Need some help travelling aound Norway...

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m off on holiday to Norway in the summer and we’re getting a bit of a headache working out how to get from the North of the country to the South.

Here is a link to a map to help you visualise my predicament.

Our plan is (or was) to start in Hammerfest, fly down to Bodo (the Northernmost train station), take overnight trains from Bodo to Trondheim, Trondheim to Bergen and Bergen to Oslo, then Oslo to home, staying for varying time in the different towns. Our problem is the to the best of my knowledge (and Googling) the airport in Hammerfest is not an international airport and does not have any direct routes to any Norwegian international airports.

So here is where I’m asking Dopers for help -

Does anyone have any ideas where I can

a) find what Norwegian airports link to what other airports.
b) stay in different places to go in Northern Norway that do link to international airports.

We really want to get the Northern parts of the country but it’s quickly becoming a nightmare travelling North of Bodo!

Any other hints and tips for Norway would be greatly appreciated too.

TIA

Tuco.

2

Have you considered hiring a car for the holiday instead?

3

First things first: there’s no direct train from Trondheim to Bergen. If you want to take a train, you have to go by way of Oslo. To get directly from Trondheim to Bergen without a car, you must fly, take a bus, or take the coastal steamer.

Flights in and out of Hammerfest are primarily by way of Tromsø. To get there from outside the country, you need to travel to Oslo, Bergen, or Trondheim, then fly to Tromsø, then finally to Hammerfest. On the way south again, following your itinerary, you would need to travel to Tromsø, then to Bodø - again, by airplane, bus, or boat, since there’s no train service. If you want to get north of Tromsø in a hurry, you almost always have to fly through Tromsø.

Actually if you have the budget for it, the coastal steamer is a hell of a trip, and as far as I know you can still arrange to hop off in different cities. (Once, it was basically a floating bus that served coastal towns and cities, and most passengers were locals. Now, the boats have been upgraded to floating hotel status and the passengers are mostly tourists, with a corresponding increase in price.) Hammerfest, Bodø, Trondheim, and Bergen are all among its stops, and you can take a train from Bergen to Oslo. Don’t take the overnight train on that route unless you have to! The trip is short - take the first train of the morning and you’ll arrive in early afternoon - and the scenery is spectacular.

Renting a car is of course an option, but be advised that distances are longer than you may think and roads are not great, particularly in the north. When we lived in Trondheim I would periodically meet tourists who were under the impression that they could start early in the morning, drive up to the North Cape, and be back at their Trondheim hotels by midnight :eek: In fact, it’s a two-day drive each way at a minimum, and then only if you take a route that wouldn’t be obvious to most tourists, through Sweden and Finland.

Avinor, the Norwegian civil aviation authority, has an English-language site (follow the link) that lists the airports with scheduled flights. Click on them and you’ll find a schedule of arrivals that will give you some idea how the different airports link up. That’s the best I’ve found so far…

4

Thanks for the reply Flodnak, budget is limited to say the least so I don’t think a boat is an option.
As Tromso seems to have a well connected airport, we may end up going there instead of Hammerfest.

5

Norway is, unfortunately, an expensive country to travel in, but I guess you know that already. Some places to find info for planning your trip:
[ul][li]SAS Braathens, the biggest airline[/li][li]Widerøe, a smaller airline which is more likely to cover small destinations (esp. northern Norway and the west coast)[/li][li]Nor-Way long distance bus, probably the least expensive way to get around, and reasonably comfortable too[/li][li]NSB, the railway[/li][li]And take a look at the prices at Hurtigruta, the coastal boat, before you give it up completely - if you can squeeze it into your budget, it’s a beautiful voyage.[/ul]Some of these have some kind of Inter-rail-like tickets, ie. you pay a fixed amount and travel as much as you want for a specified time.[/li]
For (relatively) inexpensive accomodation, there are the youth hostels.

As for general travel tips - hmm…
Bring warm and waterproof clothes. Especially in the north, the seasons are more on the lines of “green winter” and “white winter” than “summer” and “winter”.
Norway has its 100 years anniversary as an independent state this year, check out if there are any interesting events while you’re here. 7th June is the big day, but there are events during the whole year.
Oh, and welcome! :slight_smile: