--- title: "Norway travel guide: Oslo, the fjords and the Arctic | Wimup" description: "Norway: how Oslo, the fjords, the northwest and the Arctic differ, what a trip costs, when the midnight sun and the northern lights are out, and what to eat." url: https://wimup.com/country/norway type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-24 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Norway, fjords to the Arctic A country shaped almost entirely by water: fjords cut **a hundred kilometres inland**, a coast that runs **past the Arctic Circle** and keeps going, and cities small enough to walk between the mountains. Norway is expensive, and it is not padded. ## Quick answer Decide how far north to go. The standard first trip takes the railway from **Oslo** to **Bergen** over the Hardangervidda, then two or three days among the **Nærøyfjord**, **Flåm** and **Trolltunga**. **Stavanger** does the same further south, with **Preikestolen** an hour away. The northwest needs a car, for **Ålesund** and **Geiranger**. In the north, **Tromsø** is the aurora base from late September to March, and **Lofoten** beats the fjords. A week does the fjords properly. Ten days adds one northern base. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Jun · Jul · Feb - **Ideal length:** 8–12 days - **Budget per day:** $160–270 - **Language:** Norwegian, with English almost everywhere - **Getting around:** Trains and coastal ships in the south, flights beyond Bodø - **5** City guides - **5,627,400** People - **8** UNESCO sites - **100,915 km** Coastline Norway is planned around one decision: how far north to go. Oslo holds the southeast, a compact capital of harbour saunas, the Munch museum and the Viking ships, with the Bergen Railway leaving from it every few hours. That line crosses the Hardangervidda plateau and drops into Bergen, the wooden hanseatic wharf at Bryggen and the base for the fjord country immediately behind it: the Nærøyfjord at its narrowest, the branch line down to Flåm, the ledge at Trolltunga above Ringedalsvatnet, and Urnes, the oldest stave church still standing. Stavanger sits down the coast with Preikestolen an hour away and the old town below it, and the south coast runs east from there through Kristiansand and a string of white timber towns. The northwest is the other fjord half. Ålesund is Art Nouveau to its rooftops, Geiranger is the postcard, and the passes behind them are shut by snow for half the year. Inland the country climbs: Jotunheimen carries the highest peaks in northern Europe, Lillehammer keeps its 1994 Olympic slopes, and Røros is a copper town of blackened timber on the plateau. North of Trondheim the map thins out and the reasons change. Bodø is the gateway to Lofoten, where the peaks come straight out of the sea above red fishing cabins. Tromsø is the aurora base, Alta holds rock carvings cut between about 5000 BC and the year zero, and Nordkapp is where the road ends. Trains reach Bodø and no further, so the north runs on flights, the Hurtigruten coastal ships and the E6. ## 5 Norway city guides 1. [Stavanger](https://wimup.com/city/stavanger.md): Norway · 10 picks 2. [Ålesund](https://wimup.com/city/alesund.md): Norway · 10 picks 3. [Kristiansand](https://wimup.com/city/kristiansand.md): Norway · 10 picks 4. [Bodø](https://wimup.com/city/bodo.md): Norway · 10 picks 5. [Lillehammer](https://wimup.com/city/lillehammer.md): Norway · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 5,627,400 - **Area:** 323,808 km² - **Density:** 17.4 / km² - **Capital:** Oslo - **Major cities:** Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Entry:** Schengen and the EEA, but not the EU Outside the EU but in Schengen: 90 days in any 180 for most visa-free nationalities, with Entry/Exit System checks since 10 April 2026. Outside the EU customs union, so duty-free limits are strict. - **Currency:** Norwegian krone (NOK), and almost no cash The krone. Euros are not accepted. Norway is close to cashless, and cards work on buses, in kiosks and at rural car parks. Paying in your home currency at a terminal is always the worse rate. - **Language:** Norwegian in two written standards, English nearly everywhere Norwegian has two written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk, chosen by each municipality, so one word can be spelled two ways. English is near universal under retirement age. Sámi is official in the north. - **Calling code:** +47, with eight-digit numbers and no area codes - **Power:** 230 V, 50 Hz, plug types C and F - **Emergency:** 110 fire · 112 police · 113 ambulance Three numbers, and 112 also works as the general European line, including for mountain and sea rescue. Operators speak English. - **Alcohol:** Vinmonopolet above 4.7 per cent, and it shuts early Anything above 4.7 per cent is sold only at Vinmonopolet, which closes early on Saturday and all Sunday. Supermarket beer stops at 8pm on weekdays and 6pm