Travel Norway: 1-week Itinerary and Cost.

It’s been just over a week since we got back from our trip to Norway and we’re all still on a high from it. It was one of the most incredible places we’ve ever been and we enjoyed every minute of our time in this beautiful and charming Nordic country. Every time I travel I feel like my whole being expands, my mind wakes up, my creativity is rekindled and Norway was no exception. I came back so inspired. If you’ve been considering a visit to the land of the midnight sun, I highly recommend it. Today, I’m going to share our overall Norway 1-week itinerary as well as the cost of the trip. And come back for follow-up posts where I will share each location we visited in more depth, including what we did!

Why Norway?

I’ve gotten the question why we chose to visit Norway a ton over the last couple weeks, so I thought I would share. There are a few reasons. First, we’ve wanted to visit Scandinavia for several years. We have a lot of family history from this part of the world and I’ve just always wanted to see the Nordic countries. We thought about visiting 2 countries, ( Norway, Sweden, Denmark were our top 3) but since we were limited to a week with our kids summer work and back to school schedules we decided we’d rather go deep on one. We chose Norway simply because we really, really wanted to experience the Fjords. We love to be outside, hiking and experiencing nature when we travel, and after 2 years of being mostly homebound, we wanted a big adventure. Norway fit the bill perfectly.

Our 1-week Norway itinerary:

We decided to travel Norway by train and honestly it was the BEST decision. Norway has some of the most beautiful and scenic train journeys in the world, and it did not disappoint. I wish we traveled by train more in the U.S. It’s so comfortable, convenient and efficient. The trains are fast and almost always right on time. The cars are comfortable and they are so accommodating for families, since they have a family car with a play area for kids, bathrooms on board and even a dining car if you need a snack.

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We bought a 3-day Eurail pass and that was the best, most economical way to do it. It was easy to book each leg of our journey (I just called into Eurail), and we even got a discount on the Flåm scenic railroad through the pass. For our large family of 7, train travel was completely ideal and I would 100% do it again.

Now let’s get to the itinerary:

Day 1: Oslo.

We took a red-eye flight from JFK on Friday night and landed in Oslo early Saturday afternoon. Getting to Oslo from the airport is quite easy, there are trains that run right from the terminal to Oslo central station and are around $20, and only take 20 minutes. That’s what we did both coming and going.

We only scheduled one day in Oslo, and that was perfect for what we wanted on this trip. We were able to spend the afternoon and evening exploring the city by foot, and enjoying the views and the energy. I can’t tell you a ton about Oslo because we spent so little time there, but it was a very clean, charming city, and very walkable. Early the next morning we boarded the train to Bergen at Oslo central station and rode all morning to the station in Myrdal. At Myrdal we got off the Bergen line and took the Flåm railway over the mountains and down to the little town of Flåm, right on the edge of the most incredible Fjord.

Day 2 & 3: The Fjords, and Flåm, Aurlandsvangen, Gudvangen.

These 2 days were my favorite of the whole trip, and the part we were all most excited about. They were our Fjord days, and I will go into more detail on this in my post later this week about what we did and where we stayed, but for days 2 and 3 we stayed in Aurlandsvangen, and visited Flåm, and Gudvangen. Now that I’ve been there, I think I would have added at least 1 more day to this leg of the trip because it was so magical and there were more things we would have loved to do while we were in the Fjords. More on that in a later post!

After our 2 days in the Fjords we rode the Flåm railway back over the mountain to Myrdal and caught the Bergen line the rest of the way to Bergen. This part of the rail journey was so, so beautiful and I literally could have sat there all day just watching the beautiful scenery and little villages pass by. But early in the day we made it to Bergen.

Day 4-7: Bergen.

We spent the last 4 days of the trip in the gorgeous city of Bergen. Bergen is so unique and magical, for so many reason, I cannot wait to share all the details with you. It definitely warrants it’s own post which is coming later this week. But I will say, it is one of the prettiest and coolest cities I’ve ever been to, and I can’t wait to share why!

