0:02
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Beyond Your Science podcast. This is the follow up episode to my episode about my trip to Norway and my itinerary. And so in this episode, I’ll be doing a short Q&A about my trip some of the questions that I got about planning about like cultural differences and other things like that. So, number one, what are some of my planning tips for Norway? How did I plan the trip? And like what are some of the big things that people should keep in mind when they’re planning their trip to Norway. So my first three tips and I’ll go in depth into each of these later are number one, use public transport as much as possible instead of renting a car. Number two, have a Visa or MasterCard credit card for your payments, and number three, pack with layers in mind.
1:09
Okay, so first, I’m using public transport as much as possible instead of renting a car, especially if you’re just visiting major cities or towns. So when I first was thinking about playing this trip to Norway, I wanted to rent a car so that we could travel to other parts of Norway. But my mom cautioned against it because one, we were not familiar with the driving laws in Norway. And she was so right for this. So driving is the same mechanically. But the roads in the driving etiquette are so different over there, it would be really confusing for someone to navigate. So for context, I’m from the United States. And when I was over there, and just observing like the roads, they were totally different. And I definitely would not want to drive over there at all. And to be honest, I really love the public transport over there, the bus Skyss the bus system is called Skyss. So I was putting the two words together, that’s Skyss it was pretty seamless. You know, you just download the app, you pay for your bus ticket and the app and you just like show the bus driver. They actually didn’t really check. But there is like a large fine if you don’t buy a ticket. So if they do check, you have already bought the ticket. That’s kind of like the idea. So yeah, the bus system, you know, took us to smaller towns to so we really didn’t even need a car to get to those places. But of course, this does depend on like what part of Norway you’re going to.
2:45
So like I mentioned in the previous episode, I went from Bergen to Flam to Voss. And so if you want to hear more about that, listen to the last episode. So if you’re pressed on time, like I was, while playing the trip, like I was in the middle of doing a bunch of grad school things, preparing for a conference, I had like just done my thesis background exam, I really did not have the brain capacity to do plan everything out individually. So I booked my trip through Norway in a Nutshell. And so basically books, all the public transport for you. So you don’t have to, they could also book hotels, but I had to book the hotel separately, because for some reason, it wasn’t working for me in that system. And what’s nice about Norway in a Nutshell is that you could schedule like the transport to be like a day or two like staying in one place. And so it just made it really convenient. So then I also had like all the tickets in one document for public transport.
3:49
But later I found out that it actually wasn’t too difficult to book the tickets separately or just like buy the tickets. Once you get there. You just probably need to be like organized about the dates and times about when you plan to go make sure you don’t like accidentally schedule one type of transport over another. And so I was really concerned about like the train system Vy which is spelled Vy from getting like one place to another I thought that that was going to be like really crowded or something but actually wasn’t that crowded. So I probably could have also just like bought a train ticket the day of but like I mentioned, I did travel with like three other people. So traveling in a larger group like that I just really wanted to have like all my bases covered and so booking everything ahead of time just reduced a lot of like the stress or like just thinking about it once I got there.
4:39
And so through the Norway in a Nutshell it booked the Vy train from Bergen to Flam and then a electric boat cruise from Flam to Gudvangen and the bus from Gudvangen to Voss and then the train back to Voss. And so the total package for for people through Norway in a Nutshell was probably $850, just for transport alone. And so when I went back and recalculated, what it would have cost. If I did them individually, I think it still would have been about $700. So I probably would have saved like $150. So I don’t regret using Norway in a Nutshell. But next time, I would probably just booked everything on my own. Because it was, everything was like a lot easier than I thought it would be. And so I would just consider this $150 a convenience fee because it saved me a lot of time booking everything individually since I was doing it from the US. And since I was like, really busy working on other grad school things before the trip and conference, okay.
5:41
And so my next tip is to have like a Visa or MasterCard credit card to have to pay for everything. And so I before the trip, I was I was like looking up like how am I supposed to like exchange currency in Norway. And I was like trying to figure out like, my debit card situation, I checked my debit card, and it turned out it was expired. And I was like, oh my god, how am I gonna get money? I was really concerned about this. And so I asked one of my college friends, she had visited Norway before. And she just reassured me that like, if you just have like a Visa or MasterCard credit card, like that’s fine. Um, yeah, I just didn’t realize that my debit card had expired. I never used it. And like I knew I was just like, sent home. And so yeah, I was really worried about getting cash. And I got really, it’s just about that. But my friend reassured me that she just used our card, and never needed cash.
6:45
My mom’s co worker, also told her like when she went to Norway, she exchanged like $200 of US, US dollars into Norwegian kroner, and she also struggled to use it all up. Because most of the cities and towns in Norway have card payment, and they are almost like pretty much cashless. And so like, very rarely will you need cash. And if you do plan to, like, if you do need cash, like you could always like pay somebody, like with a card, and they would give you the cash. And so for example, when we were at one of our hotels, we needed some coins to use the dryer. And so we just went to the hotel desk, and we’re like, can you give us like $5 in coins, so we paid with a with our card, and they gave us $5 in coins, so don’t need to worry about that.
