Norway, one fjord at a time.
Which aurora chase actually leaves the cloud behind. Whether the Nærøyfjord cruise beats the train. What a husky team costs in January. Every tour in Norway, reviewed and ranked.
The days people come to Norway for.
Aurora, fjord water, sled dogs, reindeer, orcas and one cliff above Lysefjord. Six days most Norway trips are built around, and the best way to book each one.
Northern lights: pick how you chase them.
All 221 northern lights tours →
Tromsø sits under the auroral oval, which is why the guides here drive for the gap in the cloud rather than a viewpoint. These three carry the most travellers; the full list splits the rest by how you want to spend the night.
Drive until the sky clears
A minibus, a guide reading three cloud models, and the freedom to cross into the Finnmark plateau or over the Finnish border if that is where the gap is.
Watch it from a hybrid boat
Electric propulsion means the engine goes quiet in the fjord, so the only sound is the hull. Deck for the sky, saloon and thermal suits for when your hands give up.
Someone sets your camera for you
Aurora on a phone is a green smear. A guide who sets the exposure, focuses on infinity in the dark and places you in the frame is the difference between a memory and a print.
Tromsø runs on two seasons and nothing in between.
From late November the sun does not clear the horizon: aurora, sled dogs, reindeer and orcas, all inside an hour of the harbour. Then in May it stops setting altogether and the same fjords fill with kayaks and midnight hikes.
Norway’s most popular tours.
Every review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in Norway — and what each one gets right.
1
The Original Fjord Cruise to Mostraumen
Sail from Bergen through the Osterfjord to Mostraumen, with Bryggen views and a close-up waterfall pass on a comfortable audio-guided cruise.
From · $93
Read our review →
2
Electric Fjord Cruise to Lysefjord & Preikestolen
from $93
3
Northern Lights Safari with Expert Guides and Photos
from $61
4
Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guide
from $198
5
Northern Lights Pioneer Tour with Photos Included
from $165
6
Oslo Fjord Sightseeing Cruise by Sailing Ship
from $39
7
Arctic Fjord Cruise & Fishing Experience
from $152
8
Self-Drive Husky Dog Sledding Adventure
from $351
The western fjords are a week on their own.
Nærøyfjord narrows to 250 metres between walls a kilometre high. Geiranger drops the Seven Sisters straight into the water. Between them run the Flåm railway, Hardanger’s orchards and a ferry network that has served this coast for a century.
Half of Norway only exists for part of the year.
The aurora needs darkness, so it disappears for the whole northern summer. The midnight sun does the exact opposite. Trolltunga’s trail opens when the snow clears and shuts when it returns. Pick the season first, then the tour.
- 01Northern Lights Safari with Expert Guides and PhotosDark skies only: roughly late September to late March. There is no aurora tour in June, at any price.
- 02Lofoten Islands Midnight Sun Kayak TourThe sun stays up from about 20 May to 22 July in Tromsø. Outside that window it is an ordinary sunset.
- 03Trolltunga Classic Overnight HikeThe marked summer route runs mid-June to mid-September. Earlier or later you need a guide and winter kit.
- 04Tromsø Whale Safari with MS GabrieleOrcas and humpbacks follow the herring into the northern fjords from about November to January.
What a day in Norway actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. Norway is expensive, but the fjord you came for is rarely the expensive part.
Funiculars, city walks, museum entry and the shorter harbour cruises.
The full-day core: aurora chases, husky teams, Nærøyfjord cruises, guided days on Preikestolen.
Small-boat charters, private aurora nights, glacier days with a guide and multi-day Arctic runs.
- 1Self-Drive Husky Dog Sledding Adventurefrom $351
- 2Fun and Easy Dog Sledding Adventurefrom $282
- 3Husky Sled Self-Drive with Traditional Lunchfrom $282
Only in Norway.
Fjords exist elsewhere and so do mountains. Two months without a sunset, a herding culture older than the border, and orcas working a herring shoal inside a fjord belong to the Norwegian Arctic alone.
The Midnight Sun
North of the Arctic Circle the sun simply stops going down. Tromsø gets roughly two months of it, and the whole town reorganises: kayaks out at one in the morning, summit hikes that start after dinner, football at three. The light does not fade so much as circle you, gold on one side of the fjord and then the other.
- 1Lofoten Islands Midnight Sun Kayak Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 322 reviews
- 2Midnight Sun Kayak – Northern Explorer★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 151 reviews
- 3Midnight Sun Hike with Wandering Owl★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
Reindeer and the Sami
The Sami have herded reindeer across the north of Scandinavia for centuries, and the camps outside Tromsø and Alta are run by herding families rather than a folklore company. You feed the herd by hand, take a sled behind them, then sit in a lavvu over bidos stew while someone explains why the herd moves to the coast in summer.
- 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
Orcas Following Herring
Every winter the herring shoal into the fjords around Skjervøy and Kvænangen, and orcas and humpbacks follow them in. The boats leave Tromsø in what passes for daylight in December — an hour of pink horizon — and the whales work the shoal in full view of the shore.
- 1Tromsø Whale Safari with MS Gabriele★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 1,937 reviews
- 2Whale Watching in Magic Skjervoy★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,207 reviews
- 3Silent Whale Watching by Hybrid-Electric Boat from Tromsø★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,017 reviews
For two months the sun never clears the horizon.
All winter activities →
Northern Lights Chase in a Mercedes Benz with Photos
Read our review →
Bergen gets rain on 200 days a year and sails anyway.
The wettest city in Europe built its calendar around the forecast rather than against it. The Fløibanen still climbs into the cloud, the Mostraumen boat still runs the narrows, and the Bryggen alleys are better empty and wet than dry and full. Bring the jacket and keep the plan.
By region — north to south
Tromsø480 tours
Alta44 tours
Lofoten Islands86 tours
Bergen181 tours
Ålesund53 tours
Oslo200 tours
Stavanger61 tours- Every Norway tour →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
Norway in a Nutshell, reviewed leg by leg.
Flåm
Nærøyfjord
HardangerOslo is a capital you can swim in.
The fjord starts at the opera house steps. Ferries reach island beaches for the price of a bus ticket, the Viking ships and Munch’s own collection sit twenty minutes apart, and Holmenkollen puts the whole city under a ski jump.
- 1Oslo Fjord Sightseeing Cruise by Sailing Shipfrom $39
- 2Oslo Nature Walks: Island Hopping Tourfrom $69
- 324 or 48-Hour Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Bus GrayLinefrom $44
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Senja Fjords & Coast Day Tour with FREE Photos
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