One the last night of the trip we took boarded the night train from Bergen back to Oslo and booked 3 sleeping cars. It is one of the coolest things we’ve ever done, and I’m writing a whole post to share about that with you as well! We arrived back in Oslo first thing Saturday morning and flew out a few hours later!

Total cost of the trip:

Trip budgets are tricky to share because the cost of a trip depends a ton on how many people are going and we have quite a large family. But I also like to be a good resource for you guys so I am sharing the whole breakdown below.

I will say, of all the European countries we’ve traveled to (this is #6), Norway is probably the most expensive. Mostly because the cost of eating out in Norway is INSANE. (And again 7 people to feed really adds up.) We also found the cost of lodging to be higher than other European countries we’ve visited. The train tickets, and different activities we did were relatively affordable compared to other locations, and we got a really good deal on our flights (under $300 a person), which helped, but it’s just pricey to travel with a large family. (Hence why we painted our house ourselves earlier this summer…)

Here’s the breakdown of the total cost of the trip:

Flights:

One thing I pride myself on, is that I am a ninja at finding cheap flights to Europe. It helps a ton that we are traveling from the East coast and have both Boston and NYC airports to choose from, but I’ve never paid more than $300 a ticket to fly to Europe. We all brought only one small carry-on bag for luggage (thank you, capsule packing), which I highly recommend, it streamlines travel so much and you don’t have to worry about lost bags, plus it saves money! (See what I packed for Norway here.). The total cost to fly was just shy of $2000 (again, anything X 7 adds up).

Trains:

This was a large chunk of the budget, but it was much more economical than renting a car big enough for our family of 7 and paying for the gas. The train was also one of the big experiences we wanted to have on the trip so it felt like a double bonus, comfortable more affordable method for getting across the country, and we got to experience so much of the beauty of southern Norway by train. We rented a car when we took our kids to Europe 4 years ago and drove over 3,000 miles. It was exhausting and a lot of work for Craig… this was so much more relaxing and fun for everyone. And we all got to enjoy the views.

Lodging:

We stayed exclusively at airBnb’s through Norway, and with the size of our family that’s really the only practical option, since I don’t like having to stay in different hotel rooms and we’re able to travel much more affordably by staying in that way. Plus it’s just so much more comfortable and practical for a family. The airBnb’s are definitely a little pricier in Norway than we’ve found in other European countries, but like I’ve said, part of that is due to the size of our family. If you’re traveling with less people this cost will go down significantly, as I found a lot of really great options for less people in the low $100’s a night. Our stays ranged from $350-$500 a night.

Food:

Food. Oh my gosh the food was painfully expensive! Like buying a hot dog at the Bergen fish market is $12.50. People from Norway, why does it cost so much to eat out?! We really only ate 1 meal a day out, (usually dinner, sometimes lunch). We’d head to the market in each location and buy things for breakfast and lunches. If we were hiking we’d pack bread, cheese, smoked salmon and fruit in our backpacks for a mountain lunch, and we made fun dinners in the airbnb’s a couple of the nights and still the food cost for the 7 of us was over $1800. 3 of our 5 kids are teenagers, which means we were basically feeding 5 adults and 2 kids, and I knew that eating out was expensive in Norway so we planned ahead. If you have a smaller family, this will obviously be much lower, but if you are traveling to Norway, give yourself a large budget for food!

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Activities:

Of all the expenses for the trip, these were the most affordable. Mostly because Europe is pretty family friendly when it comes to kids. Most activities Finn and Ava were free, and there was a discounted kids rate for the other 3 kids (even Hannah who is 18), so we we’re able to do lots of cool things for pretty reasonable prices. The most expensive activity we did was the Fjord Ferry and it was worth every penny. There are tons of free and really affordable things to do like hiking and museums and we definitely took advantage of those!

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Alright, there you have it! Our 7 day Norway itinerary and trip cost. Come back this week as I share all the details about the different places we visited on this trip! And check out what I packed for Norway right here. (Turned out to be the perfect “Fall, rainy weather capsule”!)