What’s the old saying: Use it or lose it? Hopefully, that does not apply to writing because I definitely have not been “using” that muscle so to speak, at least when it comes to blogging.

Anyway, I’m going to try to just jump right into it, without first consulting a doctor or anything, and I’ll undoubtedly deal with overstrained writing muscles in the days and weeks to come.

So much to say, but the big thing is: My kjæreste, XFE, and I just got back from a 17-day trip to Norway. (kjæreste means dearest in Norwegian.) It was a wonderful trip for many reasons, full of history, ancestry, and heritage (family on my mother’s side emigrated from Norway), fjords and waterfalls, glaciers and mountains, hiking and bike riding, museums and Northern Lights, and lots and lots of seafood (including an incredible king crab experience).

When we began planning our trip, we knew we wanted to cover a lot of ground on our schedule, so that meant renting a car and driving, which suited us just fine. We did cover a ton of ground, starting in Stavanger in the south, turning in our rental car in Trondheim in the north, and flying to Tromso, which is touted as the northernmost city in the world and is 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. (We rented a car in Tromso as well).

Of course, we knew there was a chance it would be cold (I mean, it is Norway) and we thought it might snow in Tromso, being that it was so far north, but I think we were both taken by surprise when it snowed just three days into our trip and what that would mean for our planned route.

With that in mind, if I had one piece of advice for travelers who are interested in going to Norway, it would be this: Go in the summer. Norway does not have a “shoulder season,” per se. XFE and I like to travel in the shoulder seasons – my birthday is in March and his is in October – when places are a little less crowded and we can kinda get the place to ourselves.

However, in the case of Norway, the first snow pretty much means the end of the tourist season. And in Norway, that first snow can come pretty early, like, September 25, in our case. This means that some of the highly touted, Scenic Routes, including the Gamle Strynefjellsvegen which we were very much looking forward to driving, shut down overnight.

When the snow comes, that’s just it. The end. No plowing. No “waiting for the snow to maybe melt in a day or two, and then reopening the road.” The powers that be just shut them down. FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON.

The other interesting (?) thing about Norway is that there are very few major roads in general and almost all of them are circuitous, which is fine and fun and scenic, for sure. But when a road to a major tourist hub like, let’s say, Geiranger, is closed due to snow, it can make re-routing difficult.

Luckily, XFE is a human GPS and one of our AirBnb hosts told us about a Norwegian road website that is more up-to-date on conditions and road closures than Google Maps (it’s 175.no, by the way).

My second piece of advice for traveling to Norway is: BE FLEXIBLE. It was definitely one of those places where we had to be open to whatever the day and weather were going to throw at us. Sundays turn out to be a complete day of rest for the entire country and it can be very hard to find a restaurant or shop that is open.

While on the weather front, we initially thought Geiranger and Geirangerfjord would be no-go’s for us because the main road was closed, so we could catch the ferry from a different point. We had a wonderful day in the area, hiking up behind Storseterfossen Waterfall (a 550-meter elevation, 45-60 minute hike). But because we were there on a different day than we originally intended, the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed (it was a Tuesday. I repeat: A Tuesday) so we had to go in search of a different lunch spot (Brasserie Posten, which actually worked out very well).

Plus, because of the weather/road closure, Geiranger was not packed (like it usually can be). On the flip side, a lot of stores and restaurants were already closed for the season (but luckily, not Brasserie Posten).  

We had also planned to bike down (notice I did not say, “up and down”) the famous Trollstigen road, but that plan had to be shelved in July when there were rock slides that required the transportation department to shut down the road for repairs for the rest of the year.

Instead, our wonderful guide Geri at Uteguiden took us on a fantastic e-bike ride and hike trip from Valdall that still had plenty of elevation and exciting switchbacks (yes, I had to go “up” the mountain instead of just down – only even remotely possible thanks to the e-bikes, but probably still more effort and exercise than I had counted on).

Which leads to my third piece of advice about travelling in Norway: A Norwegian “easy hike,” is in fact, most likely something that will kill the average person.

Remember how everyone is off on Sundays? That’s because most of them appear to be out hiking and biking incredible heights and distances in groups. On our last Sunday, we drove from Tromso to Sommaroy, an old fishing village about 36 kilometers away, and all along the roads, we saw loads of cars parked and people in various ice gear getting ready to tackle some ridiculously large mountain.

Or, more often than not, we would see parked cars with no signs of people anywhere. But there was nowhere for them to have gone, except up a mountain or on an exceptionally long hike. These are some seriously hardy people. Do not for one minute believe them when they say, “Oh, it’s just a short hike” or “Yes, it’s easy. You’ll be fine.” It is not, in fact easy, and you will likely not “be fine.”

Those are my three tips/pieces of advice for anyone contemplating a trip to Norway. It’s beautiful and confounding in all the ways that great travel can be, and I would totally do it again. Just in like, June, July, or August.