The flagship guide
Norway
Get acquainted with the character and the corners of Norway.
The character
Norway is expensive. Start there, because every other fact about the country is downstream of how little it needs your money. The state pumped oil for fifty years and saved the proceeds instead of spending them, and the result is a sovereign wealth fund worth over a trillion dollars and a population that treats wealth as a private matter, like a mild medical condition.
The character is quiet competence. Trains leave on time and nobody congratulates them. Strangers won't talk to you, which feels cold for a week and then feels like respect. The national pastime is going outside in weather that other countries would classify as an emergency, and there's a word for it, friluftsliv, the open-air life.
What this means for you. Book ahead and pack layers. Lower your expectations of small talk and raise them for everything else. Norway doesn't perform for visitors. It just works, scenically, then lets you draw your own conclusions.
When to go
June through August for hiking and the long days. North of the Arctic Circle the sun stays up all night from late May to late July, which sounds romantic and is mostly disorienting, in a good way.
September through March is the northern lights window in the north, with the best odds around the equinoxes. February and March are the sweet spot for winter. Snow is deep, the days are getting longer, the worst of the dark is over.
Money
The currency is the Norwegian krone. Norway is one of the most expensive countries in the world and doesn't apologize for it. A beer at an Oslo bar costs what a meal costs elsewhere. Alcohol is taxed on purpose, to discourage you. It works on everyone except the Norwegians.
Cards work everywhere, including places that seem too remote to have electricity. Nobody expects tips beyond rounding up. Tap water is excellent and free, and asking for bottled water marks you as a tourist faster than your accent does.
The one real bargain is nature. The right to roam, allemannsretten, is written into law. You can walk and camp on uncultivated land for free, provided you keep 150 meters from houses and move on after two nights.
Getting around
The Bergen Railway between Oslo and Bergen takes about seven hours and crosses the Hardangervidda plateau, and it's one of the great train rides anywhere. Book the daytime departure. Sleeping through it would be a financial and personal error.
The coastal ferry, Hurtigruten, has worked Norway's coastal route since 1893, delivering mail and locals and now mostly tourists. Domestic flights are normal here. The country is longer than it looks, and Norwegians fly the way other people take buses.
Do this
Ride the Bergen Railway, daytime departure
Seven hours of plateau and fjord. The buffet car coffee is fine. The view is not fine. It's the whole point of the ticket.
Go north to Lofoten
Fishing villages under granite walls, cod racks in the wind, and light that photographers ruin their sleep schedules for. Go in shoulder season and book months ahead.
Walk the Oslo Opera House roof
The building slopes into the harbor and you're allowed, encouraged even, to walk all over it. Free, which in Oslo deserves a moment of silence.
Eat brown cheese
Brunost. Caramelized whey, sliced thin on waffles. It tastes like fudge that went to engineering school. Buy a cheese slicer, a Norwegian invention, while you're at it.
Use the right to roam
Pick a trail, any trail. The infrastructure of huts and marked routes run by DNT, the trekking association, is among the best anywhere and treats hiking as a public utility.
Skip this
Bergen fish market at lunch
It has sold fish since the 1200s and now sells mostly to you. The prices are aimed at cruise passengers. Walk five minutes to a normal restaurant instead.
Trolltunga, unless you mean it
The famous rock ledge is a 28-kilometer round trip, and in July you'll queue an hour for the photo. There are a hundred Norwegian viewpoints this good with nobody on them.
Flåm at midday in summer
The fjord is real. So are the cruise ships that just emptied into a village of a few hundred people. Come early, or pick a quieter fjord arm.
Worth knowing
- Norway leads the world in electric cars. More than nine out of ten new cars sold are fully electric, in a country that got rich on oil. Norwegians see no contradiction and won't discuss it.
- The cheese slicer was invented by a Norwegian carpenter, Thor Bjørklund, in 1925. The patent made his family's fortune. National pride in this object is real and quietly fierce.
- Oslo's Vigeland sculpture park contains more than 200 sculptures by one man, Gustav Vigeland, including a famously furious naked toddler. Locals treat the park as a backyard.
The book version goes deeper.
The Norway Travel Guide is a 5x8 color paperback with the full read on the country, the corners worth your time, and the prices stated plainly.