Friday Blog: High Mountains, Adventures and Challenges

Text and photo: Helena Bergström

We are still travelling around Norway and it is absolutely amazing how beautiful this country is. The landscape is incredibly dramatic, but also varied. This is a really nice country to travel in a camper van, but of course a long trip also means some challenges.

High mountains and beautiful views

The part of Norway where we are currently traveling – among the fjords – is characterized by breathtakingly high mountains and deep, intensely blue arms of water. It is truly incredibly beautiful everywhere. At first we photographed every single view, but after a while you realize that there are new fantastic views coming up all the time.

The thing about the mountains, by the way, it's not only beautiful but also a bit challenging, but let's get back to that.

Alone in the camper again

We are now alone in the camper again, after a week when our youngest son Billie and his girlfriend joined us. It was really incredibly fun to experience several highlights in Norway together with them. It was also very intense of course, and now that we are alone again, there will once again be a bit more focus on work at the computers and other practical things.

Adventure

Norway is a country that offers a constant sense of adventure. It doesn’t matter if you’re driving along the fjords or over the mountains – there’s always a dramatic spectacle outside the windows. We’ve come a long way from covering everything, but we’ve shared some of the highlights here:

• Atlantic Road
• Troll's Path
• Geirangerfjord

Challenges

In other words, it is fantastic and wonderful to travel in Norway by motorhome, but that does not mean that it is without challenges.

Steep roads…

The high mountains are not only beautiful, but also a bit challenging at times. Driving up is pretty easy (although you can tell the camper is struggling a bit). But when going down you may need to take it easy and be careful not to overheat the brakes.

All these bridges, tunnels and ferries...

The road network is fascinating, with all the bridges, tunnels and ferries. At the same time, it is important to keep your tongue in the right place when choosing a road – so that you do not accidentally choose a route with unnecessarily many or unnecessarily expensive ferries. The tunnels are long and sometimes quite dark … and sometimes you are surprised by a roundabout in the middle of the tunnel.

Getting LPG (liquefied petroleum gas)

It may depend on where you are in Norway, but when the gas price neared the bottom in our fixed LPG tank we realized that it was quite a long way to the next filling station. So we had to both economize on the gas and change our travel plans...

The internet ended

We have a great router from Wifi.se, but this time we didn't have a SIM card from them, but only our regular Telenor SIM card, which we usually use at home. This was perhaps a bit ill-considered because the regular subscription is never unlimited when traveling abroad. After about two weeks our Internet ran out, and ordering additional ones usually gets very expensive...

We consulted Wifi.se and it turned out that it was possible to download e-sim to the router we have. This means that even though we didn't have a physical sim card from Wifi.se, we were still able to get Internet through them. Absolutely amazing!

Keeping costs down

Another challenge is of course keeping costs down. The cost situation in Norway is high. Diesel is expensive, food is expensive, alcohol is expensive… We have now learned that diesel prices vary from day to day and from hour to hour, so if we make an effort we can find ok prices.

When it comes to food, we mostly shop at Rema 1000, where the prices are reasonably good, and cook all our meals in the camper. Overnight stays are reasonable by alternating between free camping, Nortrip farms and just occasional camping nights. A really good thing about the Nortrip app is that you can also easily find emptying sites there, making it easier to free camp.

This week: Grateful for ...

We are grateful that we got to spend a week in Norway with Peter's youngest son and his girlfriend. We are also grateful that the sun peeked out a lot during our shared Norway week.

Your turn ... what are you grateful for this week?

The week ahead

We continue our journey in Norway, among fjords and mountains, and eventually in the coastal landscape. Here at FREEDOMtravel you can expect a lot of Norway reportage in the near future.

Did you miss the last Friday Blog? Read it Everyday life on the trip... and company!