be afraid and go. Even schools here take kids on day hikes.
♥ Consider an Airbnb or to rent an apartment. This way you can also cook and save some money. I do recommend going out for a typical Norwegian meal (they aren’t easy to find I tell you). You will not find pinnekjot (dry salted lamb) on restaurants outside the winter/Christmas time, but fiskesuppe (fish soup) is present in a lot of restaurants, even if they are also serving burguers or nachos.
- Hotels cost an average of 942 nok a night, hostels go from 200 – 500 nok for a dorm and 750 nok if you want you’re own room, Airbnb is common in most major cities and can go as low as 400 nok for a nigh.
- Hiking cabins run by the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT) are much cheaper at 100 nok per night per person and Cabins at campsites are available from around 250 nok per night. Both are better options for Summer.
Prepare for the weather
In Norway the weather can change a lot during a day. So bring some shorts and a good jacket. Remember inside places it’s always a nice temperature so no point in bringing grandma’s super thick wool sweater with nothing underneath…you will roast alive in the first cafe you enter. It’s a norwegian saying that there is no bad weather only inadequate clothing, so people tend to dress in layers. This way pack light clothes you can layer. You’ll be prepared for all the weathers, and be are able to put the extra hoodie in your backpack if the afternoons turns out sunny.
The sun
Prepare for the sun! No, not exactly by bringing sunscreen but for light hours. If you choose to come in the peak of winter, December/January will get you an astonishing 3 to 6 hours of sun!!! So basically your day ends at 15:00. Off course things are open (some reduce their opening hours like museums, but restaurants will maintain theirs) but you can’t really see much with no light.
In the summer, on the other hand you will get 19:00 of sun (or at least light). Which means get a place with curtains if you don’t wanna wake up at 5 am everyday of your vacation, but feel free to procrastinate in the morning has you will still have plenty of time for that hike.
The size
Of the country I mean. Don’t underestimated it. It’s huge, and it’s topography is full of Fjords, coastline and curvy roads that will imply way more time than you may expect to go from one place to another. Not only in public transportation, but also by car. A lot of journeys may need to include ferry trips. When planing your trip make sure to use google maps or other site to have a clear look on how long it will take you to get somewhere. It will also show you if its better to rent a car and go on an adventure or get a night bus or train somewhere to save time. Which ever tip of trip you’re planing don’t assume you’ll easily get anywhere here.
If you want to drive in Norway, you need a driving licence issued in your country of residence. You may need to have held the licence for at least one year if you want to hire a car. For stays in Norway exceeding three months, a Norwegian driving licence is needed.
A curiosity
Did you know that distance between the southernmost point – Pysen, Mandal – to the northern one, somewhere in Finmark, in the border with Russia, is 2700km and it takes 48h of driving (well if you go through Sweden its just 34h)??? From Oslo to the Northernmost portions of Norwegian Lapland, is the same as the distance between Oslo and Rome, Italy? This is the longest country in Europe.
If you still didn’t got it
So this is the travel distances from where I live – Stavanger – to the closest big city – Bergen. By car it’s 4h51 and by bus 5h49, and it’s just this tiny line in the map (sorry my google maps is in Portuguese but I guess you can understand). And if this doesn’t look much, compare it with the size of Lithuania or Latvia…yep almost same length. Let’s try now from Oslo to Stavanger, if you look at the map it doesn’t look very far….
By car 
By bus
Are you getting now what I mean? It’s way farther away than Stavanger – Bergen, yet its land, not fjords, so it’s much faster. But there are mountains so you can’t go on a straight line, you need to go all the way to the south or way up north through the mountains. Yeah NOT easy. So plan you travelling ahead!!!
Alcohol Rules
This country like all Scandinavian countries have strict rules when it concerns to alcohol. But then again if you saw how much they drink on weekends you’de understand, eheh. But for a foreigner there are some basics you should know
- You cannot drink alcohol outside restaurants or cafes. So NO beer or wine at picnics or hikes, no afternoon beer while strolling around town, no restaurant will sell you any alcohol to take away
- You can buy beer up to the normal 5% of alcohol in supermarkets. Anything above that – including wine, other beers and spirits – you need to go to the Vinomonopolet. It’s the state booze shop.
- You need to be over 18 to buy beer, and over 20 to buy spirits
- It’s IMPOSSIBLE to buy alcohol on SUNDAYS
- And there are schedules too. For supermarket beer you can buy it until 20:00 on week days and until 18:00 on saturday. For Vinomonopolet you can buy it until 18:00 on weekdays and until 15:00 on saturdays (some shops close at 17:00 on weekdays tough)
- If you want to save money and buy alcohol for your trip on the airport (you will see all the norwegians doing it – it’s like a alcohol black friday at the duty free shop) know that you are only allowed 1 spirit per person. To this you can add 3 bottles of wine, but if you also buy tobacco or beer the amounts vary. But the duty free shops usually have signs telling you all the combinations you’re allow to buy.
Things you don’t need to worry about
Because all good tips to travel to Norway must include things to ease your mind 😉
Everyone speaks English
Don’t fear for not understanding the language…sometimes not even they understand each other. Here you can practice your English at ease and get everywhere.
Electric current
The Norwegian standard is 220 volts AC (50 Hz) like most countries and the sockets are continental European standard.
Being Vegetarian/Vegan
Well in bigger cities almost all restaurants have a vegan/vegetarian option. Yet if you want to go off track it may get more complicated.
Emergency numbers
- 110 – Fire
- 112 – Police
- 113 – Ambulance
- 120 – Emergency at sea
- 22 59 13 00 – Poisons Information Centre
- 1412 TDD (textphone for the deaf or hearing impaired)
Don’t
MISS THE FJORDS
It’s one of the most beautiful nature sites you’ll ever see. That blue will stay with you forever <3
In conclusion…
Coming to Norway for vacation might be one of the most amazing nature experiences you’ll have. It’s a super quiet and calm country, perfect to unload. Come in the summer, appreciate nature in long drives, take your time, enjoy the long days with a beer. But also expect the rain, the oh my god face when you realize how much things cost, the amazing capacity for norwegians to power hike while you’re struggling to move, the tolls and the ages it takes to arrive somewhere.
Hope my tips to travel to Norway have helped you. Please leave a comment on any other you want to add 🙂 You can also comment on facebook or instagram
Come <3