active pace | 11 nights | from $3,980 per person
Norway Vacation Package: 11 Nights at a Active Pace
Four bases joined by boats, with a walk of real length on most days. The country rewards the effort and does not forgive being underestimated.
What the days ask of you
This trip is filed as active. Everything below is measured, not adjectives.
- Walking on an average day
- six to nine miles on a walking day, and there are seven of them
- Longest stretch without a seat
- five hours on the ridge above the third base, with no way to shorten it once started
- What is under your feet
- rock, root, bog and boardwalk, wet more often than not
- Climbing
- up to two thousand feet of ascent in a day, sustained rather than gentle
- Altitude
- sea level to about three thousand feet
- Heat
- not the issue. Wind and rain end walks here, and they do it without warning
- Times you move
- six, mostly by boat, and you carry your bags on two of them
- Who this is not for
- if a sustained hour of uphill on wet rock is not something you enjoy, this is the wrong trip
What is included
- Eleven nights across four properties, two of them small and family run
- Breakfast every morning, and four dinners where there is nowhere else to eat
- All ferry and coastal boat legs between the bases, seat or deck as the route allows
- One internal flight to reach the islands rather than losing a day and a half to the road
- A printed walk card for seven walks, with the ascent, the surface and the turning point on each
- Transfers at both airports
What is not included
- International flights, quoted separately
- Seven dinners and every lunch
- Any hire car, which this route is built to avoid
- Waterproofs and boots, which you bring and which you will use
- Gratuities
- The guided glacier walk, which is bought locally and which we will not book on your behalf
What it costs
from $3,980 per person, on two people sharing.
That is the lowest figure we have actually placed this trip at in the last season. It moves with the month, the room or cabin grade, whether you travel alone and how far ahead you book. Flights are not in it unless this page says they are. The figure is confirmed in writing, with the operator named, before you commit to anything.
When this is worth doing, and when it is not
June to early September. Late June has light almost all night and the highest prices of the year. September gives you color on the hillsides and a real chance of weather that ends a walk early.
This is the point on our list where fitness starts to matter. Several of the walks are three to five hours with sustained climbing on rock and root. If that is not a pleasant description to you, the trip is a poor use of your money and there is no gentle version of it.
What gets settled when you confirm
Which walks you actually intend to do, because two of the four bases are chosen for their trailheads and are otherwise plain. Whether you want a rest day inserted, which we recommend on eleven nights. The internal flight timing, which drives the whole itinerary. And whether you carry your own bags between boats, which on two of the legs you will.