A Norway Trip Report…on today’s Milenomics² Podcast
01:00 Scope: 2 weeks in Norway. Oslo, Tromso, Lofoten then back to Oslo for a few days.
- Wanted to get away from people.
- Love the coast, and Norway has a LOT of coastline
- Spent most of our time in the arctic Circle (but not considered the arctic)
- Map:
10:12 Outbound: Air France. LAX-CDG Plus a 4hr layover.
- Flight was smooth and the daytime departure was nice
- Got to experience the new LAX Air France lounge. Open 3 weeks ago. New is always better.
- 4hrs in CDG was perfect with kids. Got through immigration, train to the 2F terminal, settled into a lounge, everyone showered and then about 45 minutes later we were off to the gate
- Kids meal was pre-ordered and was great.
- CDG-OSL very basic, service by Amelia (by Air France)
20:10 Getting to Oslo from the airport Fly to vs Vy.
- Trains run every 10-20 minutes. Travel time is less than 30 minutes.
- Flytoget calls itself the ‘fastest’ airport train. This might be true, but only by a minute or two.
- Vy is a few minutes slower. Faster than driving even.
- Flytoget has Kids free vs VY so the prices start to converge when you take this into consideration
- approx $12 – 24 per person one way.
- Taxi was about $125. We had 4 of these one ways to do so we needed to get good at them.
- Vy app is not as good as the Ruter app for buying tickets with US credit cards. Stick to the Ruter app.
- Ruter and VY app cannot buy flytoget tickets, so Ruter + Flytoget app are the ideal combo.
- Tickets can also easily be bought at the ticket machines.
25:20 Clarion hotel the hub (a strawberry hotel)
- Location is great, just off Oslo central station
- 810(!) rooms. Norway’s Largest hotel. Did not feel this big.
- Booked family size room for 16000 points
- With a Strata Premier this is 8000 TYP transferred to Choice.
- Included a pull out sofa which was already set up for us.
- Includes full buffet breakfast with omelette and crepe station.
- Nice, newish hotel. Certainly a great way to spend TYP and appreciate they book family rooms.
- Came back and worked to get connecting rooms. Seemed willing to even give some partial extra credit for the family room vs. 2 regular rooms.
30:58 Oslo:
- World city, really a great feel to the city, full of energy, parks and fantastic amounts of museums.
- 20+ Hours of daylight. People outdoors and a city that is alive.
- Paris and Prague feels. But English is a first or second language in most signs and interaction.
- Summer in Norway is Wildflower season. The landscaping in the cities is beautiful.
- Be Aware of your surroundings at night. There were some sketchy areas we stumbled into. Nothing too rough but still, be aware.
- Food was easy to find and diverse
- Interesting food halls: Oslo Street Food or Barcode Street Food
- Most world cuisine was easy to find and well done.
- Getting around is so easy. There are very few people driving cars. Taxis only really.
- Malls. So many malls. Beautiful they way they preserved the facade of the building and then you walk in and find a 3 story mall.
- NeoTokyo Store was stocked with Japanese toys/foods/snacks.
- Normal Store was a favorite of my two kids for candy/gum/interesting small dollar shopping for them.
- Gets rural quickly, leave city center and you’re in the forest.
- Everything I saw ahead of visiting said to get out of Oslo — I really, really enjoyed Oslo, and wish we spent more time there. SO much to explore.
35:24 Food in Norway
- Solid!
- Nothing like I was expecting
- Even in Tromso easy to find good options: Sushi, Thai, Fish & Chips, kid friendly food everywhere.
- Lofoten: had some meals out, touristy but to be expected.
- Our budget flex was that we had an airbnb in Tromso/Lofoten with a kitchen. Instead you could opt for prepared foods from the grocery.
- Reindeer: not bad. My 9 year old ordered it twice.
- Fruits and veggies are plentiful and easy to find in stores.
- Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry season. Fantastic berries that were easy to find.
- Had one meal that was Norwegian. It was ‘ok.’
- Watermelon, passion fruit, grapes, nectarines, mangoes etc.
45:36 Travel to Tromso and Lofoten
- 1 quick 2hr flight on Norwegian
- Fine. Much better than southwest.
- Included 4 checked bags and overhead access.
- Incoming plane had everyone deplane and then boarded us and took off all in less than 35 minutes
- Pretty views from the plane on the right side as we approached Tromso.
Tromso rental car: Hertz
- Months out cars were expensive. One way rentals to Lofoten were nearly $2000.
- Originally booked an Alamo rate about $700 for a week. Anything less than 7 days was over $1200.
- Was told this would be an automated kiosk. That’s likely old info. All rental companies at the airport had full manned areas.
- Rented a VW ID.4 ev. Got a VW ID.4 $524 for a week.
- Tolls, ferries and parking meant a $300 pre-authorization. Ended up using about $80 in tolls with 1000 miles driven.
- Tolls are once per hour, regardless of how many you go through. Most tolls were under $2.
- Returned it late and nearly empty. I didn’t want to bother charging it. Was quoted about $25 plus the cost of electricity if I returned it under “around 70%”. I decided to leave it as empty as possible and skip a charging stop on the return since I’m paying for the convenience.
Tours: get your guide+ capital one shopping
- Commodity tours are a great use of capital one. Click through and don’t buy, a few days later a good offer comes to email.
- Clicked through a common tour operator and didn’t end up paying for the tour.
