Camping in Scandinavia is a test of both patience and resilience. One moment, you’re gazing at a pristine lake under a golden sunset, and the next, you’re battling sudden rain, chilling winds, or German campervans.

Driving For Hours

The first thing you should consider when going on an epic road trip is whether you enjoy driving (or being inside the car for prolonged periods) that much because there is going to be a lot of that involved. Most of the days we would drive up to six hours and by the time we would have found the place to rest our bums for the night. All we would have energy for would be to cook some food, drink some beverages and pass out.

You might think – what is wrong with driving for six house around the beautiful fjords of Norway? Well, I’ll tell you: “You have five mobile homes in front of you that drive at 40 km/h speed, 15 camper vans behind you and and an annoying eco-warrior local in a tesla, who wants to overtake you all, and all of that on the one way road, where you can’t overtake anyone due to lack of visibility.”

Also, when we planned to go to Scandinavia in the summer, we thought it would be as deserted as it was in 2017, but it was totally not the case. Camping Challenges in Scandinavia are real.

No matter where we went, there were already at least 20 people there.

Camping Experience

The next thing you might want to consider asking yourself is if you enjoy camping that much and if are you ready to deal with forty days of rain and mosquitos, lack of facilities, occasional days without showers or showers so dirty, that you would rather skip.

On top of that, if you imagine that it is going to be like in American movies, where everyone sits around the fire, playing guitar and cooking food together, that is not really the case – people in camping sites prefer to keep to themselves and spend their spare time watching satellite TV inside their vans instead of talking to you. In most camping sites in Scandinavia, you have to pay for the site, you have to pay extra for electricity if you want to use it, and you have to pay extra for a 4 minute shower. Sometimes the shower areas are gender separated, sometimes they are not. People fight for kitchen space if there is one available, and for washing dishes privileges.

Some people were generally not happy when they saw us having too much fun, and they would go and rat us out to the camp owners. It is also somehow not acceptable to consume alcoholic drinks out in the view of other people in this part of the world, so often we would have grave looks towards us just because of the cans of beers on our table.

Dealing with folding and unfolding tents when the rain keeps pouring down is not the most uplifting experience, especially if it is going on for days. You have to have a solid sleeping arrangement, because if you don’t rest properly, you will be in a foul mood.

Weather

Camping Challenges in Scandinavia for us started with a big storm in the North Sea which resulted in driving through pouring rain for 8 hours. Thankfully, by the end of the day, the sun finally came out and we got to enjoy a peaceful walk on the beach and sunset views of the lighthouse in the city of Hirsthalt.

Even if you have all your clothes waterproof, camping in the rain will leave you drenched. If you don’t want to deal with wet tents, then you can sleep in the cabin (if you find one available in the vicinity), but I’d say sleeping in the cabin is even more uncomfortable than in the tent. Most of the part of our trip we had friends joining, and all those friends were equipped with the fantastic snoring capabilities. In terms of photography, things rarely look great when it is pouring down, but the advantages are that you have the misty forests and the waterfalls really stand out in the overcast weather.

Weather is one thing that you can’t do much about, so no use complaining about it. The weather forecast apps in Norway are worse than in Dubai, and absolutely inaccurate most of the time. You just have to accept whatever nature is giving you. However, when the South of Norway was mega-flooded in August, we had splendidly nice and warm weather up North. I have learned (not that I didn’t know this before) that I really despise being cold, and my body requires 3 layers and skiing pants when the temperatures drop to anywhere below 15 degrees C (most of the days it was the case).

Hiking

If you love hiking, Norway is a very attractive place for you with amazing views and plentiful of mountains… but their hiking ratings are not very adequate.

The first hike we did was absolutely body-crushing – we spent 7 hours there and back, while in the guide it said easy 3-hour hike. Maybe for casual Norwegians, but I don’t climb vertical walls for half a kilometre every day. The views there were spectacular, don’t get me wrong and it was cool to see the snow in July, but it also felt dangerous and very crowded with people disregarding anyone’s safety left and right.

We imagined that we would be doing a lot of hiking in Norway, but the weather was really not on our side and doing those hikes when it is raining is rather dangerous. Do make sure to bring lots of water and protein bars with you, you will need them.

Clothing Choices

When going on a road trip, you must choose wisely what clothes to take with you, and if you are there for 3 months on the road, then you will be wearing these exact clothes pretty much every day. There has to be something for warm days, something for cold days, something to wear in case there is an occasion to go out, and you have to think about where, when and how you are going to wash all these clothes. By the end of our journey, I just couldn’t look at the clothes I had with me any more, and couldn’t wait for the opportunity just to wear something different.

Food Options and Preparations

In Norway, there is basically 3 main supermarkets where you can buy your food supplies, and the variety is not great, but they are well-equipped for any kind of barbecue situation. The beer selection in Norway is great, unlike Sweden. Cooking in the wild also requires you to have the appropriate gear and gas, and the hose to connect this gas to the burner… which proved to be complicated if you bought the cooking plates from other countries.

Photography

I imagined that on this trip I would enjoy loads of landscape photography, roaming for hours on the wild edges of fjords, but the only type of photography I got to practice was out-of-car window photography. Ricoh GRiiiX ability to set the full press button on infinity and the in-body stabilization greatly helped with that, but it is not exactly what I wanted to do, to be honest. I still did manage to get nice photos, just I would say – this can happen to you as well, therefore perhaps the road trips do not necessarily equal quality photography.

Travel Partners

The reason for not being able to do much photography, apart from the continuous shitty weather, was also the fact that we constantly had friends on this trip who had their own agenda on where they wanted to be the next day, which resulted in endless hours of driving and skipping the large chunks of the landscapes. You got to be quite realistic when inviting people to join your adventures, because some people just want to visit restaurants with great food, and others would rather be in the bars… some are just not interested in stopping and waiting for you take your photos. The greatest landscape photographers are mostly travelling on their own, so they can wake up whenever they want and be in certain locations for however long they want.

24 Hours Daylight

Not everyone can deal with the lack of nighttime, which is the case in June and July in Scandinavia, and it is hard to predict how your body will react to this. The locals told us that often-time they would take holidays during this period and just drink until they drop, then they sleep being passed out for a bit, wake up and continue drinking, but this kind of lifestyle doesn’t work very well with the road trip mindset. You can get exhausted trying to convince your body that it is time to sleep, but God forbid you need to go visit the facilities at 4 am, and you see the sun being high in the sky…

Anyway, to summarize, it was an interesting experience living off the grid, sleeping in a tent and camping, makes you really appreciate all the modern luxuries upon your return to reality. I don’t know if I would want to do it again for such a long time with such a vast program of road coverage. I think everything is good in moderation. A lot of people envied me being able to spend summer in the cool environment, away from the blazing heat of the desert… and me, to be honest, I just wanted to be back in the heat and not wear all these layers, not to be wet, eaten by the mosquitos, sleep in another camping site that doesn’t look pretty at all.