Norway Travel Guide

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Norwegian Air Shuttle Confirms 2013 Will Be Its Year for Cheap 787 Flights

Where: Norway
December 21, 2011 at 8:13 AM | by | Comments (0)

We’re only weeks away from 2012, but we’re already looking forward to some exciting stuff scheduled to land further in the future. The new year definitely has cool plans in store for commercial flights, but 2013 is when Norwegian Air Shuttle plans to link the United States with Scandinavia—on the cheap.

There was some news kicking around about the airline’s plans for low-cost, long-haul routes, and it sounds like things are still moving full speed ahead. Best of all it sounds as though NAS will utilize Boeing 787s on the new routes, so this might be one of the cheapest ways to experience the Dreamliner in all its glory. Even if Norwegian Air Shuttle goes no-frills, some of the 787's standard features should still shine through. Just so you know, right now they’ve got like six of the brand new birds on order.

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of First-Time Cruising

Where: Norway
August 12, 2011 at 4:21 PM | by | Comments (2)


And now a personal dispatch from uncharted waters...those of a virgin cruiser...

As I mentioned on Wednesday, my trip to Norway on Cunard was my first ever cruise. I was ignorant enough to think that a cruise was a good place to go to escape alcohol. What's more is that I was tagging along with a seasoned cruiser and there was obviously a lot I had yet to learn.

Here’s what stood out as the good, the bad and the ugly to a first-timer:

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How to Stay Sober on a Cruise: A Firsthand Lesson

Where: Norway
August 10, 2011 at 3:20 PM | by | Comments (0)

And now a first-person dispatch from a special Jaunted contributor (and first-time cruiser):

Not only was my Norwegian cruise last month the first cruise I’d ever been on, it was also the first trip I’d done since I stopped drinking a couple of months ago. Awesome, I thought as I stuffed my suitcase—a week cut off (literally) from the temptation of bars and clubs. This will be the perfect bridge between America, land of every-other-person-is-in-AA (where I’d traveled from), and England, land of if-you-don’t-get-hammered-on-a-Monday-night-you’ll-be-deported (where I was going to).

But the cruise wasn’t quite as expected, mainly because there was booze at every turn (duh). Thwarted! Luckily, I battled through and emerged from the Queen Victoria unscathed. Want to do the same? These are some ploys to staying sober that worked for me:

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Norwegian Postcards Show Off Scandinavia's Finest Ass-ets

Where: Norway
August 8, 2011 at 4:05 PM | by | Comments (0)


Norwegian postcards: a victory for sexual equality

Postcards: we may be too digitally-inclined and the postal services may be too expensive to mail them anymore, but we still buy them in droves. And while we loved the beautiful images of fjords and cutesy clapboard houses that we found during a Norwegian cruise on Cunard's Queen Victoria last month, the postcards that most captivated us displayed a very different type of Norwegian assets.

Yes, in Fjordcountry—Flåm and Geiranger, to be precise—along with the pretty landscape pictures were a shedload of pictures of naked men in picturesque places. Enjoying the view, showering under a gushing waterfall, strumming a guitar in a flower-filled meadow, skiing...all in various states of undress from shorts to full frontal nudity.

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Foreign Grocery Friday: Norway's Beloved 'Kvikk Lunsj' Candy Bar

Where: Bergen, Norway
July 29, 2011 at 9:01 AM | by | Comment (1)

When we travel, one of our favorite things to do is to pop into a local grocery store and check out the food products and candies we'd never find anywhere else. So we're trying out this new feature, Foreign Grocery Friday, where each week we'll feature some of our (and your) favorite overseas treats. Got a recommendation? Let us know!

Where do we even start in pronouncing "Kvikk Lunsj," the popular Norwegian chocolate treat, let alone describe its taste? Well, once you know it translates to "Quick Lunch," the consonant-rich words don't seem as intimidating. In looks and flavor, Kvikk Lunsj's closest cousin is the KitKat Bar, and indeed KitKats beat the launch of Kvikk Lunsj by two years, having debuted in 1935.

Still, Kvikk Lunsj has the sporty image KitKat never will; Norwegians associate its bright packaging with outdoorsy activities, and the commercials and motto—"Tursjokoladen," trekking chocolate—support it. Each bar even features the portrait of a famous Norge outdoorsman. We got Kjell "Stakan" Staxrud, who, judging from an itty-bitty illustration, looks to be a cross-country skiier.

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Stavanger, Norway: An Unexpected Destination for Awesome Street Art

July 21, 2011 at 4:45 PM | by | Comments (0)

New York, Berlin, Paris, Rio de Janeiro...Stavanger? it's true; Norway's second city is a hot spot for international street art, and it's something we never would have guessed until we stepped off Cunard's Queen Victoria and into the center of the city, with walls sporting Shepard Fairey and Banksy.

Stavanger seems a sleepy town, but first impressions are usually deceiving as we know all too well. It took about 10 minutes of meandering the (literally) vibrant streets before we found a store called "SHIT" and a bohemian coffeeshop packed with locals keen to tell us where to find free WiFi and where to walk to see the best graffiti.

