Milenomics² [NoAF] Podcast Episode 73 & 74: A Norway Trip Report

Milenomics ² Podcast - No Annual Fee Edition

A Norway Trip Report...on today’s Milenomics² Podcast

01:00 Scope: 2 weeks in Norway. Oslo, Tromso, Lofoten then back to Oslo for a few days.

• Wanted to get away from people.
• Love the coast, and Norway has a LOT of coastline
• Spent most of our time in the arctic Circle (but not considered the arctic)
• Map:

10:12 Outbound: Air France. LAX-CDG Plus a 4hr layover.

• Flight was smooth and the daytime departure was nice
• Got to experience the new LAX Air France lounge. Open 3 weeks ago. New is always better.
• 4hrs in CDG was perfect with kids. Got through immigration, train to the 2F terminal, settled into a lounge, everyone showered and then about 45 minutes later we were off to the gate
• Kids meal was pre-ordered and was great.

• CDG-OSL very basic, service by Amelia (by Air France)

20:10 Getting to Oslo from the airport Fly to vs Vy.

• Trains run every 10-20 minutes. Travel time is less than 30 minutes.
• Flytoget calls itself the 'fastest' airport train. This might be true, but only by a minute or two.
• Vy is a few minutes slower. Faster than driving even.

• Flytoget has Kids free vs VY so the prices start to converge when you take this into consideration
• approx $12 - 24 per person one way.
• Taxi was about $125. We had 4 of these one ways to do so we needed to get good at them.
• Vy app is not as good as the Ruter app for buying tickets with US credit cards. Stick to the Ruter app.
• Ruter and VY app cannot buy flytoget tickets, so Ruter + Flytoget app are the ideal combo.
• Tickets can also easily be bought at the ticket machines.

25:20 Clarion hotel the hub (a strawberry hotel)

• Location is great, just off Oslo central station
• 810(!) rooms. Norway's Largest hotel. Did not feel this big.
• Booked family size room for 16000 points
• With a Strata Premier this is 8000 TYP transferred to Choice.
• Included a pull out sofa which was already set up for us.
• Includes full buffet breakfast with omelette and crepe station.
• Nice, newish hotel. Certainly a great way to spend TYP and appreciate they book family rooms.
• Came back and worked to get connecting rooms. Seemed willing to even give some partial extra credit for the family room vs. 2 regular rooms.

30:58 Oslo:

• World city, really a great feel to the city, full of energy, parks and fantastic amounts of museums.
• 20+ Hours of daylight. People outdoors and a city that is alive.
• Paris and Prague feels. But English is a first or second language in most signs and interaction.

• Summer in Norway is Wildflower season. The landscaping in the cities is beautiful.

• Be Aware of your surroundings at night. There were some sketchy areas we stumbled into. Nothing too rough but still, be aware.
• Food was easy to find and diverse
  • Interesting food halls: Oslo Street Food or Barcode Street Food
  • Most world cuisine was easy to find and well done.
• Getting around is so easy. There are very few people driving cars. Taxis only really.
• Malls. So many malls. Beautiful they way they preserved the facade of the building and then you walk in and find a 3 story mall.
• NeoTokyo Store was stocked with Japanese toys/foods/snacks.
• Normal Store was a favorite of my two kids for candy/gum/interesting small dollar shopping for them.
• Gets rural quickly, leave city center and you're in the forest.
• Everything I saw ahead of visiting said to get out of Oslo -- I really, really enjoyed Oslo, and wish we spent more time there. SO much to explore.

35:24 Food in Norway

• Solid!
• Nothing like I was expecting
• Even in Tromso easy to find good options: Sushi, Thai, Fish & Chips, kid friendly food everywhere.

• Lofoten: had some meals out, touristy but to be expected.
• Our budget flex was that we had an airbnb in Tromso/Lofoten with a kitchen. Instead you could opt for prepared foods from the grocery.
• Reindeer: not bad. My 9 year old ordered it twice.
• Fruits and veggies are plentiful and easy to find in stores.
• Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry season. Fantastic berries that were easy to find.

• Had one meal that was Norwegian. It was 'ok.'
• Watermelon, passion fruit, grapes, nectarines, mangoes etc.

45:36 Travel to Tromso and Lofoten

• 1 quick 2hr flight on Norwegian
• Fine. Much better than southwest.
• Included 4 checked bags and overhead access.
• Incoming plane had everyone deplane and then boarded us and took off all in less than 35 minutes
• Pretty views from the plane on the right side as we approached Tromso.

Tromso rental car: Hertz

• Months out cars were expensive. One way rentals to Lofoten were nearly $2000.
• Originally booked an Alamo rate about $700 for a week. Anything less than 7 days was over $1200.
• Was told this would be an automated kiosk. That's likely old info. All rental companies at the airport had full manned areas.
• Rented a VW ID.4 ev. Got a VW ID.4 $524 for a week.
• Tolls, ferries and parking meant a $300 pre-authorization. Ended up using about $80 in tolls with 1000 miles driven.
• Tolls are once per hour, regardless of how many you go through. Most tolls were under $2.
• Returned it late and nearly empty. I didn't want to bother charging it. Was quoted about $25 plus the cost of electricity if I returned it under “around 70%”. I decided to leave it as empty as possible and skip a charging stop on the return since I'm paying for the convenience.

