Norway runs on water and weather. Book around both.
Which fjord cruise actually gets inside the Trollfjord. What a husky day out of Tromsø really costs. Whether the Flåm line earns its fare in November. Reviews of every tour you can book in Norway.
A Bergen fjord morning, an aurora chase, a sled team, the Lofoten narrows.
The four bookings a first Norwegian trip gets built around. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The Bergen morningThe Original Fjord Cruise to MostraumenThree hours up a fjord that narrows to a river, in under the waterfalls, back at the fish market before lunch.
02The aurora nightAurora Borealis TourA minibus that keeps driving until it finds a hole in the cloud. Take it on your first night so a bad sky is not your only sky.
03The sled daySelf-Drive Husky Dog Sledding AdventureYou drive the team yourself instead of riding behind a guide. Winter only, and it goes first.- 04The Lofoten narrowsLofoten Islands Silent Trollfjord CruiseAn electric hull with the motors cut inside the Trollfjord, rock walls close enough to read.
In Norway the day starts at a quay, and the boat decides the rest of it.
Three kinds of fjord day, what it costs to get on board, and which town it sails from.
Tromsø for the winter sky, Bergen for the fjords, Oslo for everything in between.
Six towns worth sleeping in, and the day out each one is built for. The Arctic north runs on the season; the west coast runs on the boat timetable.
Tromsø is the easiest place on earth to stand under the aurora.
Sixty-nine degrees north, a coast that clears when the inland valleys stay shut in, and minibuses whose whole job is finding the gap. The season runs late September to late March.
Half of Norway is only bookable in the dark, the other half only in the light.
Late September to March the aurora runs, the sled dogs work and the summit roads are shut. Late May to July the sun never goes down, the Lofoten kayaks launch at midnight and the aurora is invisible. Almost nothing overlaps, so the month picks the trip rather than the other way round.
- 1Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guidefrom $198
- 2Aurora Borealis Tourfrom $181
- 3Self-Drive Husky Dog Sledding Adventurefrom $328
Norway is expensive, and the best Norwegian days are not always the dear ones.
Every tour on the site grouped by what it costs a head. A guided walk or a museum ticket comes in under the price of lunch; a sled team you drive yourself costs more than the flight did.
Guided walks, museum tickets, the short harbour cruises and the cable car above Bergen.
The standard full days: Mostraumen, Lysefjord, the Oslo fjord boats and most aurora minibuses.
Sled teams you drive yourself, whale safaris by hybrid boat, and the Flåm railway packages.
The Norwegian days out more travellers take than any other.
Every Norwegian tour we have reviewed →The tours that sell out before the rest, and what earns each one the slot.
1
The Original Fjord Cruise to Mostraumen
Board Rødne Fjord Cruise at Bergen’s Fish Market for a 3.5-hour round trip through the Osterfjord. You’ll pass Bryggen, narrow channels, steep mountains, waterfalls, and Mostraumen’s strong currents. The boat has a warm cabin, sun deck, toilets, onboard snacks, and English and Norwegian audio commentary.
From · $93
Read our review →
2
Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guide
from $198
3
Scenic Fjord Cruise to Lysefjord and Preikestolen
from $82
4
Scenic Fjord Cruise with Audio Guide Commentary
from $44
5
Whale Watching Tour by Hybrid-Electric Boat
from $195
6
Aurora Borealis Tour
from $181
7
Fjords and Sommarøy Islands Tour with Salmon Picnic
from $112
8
Self-Drive Husky Dog Sledding Adventure
from $328
Three things that happen in Norway and nowhere else.
Fjords exist elsewhere. A tidal maelstrom you can ride, a sea corridor a hundred metres wide taken with the engines switched off, and a sun that refuses to set do not.
Saltstraumen
Four times a day some four hundred million cubic metres of water are forced through a strait a hundred and fifty metres wide outside Bodø. The whirlpools that spin off it run ten metres across and pull down anything floating. RIB boats ride the edge of the turn, which lasts about twenty minutes; the rest of the six-hour cycle it is a flat channel with sea eagles over it.
- 1Saltstraumen Sea Eagle Trip by RIB★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 250 reviews
- 2Saltstraumen RIB Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 123 reviews
- 3Northern Lights Tours Bodo Norway★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 100 reviews
The Trollfjord
Two kilometres long, barely a hundred metres wide at the mouth, with walls that go up a thousand. Captains cut the engines once they are inside because there is nothing else to hear, and the turn at the head is tight enough that passengers get moved off one rail. Sea eagles are fed from the boats on the way back out.
- 1Lofoten Islands Silent Trollfjord Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,979 reviews
- 2Lofoten Fishing Boat Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 621 reviews
- 3Lofoten RIB Sea Eagle Safari Trollfjord Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 591 reviews
The Midnight Sun
From late May to mid July the sun never drops under the horizon north of the Arctic Circle. Kayaks go out at eleven at night, hiking guides set off after dinner, and the light stays flat and gold for hours instead of the twenty minutes it lasts further south. The trade is that the aurora cannot be seen at all.
- 1Lofoten Islands Midnight Sun Kayak Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 322 reviews
- 2Midnight Sun Kayak – Northern Explorer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 151 reviews
- 3Sommaroy Fjord Tour with Lunch Option & Midnight Sun★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 76 reviews
Four Norwegian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged from a hotel lobby the night before. These four run on fixed winter capacity, a railway timetable and a season that closes without asking.
- 01Lofoten Islands Silent Trollfjord CruiseOne narrow fjord, a handful of departures a day and a hull limit on every one. Winter sailings run to the weather rather than the timetable.
- 02Viking Village, Nærøyfjord Cruise & Flåm RailwayThe railway keeps a published timetable and the fjord cruise it connects with keeps another. Miss one and the whole day collapses.
- 03Self-Drive Husky Dog Sledding AdventureEvery sled needs dogs and a musher, so capacity is fixed before the season starts. Christmas and the February half-terms go months out.
- 04Scenic Fjord Cruise to Lysefjord and PreikestolenThe boat under the cliff runs all year, the walk on top does not. Outside roughly April to October the trail is ice and the guided hikes stop.
Geiranger, Ålesund and the Hardangerfjord run on the summer boat.
The fjord towns south of Trondheim wake up in May and close again in October. Dalsnibba loses its snow in June, the Eagle Road runs all summer, and the cruise ships hold the quay between ten and four. Book either side of that window and the same fjord is empty.
Every west coast day out →
By kind of day, boat, sled, sky or trail
Oslo, the Flåm line, Bergen, the fjords, then north for the sky.
FlåmThe newest Norwegian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Vossevangen: Nærøyfjord Full-Day Guided Kayaking Trip
Read our review →
Ulvik adventure: Exploring Hardangerfjord’s Osafjord by RIB
Read our review →
Tromsø Sweet Temptations tour: afternoon tea & chocolates
Read our review →