on Saturdays. Bars are unaffected. - **Right to roam:** Allemannsretten, written into law since 1957 Walk, ski, swim, pick berries and camp on uncultivated land without asking. Stay 150 metres from homes and two nights per spot, leave nothing, and make no fires in woods from 15 April to 15 September. - **Getting around:** Trains to Bodø, flights beyond it, ferries between Trains reach Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim and Bodø. Beyond, the Arctic runs on flights, coastal ships and the E6. Car ferries are frequent and part of the road. In winter, a closed pass costs hours. - **Driving and tolls:** Right-hand side, headlights always on, tolls billed automatically Dipped headlights at all times. Tolls are camera-billed to the hire company, which adds a fee. Winter tyres are compulsory in winter conditions, and speeding fines are among Europe’s highest. - **Tipping:** Not expected. Round up after a good meal if you want to - **Svalbard:** Norwegian, but outside Schengen and its own set of rules About a thousand kilometres north, under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty: visa-free for all but outside Schengen, so flights from Oslo are international. Outside the settlements, polar bears mean a guide. ## When to visit - **Jan** (good): Deep polar night in the north and the best odds for the aurora, with Røros and the interior at their coldest - **Feb** (best): The strongest winter month: light returning to the Arctic, reliable snow, and ski trails groomed the length of the country - **Mar** (best): Long bright days over snow, the aurora still out, and the whole country on skis over Easter - **Apr**: The awkward gap. Snow going, mountain passes still shut, and the summer boats not yet running - **May** (good): Waterfalls at full melt, orchards in blossom along the Hardangerfjord, and 17 May filling every street with flags - **Jun** (best): The best of the year: midnight sun in the north, everything open, and the crowds still a fortnight away - **Jul** (peak): Peak season and peak prices, warm enough to swim, and the fjord villages at their busiest - **Aug** (best): Still warm, berries out, and the crowds thinning after the Norwegian holiday ends in the middle of the month - **Sep** (good): Autumn colour on the plateau, the first aurora nights from the end of the month, and hotel prices dropping - **Oct**: Wet and dark in the south, closing season in the fjords, and the north settling into aurora weather - **Nov**: The polar night begins above the Arctic Circle and the mountain passes start closing - **Dec** (good): Christmas markets, short blue days in the south, and no sun at all north of the circle ## Fun fact Kartverket remeasured the Norwegian coastline in 2011 and put it at 100,915 kilometres with every fjord and island traced. Only 28,953 belong to the mainland, and 71,963 are island shore. The country is about 1,750 kilometres long, so the coast folds itself roughly fifty-seven times over. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Norway is the fjords, and the fjords are one trip. **Reality:** The fjords are two regions. The Sognefjord system behind Bergen holds the Nærøyfjord, Flåm and Urnes, reachable by train and boat. The Geiranger and Ålesund fjords sit three hundred kilometres north, on passes shut half the year, and need a car. Doing both in a week means driving all week. Pick one. - **Myth:** It is dark all winter and light all summer, everywhere. **Reality:** Only above the Arctic Circle, home to about a tenth of the population. Tromsø has no sunrise from 27 November to 15 January and no sunset from about 20 May to 22 July. Oslo, six hundred kilometres south of the circle, gets a short grey December day and a long blue June evening. - **Myth:** Everything is unaffordable, so there is no point going. **Reality:** Restaurants, alcohol and taxis are expensive, and there is no way around them. Almost everything else is not. Trains and buses are fair and cheaper booked early, museums are modest, tap water is excellent, and walking is free and protected by law. Supermarkets, hiking and trains keep a trip cheap. - **Myth:** Norwegians are cold and unfriendly. **Reality:** Reserved with strangers and direct once talking, which reads as cold to anyone expecting small talk. Nobody sits next to you on an empty bus or asks about your day in a shop. Ask a real question and you get a real, unhurried answer, usually in fluent English. Outdoors the reserve drops entirely. - Take your shoes off inside a home. This is not negotiable and nobody will ask you twice. - Queueing is done by number tickets, at pharmacies, bakeries and government offices alike. Take one on the way in. - Greet people you pass on a trail. In town nobody speaks to strangers; on a mountain path everybody does. - Alcohol above 4.7 per cent is sold only at Vinmonopolet, which shuts early on Saturday and does not open on Sunday. Plan Friday. - Cash is close to obsolete. Cards work everywhere, including on buses, in kiosks and at rural car parks. - Punctuality is taken literally. Being ten minutes late to something arranged is late, not fashionably close. - Do not praise your own achievements in company. The habit of playing yourself down has a name here, Janteloven, and it is still the social default. ## Famous Norwegian faces - **Roald Amundsen**: First to the South Pole, on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of Scott. - **Edvard Munch**: Painted The Scream in 1893 and left Oslo more than twenty thousand works. - **Henrik Ibsen**: Playwright of A Doll’s House, whose slammed door scandalised Europe in 1879. - **Edvard Grieg**: Composer of the Piano Concerto in A minor and Peer Gynt. His villa Troldhaugen is open. - **Fridtjof Nansen**: Crossed Greenland on skis in 1888, and won the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize for refugee work. - **Sigrid Undset**: Nobel Prize in Literature, 1928, for the medieval Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy. - **Magnus Carlsen**: World chess champion from 2013 to 2023, with the highest classical rating ever. - **Erling Haaland**: Manchester City’s centre forward, and his generation’s most prolific Norwegian scorer. - **Thor Heyerdahl**: Sailed the balsa raft Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. The raft is in Oslo. - **Knut Hamsun**: Wrote Hunger and won the 1920 Nobel. His support for the occupation still divides readers. - **Jo Nesbø**: Ex-footballer and musician whose Harry Hole novels put Oslo on the crime-fiction map. - **Karl Ove Knausgård**: Six volumes and three and a half thousand pages of one ordinary life, in My Struggle. - **Gustav Vigeland**: Filled a park in western Oslo with more than two hundred nude human sculptures. - **Morten Harket**: The voice of a-ha, whose Take On Me finally broke through with its 1985 video. - **Kygo**: Bergen producer who took soft, melodic house global from a bedroom in the early 2010s. - **Aurora**: Songwriter from outside Bergen whose stark, folk-tinged pop grew through streaming. - **Liv Ullmann**: Made ten films with Ingmar Bergman, Persona among them, then directed her own. - **Renate Reinsve**: Best Actress at Cannes in 2021 for The Worst Person in the World, a Norwegian first. - **Sonja Henie**: Olympic skating gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936 and ten world titles, then Hollywood. - **Marit Bjørgen**: The most decorated Winter Olympian ever: fifteen medals across five Games, eight gold. - **Johannes Høsflot Klæbo**: The sprinter who has ruled cross-country skiing since his teens. - **Kristian Birkeland**: Explained the northern lights as solar particles, and his nitrogen process founded Yara. - **Lars Onsager**: Oslo-born winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his reciprocal relations. - **Gro Harlem Brundtland**: First woman prime minister, in 1981, and later head of the World Health Organization. - **Trygve Lie**: The first Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1946 to 1952. ## Must-try Norwegian food - **Fårikål**: Mutton and cabbage with black peppercorns, slow-cooked. The national dish, made in autumn. - **Kjøttkaker**: Flat beef patties in brown gravy with swede, potatoes and lingonberry. Not meatballs. - **Raspeballer**: Dense potato dumplings boiled with salted meat, eaten on Thursdays on the west coast. - **Brunost**: Boiled-down whey caramelised to a fudge-brown block, sliced thin with the cheese slicer. - **Lapskaus**: Meat and root vegetable stew, cooked until nothing holds its shape. Sailors' food. - **Skrei**: Arctic cod that spawns off Lofoten from January to April, firmer than farmed cod. - **Gravlaks**: Salmon cured in salt, sugar and dill, sliced thin, with sweet mustard sauce. - **Fiskesuppe**: Creamy fish soup with shellfish and plenty of butter. Order it as a main in Bergen. - **Reker**: Cold-water shrimp bought off the boat and peeled on the quay with bread and mayonnaise. - **Kongekrabbe**: Red king crab from around Kirkenes, legs the length of a forearm, simply boiled. - **Lutefisk**: Dried fish soaked in lye until gelatinous, with bacon and peas. Divisive Christmas food. - **Rakfisk**: Trout fermented in a barrel for months, eaten raw. It smells far stronger than it tastes. - **Pinnekjøtt**: Salted, dried lamb ribs steamed over birch sticks. The western Christmas dinner. - **Fenalår**: A leg of lamb salted, dried and shaved thin. EU-protected, the best aged over a year. - **Finnbiff**: Thin-sliced reindeer stewed with mushrooms, cream and juniper. Sámi in origin. - **Smalahove**: Salted, smoked sheep’s head, steamed and eaten from the cheek out. An autumn rite in Voss. - **Skillingsbolle**: Bergen’s cinnamon bun, the size of a side plate, named for the coin it once cost. - **Multekrem**: Cloudberries folded into whipped cream. Picking spots are secrets kept for