Tours: get your guide+ capital one shopping

• Commodity tours are a great use of capital one. Click through and don't buy, a few days later a good offer comes to email.
• Clicked through a common tour operator and didn't end up paying for the tour.
• Used some chase UR
• Received a 38.5% cash back offer from Capital One shopping
• Which….just worked! Took two tours down from 100 or so per person to 63 or so per person

51:29 Tromso: where to stay?

• The city is….well, a city. Has a few strawberry hotels and a Radisson Blu
• Parking is about $4/hr in the main tourists area. I don't know if any hotel has parking.
• You could certainly get around on public transit (hard with kids) even to far flung parts of the area.
• But being away from the city is quick and easy. 15 minutes puts you in an incredibly rural beautiful environment.

• If I had it to do over I'd stay on the island of Kvaløya near Esterboten or Sommory. You're close to Tromso but with incredible views:

• The best grocery store seemed to be the Eurospar on E862
• No other store matched it for fresh fruits and veggies.
• Grocery prices are reasonable, stores are stocked with plenty of great fresh options and even some ethnic staples.
• Beer and Wine are expensive and wine is only sold at Vinmonopolat stores.

56:52 Low-ish season in Tromso / Lofoten

• Busy time is apparently northern lights and early spring for winter sports
• I thought summer in Tromso was fantastic
• Negatives, whale season is not summer. Did see some porpoise.
• Tours were 10-25% full. Small enough that you got to know the group.
• Slow pace in Northern Norway. Very Slow.
• 9-10 max

1:00:11 Tromso to Lofoten islands.

• This was the ultimate “what's the best way to get there” test
• Flying might have worked. Except cars were extremely pricey at Svolvaer, and the closet airport had a tiny runway. There are no direct flights from Tromso to Svolvaer. At some level it meant a full day of travel either by car or air. So we road tripped it.
• There are high speed Ferries that don't take cars, and drop you in Harstad (still not where we wanted to be).
• There are options that involve busses. But again with mobility issues (little kids) I wanted a car.
• Option 1: over land. 6hrs or so. About 500km. no views, and locals say not worth doing.
• Option 2: two ferries plus about 300km of driving. 8hrs.

• Option 3: Hurtigruten. Maybe 14 hrs but nearly direct. Not every day. Must prebook. Weird hours.
  • If you're going to book this book it on the Norwegian language site (and maybe with a VPN) for the lowest pricing.
• Needed to decide which to do, booked nothing ahead of time.
• Originally decided on the south, direct drive. Was swayed by locals to take the ferries. Big mistake.
• Senja was a really beautiful place.

• Pivoted and made it work, thanks to my wife's quick Google searching and reassuring calming down.
• Just drive straight. Roads are easy and we did the return in just about 6hrs with a short break in the middle.
• I think a more standard trip is flying to Lofoten from either Oslo, Bergen or Bodo. Adding in Lofoten pushed the complexity up. I'm very glad we went to Lofoten I loved it, impossible to describe.
• My Final Route looked like this:

1:18:34 Ferries. Interesting for People, Terrible for Cars

• Cars line up early, fit very few cars.
• Tour Busses get to cut the line.
• Arrived about 50 minutes early and was #12 in line. For the second ferry in Gryllfjord I was an hour+ early and #65-70 in line (!)
• Scan license place and auto charge.
• People without a car are free
• EV pays half price
• Seems like a service to connect islands with last mile service, not as a method of reliable car transport
• Not worth doing. Long waits, no way to pre-book and no guarantee you can get on these ferries.

1:20:44 Lofoten:

• Need to get beyond Svolvaer for the best of the islands.
• Svolvaer is any other fishing village.
• Past Svolvaer is unlike anywhere I've ever been.
• Islands as far as the eye can see, some of the best driving I've ever done
• Harrowing roads in some places where you need to pass a bus or truck and there isn't enough room

• Peace and quiet. Weather was unusually warm.
• Anyone can take a good picture in Lofoten.
• Surprising numbers of beaches and swimmable areas.

Tours:

• Oslo: brunch on the fjord, nice but nothing overly impressive about the brunch.
• Fram Museum (Fantastic, captivated my two kids for 90+ minutes)
• Tromso: fjord boat tour, arctic fishing. Incredible with the weather we had.
• Husky cafe tour and training
• Floating sauna and swim
• Lofoten: silent trollfjord tour, beaches
• Henningsvær, Lofoten: Extremely touristy.

1:33:20 Return to Oslo and Return home.

• By now we're pros getting to/from Oslo Airport
• Back to the hotel for connecting rooms....that were not ready for us
• Let it go a day, fixed it the next day.
• 3 days in Olso: Shopping, city exploration, parks and playgrounds for the kids.
• Could have spent more time and seen even more museums.
• Return home on Air France, overnight in Paris. It all just worked.

1:45:15 Overall impressions

• Such a laid back country. Almost too laid back (ferry story).
• Food was not an issue at all. A huge misconception is that the food here is not accessible.
• Cigarette smoking is everywhere unfortunately.
• Alcohol laws are not in line with the rest of Europe and can be pricey.
• Sunday is a big deal. Almost all stores close. Joker groceries are open Sunday.
• Tourist towns like Tromso are….touristy but people also live there. Fun to visit the malls and see their daily lives.
• Talking to people led us to some of the best surprises of the trip. Nice to be in a country where we could communicate easily.
• Midnight sun was more of a feature than a bug. We packed our days often going 8am to 10pm
• Driving 1000+miles was a mix of very easy and white knuckling. Speed limits make no sense. Lots of Amalfi style 1.5 lane roads in Senja and the Lofoten Islands.