- Used some chase UR
- Received a 38.5% cash back offer from Capital One shopping
- Which….just worked! Took two tours down from 100 or so per person to 63 or so per person
51:29 Tromso: where to stay?
- The city is….well, a city. Has a few strawberry hotels and a Radisson Blu
- Parking is about $4/hr in the main tourists area. I don’t know if any hotel has parking.
- You could certainly get around on public transit (hard with kids) even to far flung parts of the area.
- But being away from the city is quick and easy. 15 minutes puts you in an incredibly rural beautiful environment.
- If I had it to do over I’d stay on the island of Kvaløya near Esterboten or Sommory. You’re close to Tromso but with incredible views:
- The best grocery store seemed to be the Eurospar on E862
- No other store matched it for fresh fruits and veggies.
- Grocery prices are reasonable, stores are stocked with plenty of great fresh options and even some ethnic staples.
- Beer and Wine are expensive and wine is only sold at Vinmonopolat stores.
56:52 Low-ish season in Tromso / Lofoten
- Busy time is apparently northern lights and early spring for winter sports
- I thought summer in Tromso was fantastic
- Negatives, whale season is not summer. Did see some porpoise.
- Tours were 10-25% full. Small enough that you got to know the group.
- Slow pace in Northern Norway. Very Slow.
- 9-10 max
1:00:11 Tromso to Lofoten islands.
- This was the ultimate “what’s the best way to get there” test
- Flying might have worked. Except cars were extremely pricey at Svolvaer, and the closet airport had a tiny runway. There are no direct flights from Tromso to Svolvaer. At some level it meant a full day of travel either by car or air. So we road tripped it.
- There are high speed Ferries that don’t take cars, and drop you in Harstad (still not where we wanted to be).
- There are options that involve busses. But again with mobility issues (little kids) I wanted a car.
- Option 1: over land. 6hrs or so. About 500km. no views, and locals say not worth doing.
- Option 2: two ferries plus about 300km of driving. 8hrs.
- Option 3: Hurtigruten. Maybe 14 hrs but nearly direct. Not every day. Must prebook. Weird hours.
- If you’re going to book this book it on the Norwegian language site (and maybe with a VPN) for the lowest pricing.
- Needed to decide which to do, booked nothing ahead of time.
- Originally decided on the south, direct drive. Was swayed by locals to take the ferries. Big mistake.
- Senja was a really beautiful place.
- Pivoted and made it work, thanks to my wife’s quick Google searching and reassuring calming down.
- Just drive straight. Roads are easy and we did the return in just about 6hrs with a short break in the middle.
- I think a more standard trip is flying to Lofoten from either Oslo, Bergen or Bodo. Adding in Lofoten pushed the complexity up. I’m very glad we went to Lofoten I loved it, impossible to describe.
- My Final Route looked like this:
1:18:34 Ferries. Interesting for People, Terrible for Cars
- Cars line up early, fit very few cars.
- Tour Busses get to cut the line.
- Arrived about 50 minutes early and was #12 in line. For the second ferry in Gryllfjord I was an hour+ early and #65-70 in line (!)
- Scan license place and auto charge.
- People without a car are free
- EV pays half price
- Seems like a service to connect islands with last mile service, not as a method of reliable car transport
- Not worth doing. Long waits, no way to pre-book and no guarantee you can get on these ferries.
1:20:44 Lofoten:
- Need to get beyond Svolvaer for the best of the islands.
- Svolvaer is any other fishing village.
- Past Svolvaer is unlike anywhere I’ve ever been.
- Islands as far as the eye can see, some of the best driving I’ve ever done
- Harrowing roads in some places where you need to pass a bus or truck and there isn’t enough room
- Peace and quiet. Weather was unusually warm.
- Anyone can take a good picture in Lofoten.
- Surprising numbers of beaches and swimmable areas.
Tours:
- Oslo: brunch on the fjord, nice but nothing overly impressive about the brunch.
- Fram Museum (Fantastic, captivated my two kids for 90+ minutes)
- Tromso: fjord boat tour, arctic fishing. Incredible with the weather we had.
- Husky cafe tour and training
- Floating sauna and swim
- Lofoten: silent trollfjord tour, beaches
- Henningsvær, Lofoten: Extremely touristy.
1:33:20 Return to Oslo and Return home.
- By now we’re pros getting to/from Oslo Airport
- Back to the hotel for connecting rooms….that were not ready for us
- Let it go a day, fixed it the next day.
- 3 days in Olso: Shopping, city exploration, parks and playgrounds for the kids.
- Could have spent more time and seen even more museums.
- Return home on Air France, overnight in Paris. It all just worked.
1:45:15 Overall impressions
- Such a laid back country. Almost too laid back (ferry story).
- Food was not an issue at all. A huge misconception is that the food here is not accessible.
- Cigarette smoking is everywhere unfortunately.
- Alcohol laws are not in line with the rest of Europe and can be pricey.
- Sunday is a big deal. Almost all stores close. Joker groceries are open Sunday.
- Tourist towns like Tromso are….touristy but people also live there. Fun to visit the malls and see their daily lives.
- Talking to people led us to some of the best surprises of the trip. Nice to be in a country where we could communicate easily.
- Midnight sun was more of a feature than a bug. We packed our days often going 8am to 10pm
- Driving 1000+miles was a mix of very easy and white knuckling. Speed limits make no sense. Lots of Amalfi style 1.5 lane roads in Senja and the Lofoten Islands.