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A $17 Value Meal and 'Sennep Sauce' at a Norwegian McDonalds

Where: Bergen, Norway
July 14, 2011 at 6:36 PM | by | Comments (2)

It's a beautiful day in Norway's second-largest city of Bergen, and a stroll down cobblestone lanes seems like a great idea. There's the fish market, and street vendors selling reindeer pelts and long, knit winter hats. And then—making itself at home in a historic building on a corner—you're faced with the dreaded Golden Arches.

Yep, McDonalds has invaded the fresh northern air with its smell of french fries and...hot wings? As usual with foreign McD's, the menu varies:

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And Now, Your Moment of Zen (From the North Sea)

Where: Norway
July 8, 2011 at 4:00 PM | by | Comments (0)

Someday—if you're good and you eat all your vegetables and do all your homework and dream bigger than a vacation in Cancun—you could be sail onboard one of Cunard's three queens. The Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria are proper ships, the last of which we recently sailed on and up to Norway for a little fjord action.

Even in the rocking North Sea, the Queen Vic kept her cool, smoothly cutting the waves and making full use of technology to stick to course. To witness this firsthand, occasional invitations to visit the ship's bridge do appear (for regular passengers; not just us). The bridge is the business end of the ship, where it's nautical charts and not dessert menus that get consulted, and the star of the show is Captain Inger Klein Olsen and not the winner of the "Hairiest Chest Competition." Like Cunard would ever throw a "Hairiest Chest Competition" anyway. As if!

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Wish You Were Here: Norway's Waterfall-Rich Sognefjord

Where: Flaam, Norway
July 5, 2011 at 8:31 AM | by | Comments (2)

OMG. Waterfalls. Go to Norway and then never again understand why people travel to upstate New York to visit Niagara Falls.

For the Fourth of July holiday weekend, we shipped off (literally, we're on a ship) to Norway, another country boasting a flag of red, white and blue. Onboard Cunard's ship the MS Queen Victoria, we're playing dot-to-dot from Norwegian fjord to Norwegian fjord for a 7-day cruise featuring so many magnificent cliffs and fantasy waterfalls that the lyrics to "America The Beautiful" seem overly boastful.

It's like, "oh beautiful, for spacious skies" my bum! Norway's for spacious skies can run laps around the USA's, and this is a fact you don't fully realize until you're on a ship towering over an entire town one day (Stavanger, for instance) and then the next day, being ridiculously dwarfed by spiking precipices and ridiculous vistas (in the Sognefjord near the town of Flåm).

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Yes, This Exists: Snowman International Airport

Where: Norway
March 25, 2011 at 9:58 AM | by | Comments (0)

Bardufoss Airport sits pretty close to the tippy top of Norway, so it really doesn’t get that much airplane action throughout the year. That’s why the folks in the marketing department at the airport should get some kind of award, as their rebranding idea is pretty darn clever. They’ve decided to rename the airport "Snowman International Airport."

Besides being an awesome idea, airport officials are hoping that this can get their little airport on the map. Technically, it’s still going to be called Bardufoss Airport—BDU for those collecting airport codes—but for all other purposes this is the airport where snowmen (and snow-women) catch their flights for all those business trips.

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Would-Be Turkish Airlines Hijacker Gets Sat On by Passengers

Where: Oslo, Norway
January 6, 2011 at 9:06 AM | by | Comments (0)

Forget about the United pilot who spilled coffee on his controls, accidentally activating the hijacking alert button. There was a real hijacking attempt yesterday, and for some reason it's been pretty underreported. Perhaps because the alleged hijacker wasn't successful? Still...

According to BBC News, a Turkish Airlines flight headed from Oslo to Istanbul was flying high like normal, when, suddenly, a passenger towards the rear of the plane donned a mask and held up a radio handset-like device claiming he had a bomb and wanted the plane turned around and taken back to Oslo.

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Where Did The Mysterious Spiraling Light Phenomenon Occur?

Where: Norway
December 10, 2009 at 9:51 AM | by | Comments (0)

Check out other UFO phenomenon with our UFO Travel Map!

Yesterday afternoon, the world was gripped by a UFO panic when pictures of a mysterious spiraling blue light in the skies over Norway appeared online, followed by video of the phenomenon in action. Norway might be used to the Northern Lights, but this was no natural occurrence; indeed it turned out to be a failed Russian missile launch. So where did this all go down, exactly?

It's reported that the missile, an ICBM ""Bulava" missile, was test-fired from a Russian submarine in the White Sea just east of Scandinavia. Why they chose to do this with Obama in town in Oslo is not clear, but needless to say—Scandinavia has been on alert.

The failed launch resulted in the rocket's falling back down to earth, with its fuel and debris shooting out and causing the glowing spiral. Most photos of the strange early morning lights came from locals around the north Norwegian areas of Alta and Borras.

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