life. - **Krumkake**: A thin patterned wafer rolled into a cone and filled with cream. Christmas baking. - **Kvæfjordkake**: Sponge, meringue and almonds with custard and cream. Voted the national cake. - **Akevitt**: Potato spirit with caraway or dill, the linie style matured at sea across the equator. - **Kaffe**: Norwegians drink more coffee per head than almost anyone. Filter is the default. ## By theme - [Northern lights](https://wimup.com/northern-lights.md) ## FAQs ### Do you need a visa for Norway? Norway is not in the European Union but is in the Schengen area and the EEA, so its border rules are the Schengen ones. Citizens of the EU and the EEA travel on free movement. Visitors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand need no visa for stays up to 90 days in any 180. Since 10 April 2026 the EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational at every Schengen external border, so arriving non-EEA travellers are registered biometrically and passports are no longer stamped. ETIAS, the separate pre-travel authorisation, is not in force yet and its start date has slipped more than once, so check the current position before you travel. ### Is Norway as expensive as people say? Restaurants, alcohol and taxis are, and no amount of planning fixes them: a main course in a normal city restaurant is a serious sum and a beer with it is another one. Everything else is more reasonable than the reputation suggests. Trains and buses are fairly priced and cheapest booked weeks ahead, museums are modest, tap water is among the best anywhere, and hiking, swimming and sleeping in a tent are free by law. The trips that hurt are the ones built on restaurants and hire cars. The trips that do not are built on supermarkets, public transport and walking, which is also what Norwegians do. ### When can you see the northern lights? From roughly late September to late March, when the nights are dark enough, and only in the north for a reliable chance. Tromsø is the busiest base because it has an airport, a season and enough operators to chase clear sky inland; Alta, Lofoten and the Finnmark plateau all work. Three practical things decide whether you see them: darkness, solar activity and cloud. You cannot influence the first two, so give yourself three or four nights, and go with someone willing to drive for the gap in the cloud. They are also visible much further south on strong nights, including from Oslo, but nobody should plan a trip on that. ### How do you get around Norway without a car? Better than in most countries this shape. Trains link Oslo to Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim and on to Bodø, which is as far as the railway goes, and the Bergen and Flåm lines are attractions in their own right. Express boats and car ferries fill in the fjord coast, and the Hurtigruten coastal ships have called at the same 34 ports between Bergen and Kirkenes since 1893, taking about twelve days for the round trip. Beyond Bodø the sensible move is to fly: the domestic network is dense because the alternative is a very long drive. The gaps are the mountain valleys and the small fjord arms, where a car saves a day. ### Can you camp anywhere in Norway? Largely yes, and it is a legal right. Allemannsretten, the right of access written into the Outdoor Recreation Act of 1957, lets anyone walk, ski, swim and pitch a tent on uncultivated land. The rules are short: stay at least 150 metres from the nearest house or cabin, move on after two nights unless you are in the mountains or far from habitation, leave nothing behind, and respect the ban on open fires in or near woodland between 15 April and 15 September. Cultivated land, gardens and farmyards are excluded. ### Do you tip in Norway? Not as an obligation. Service is included and staff are paid a real wage, so nothing is expected and nobody will chase you. Rounding up or leaving five to ten per cent after a good meal is normal and appreciated; card terminals often prompt for it and declining is unremarkable. Taxis, bars and hotels expect nothing at all. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.visitnorway.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Entry](https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/visit-and-holiday/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Currency](https://www.norges-bank.no/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Alcohol](https://www.vinmonopolet.no/english?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Right to roam](https://www.visitnorway.com/plan-your-trip/travel-tips-a-z/right-of-access/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Getting around](https://www.vy.no/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Driving and tolls](https://www.autopass.no/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Svalbard](https://www.sysselmesteren.no/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.