The lights are north. The fjords are west.
Which aurora chase actually drives to clear sky. What the Mostraumen boat costs out of Bergen. Whether Lofoten is worth the extra flight when you already have Tromsø. Reviews of every tour you can book in Norway.
Bergen’s fjord, Tromsø’s reindeer, the Trollfjord, an Oslo afternoon.
The four bookings a first Norwegian trip tends to hang off, at four very different prices.
01The fjord dayThe Original Fjord Cruise to MostraumenUp the Osterfjord to the narrows at Mostraumen, where the boat turns under the waterfall. The half day that sells Bergen.
02The Arctic dayReindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami GuideA Sami-run camp outside Tromsø, feeding the herd and taking a sled out. Book the daylight slot in midwinter.
03The Lofoten dayLofoten Islands Silent Trollfjord CruiseInto the Trollfjord on an electric hull with the engines cut. The walls close to a hundred metres apart.
04The cheap afternoonScenic Fjord Cruise with Audio Guide CommentaryTwo hours on the Oslofjord with the commentary in your ear. The best value on this site by some distance.
Tromsø, Oslo, Bergen: pick where the trip starts.
An Arctic city that never really sleeps in winter, a capital on its own fjord, the wharf at Bryggen, the islands, the cliff over Lysefjord and the road down to Geiranger. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Tromsø sits under the aurora oval, and the sky still has opinions.
Nobody sells you the aurora. What you book is a way of being somewhere dark when it happens. Three ways to spend that night, what each costs to board, and what you get if the cloud wins.
Tromsø is a small city under an enormous sky.
Three hundred kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, with a cathedral, a brewery and a cable car, and boats leaving all winter for whales and all summer for the islands. Most people fly in for the lights and stay for the water.
Mostraumen, Lysefjord, Trollfjord: the three that fill the boats.
A fjord is a road that happens to be wet, and in most of this country it is the only road worth taking. A narrow-water cruise out of Bergen, a RIB under the Preikestolen cliff, a silent hull in Lofoten.
Norway’s most popular days out.
Every Norwegian tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
The Original Fjord Cruise to Mostraumen
Cruise from Bergen through Osterfjord to Mostraumen for waterfalls, mountain views, wildlife, warm cabins, and a memorable taste of Norway.
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
What a day out in Norway actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Norway has a reputation and mostly earns it, but the cheap end is bigger than anyone expects.
City walks, museum entries, the Oslofjord ferries and the funicular kind of ticket.
The standards: the Bergen fjord cruise, a Lysefjord RIB, a walking day with a guide.
The Arctic list. Husky sleds, reindeer camps, whale boats and the aurora chases.
- 1Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guidefrom $198
- 2Whale Watching Tour by Hybrid-Electric Boatfrom $195
- 3Aurora Borealis Tourfrom $181
Three things that only happen in Norway.
Mountains and cold water are common enough. A railway that drops nine hundred metres in twenty kilometres, a herding culture older than the border, and a rock shelf six hundred metres over a fjord are not.
The Flåm Railway
The line leaves the Bergen railway at Myrdal and falls to sea level at Flåm on a gradient that has no business carrying a standard-gauge train. It was cut by hand over twenty years, most of it through rock, and it stops at the Kjosfossen waterfall so everybody can get out into the spray. Seats are sold by departure, and the cruise-ship mornings go first.
- 1Viking Village, Nærøyfjord Cruise & Flåm Railway★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,047 reviews
- 2Guided Tour To Nærøyfjorden, Flåm And Stegastein – Viewpoint Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,021 reviews
- 3Nærøyfjorden, Flåm, and Stegastein Guided Bus Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 558 reviews
Reindeer and the Sami
The Sami herded reindeer across this coast long before there was a Norway to herd them in, and the camps outside Tromsø are run by herding families rather than staged for visitors. You feed the animals out of a bucket, take a sled a short way over the snow, and eat inside a lavvu while somebody explains what the herd does the other fifty weeks of the year.
- 1Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,417 reviews
- 2Reindeer Camp and Sami Cultural Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,326 reviews
- 3Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern Lights★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,651 reviews
Preikestolen
The rock is a flat shelf the size of a tennis court with a sheer drop to the Lysefjord below and no railing of any kind. The walk up takes about two hours from the car park and the descent is harder on the knees than the climb. Go early: by eleven in July the queue for the edge is real, and the fjord cruises underneath give you the shelf from below for a third of the effort.
- 1Scenic Fjord Cruise to Lysefjord and Preikestolen★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 5,791 reviews
- 2Fjord Cruise to Lysefjord and Pulpit Rock★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,357 reviews
- 3Guided hike to Pulpit Rock Preikestolen★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 390 reviews
Four Norwegian bookings that will not wait.
Plenty of this country can be sorted the night before from a hotel lobby. These four run on seasons, timetables and daylight, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Northern Lights Chase Minibus TourThe season runs from autumn to early spring. Book inside it, because in summer the sky up here never goes dark enough to show anything.
- 02Full-Day Trolltunga Hiking, and Climbing TourThe unguided walk is a short high-summer window. Either side of it the snow is still on the plateau and the guided trips are the only way onto the tongue.
- 03Viking Village, Nærøyfjord Cruise & Flåm RailwayThe railway sells by departure and the morning trains fill with cruise passengers off the Sognefjord ships. The afternoon runs are quieter and go later.
- 04North Cape and Sami Family Visit TripIn deep winter the last stretch of road to the plateau is driven in convoy behind a plough, at fixed times. Miss the convoy and you wait for the next one.
Above Tromsø the sun stops rising. In June it stops setting.
This is the planning fact that catches people out. From late November the sun does not clear the horizon in the north for weeks, which is exactly why the aurora season works. From late May it does not go down at all, which kills the aurora and opens everything else: midnight hikes, two in the morning on a boat, whole days on the water that never end.
- 1Whale Watching Tour by Hybrid-Electric Boatfrom $195
- 2Aurora Borealis Tourfrom $181
- 3Eggum: Lofoten Islands Midnight Sun Kayak Tourfrom $99
By place, Arctic coast to the Oslofjord
By kind of day, on the water, on the snow or on foot
Oslo, Flåm, Bergen, Geiranger, Lofoten, Tromsø: the run most first trips follow.
Flåm
GeirangerThe newest Norwegian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Geiranger Fjord Boat Tour with Waterfall Tasting
Read our review →
Marianne’s Heaven On Earth Aurora Chaser Tours
Read our review →
Small Group Quest to find the Northern Lights in Tromsø
Read our review →
Borgund Stave Church, Lærdal, and Stegastein Tour
Read our review →
Arctic Fjordcruise & Safari in Tromso with Luxury Catamaran
Read our review →
Orca and Whale Watching comfort heated boat Trip
Read our review →