7:37
Finally, my last tip is to pack outfits with layers. So for context, I went in early to mid July and so the weather was pretty pleasant. So it was like around 55 degrees Fahrenheit or 13 degrees Celsius in the evening and it went up to about 70 degrees Fahrenheit or like 20 degrees Celsius during the day. It can also get pretty misty and drizzly pretty quick, especially in the fjords. It’s also breezy at night, and especially at like the top of mountain peaks. So definitely like have layers like long sleeve and like a waterproof jacket or something like that. And so for me, I pack clothes and colors that can be easily paired with other items and layered over each other. For reference for women I packed like navy linen pants, dark wash jeans, and black leggings. I had a mix of black long sleeve tops and neutral colored short sleeve tops. And for outerwear. I had a light Adidas jacket, Patagonia quarter zip pullover and a packable raincoat for shoes. I have white sneakers for walking around town trail shoes for hiking and comfy shoes for casual slash water activities. And I pretty much wore everything that I had packed.
8:55
There were some hotels, I had free laundry, which was convenient. So it might be worth it to you know, pack a few detergent pods so you can wash your clothes. But you should be wary of their dryers and make sure that they heat properly. And so in both of the hotels that we stayed at, they have free laundries but their dryers were just not as strong as American dryers that I was that I was used to. And I think it’s probably just to reduce energy use. And so they’re also like structured differently. In American dryers, you know, the dust filter, I don’t know what it’s called, but usually you you pull it out from the bottom and then you like dump it. But in Norway, it’s actually or at least the ones that I’ve seen it was located on the door and so you you have to still pull that out and just make sure he’s to the right temperature for proper drying. Or you just need to account for that and have time to like air dry your clothes because they might still be damp and that’s what we had to do. We use the dryer at one of the hotels and it would not dry completely. And so we had to like lay out all of our clothes overnight and let it dry. And even then it was still a bit damp. So that was a interesting experience.
10:13
Okay, um, the next question is, what are some cultural differences in Norway versus the US. So these are just some of my observations that I thought were interesting. So first is the lack of air conditioning, which is probably very American of me. So I come from Houston, and it’s usually like, pretty warm all year round. And so we always use air air conditioning, when I moved to Wisconsin, you know, some of my friends mentioned, like, not having air conditioning in their homes. And I was pretty surprised because, you know, it’s, it’s still can get hot here during the summer. But, so, but it didn’t matter to me because like, I live in a place where there’s like central AC. So I was just like, not used to like not having that option. But so when I got to Norway, and I stayed in my hotel room, I was like, man, it’s kind of like warm in here, where’s the AC, but there is no AC, it’s just called the window. So I just opened the window. And that was actually pretty nice to have like the wind blowing in, during the during the evening. And so now that’s something I’ve adopted here in Wisconsin, I just like it took me a while to go from like, AC window, transition from Houston to Madison, in Wisconsin, and then in Norway, so I got really used to it in Norway.
11:44
The second thing and are these are two financial observation is that one tipping isn’t required. And sometimes if you’re not Norwegian, you can’t buy certain things. And so in Norway, the food when you order on a restaurant, it seems more expensive initially. Because one they pay their workers a living wage. And to the price already, like includes the tip and everything. And so if people do tip, they just like round up to the, to the dollar or whatever. Additionally, some items are only available for Norwegian people to purchase. And so you can tell this, if they say they only accept VIPPS, which is VIPPS. I’m not sure what that stands for. But basically, it’s kind of like a Norwegian Venmo. It’s only tied to a new region, phone number or account. And this only happened to me once because I was in a clothing store. And I saw this really cute floral blouse, which was only $5.05 US dollars. But I didn’t notice that the tag said VIPPS only. So when I went to check it out, the cashier told me like I can’t buy it because I have to pay with VIPPS.
12:56
The third thing was paying for public bathrooms. So this is probably pretty common in like other countries. And yeah, I just don’t have never encountered it, I did notice that it was only you only had to pay in the more touristy areas, because when we went to areas that were less touristy, like both for the locals, you didn’t have to pay for the bathroom, which I thought was kind of funny.
13:21
Um, the fourth observation was driving in the mountains. Yeah, this is not something for the faint of heart. I haven’t driven in mountain areas in the US, I don’t really know how driving in mountains really works. But you know, I’m in general, I’m just used to having like a four lane highway. So like, even the smallest roads were like, to one way lanes like going in opposite directions. And so as I mentioned in the previous episode, like when we were going up to this viewpoint cost tag assign, the road is only large enough to fit. It’s only one car, like a one lane road. And there’s only like certain areas where it’s large enough for one car to pull over and let the other car pass. And so you have to be super focused. When you drive you need to pay attention for like the cars or company and like know where the merging areas are. And the other thing was that there’s really short really on the side of the cliff. So it’s maybe like a foot or two off the ground. And that was it. And so just seeing that was kind of nerve wracking. But fortunately, we didn’t drive up the mountain. You know, our tour bus driver was telling us like a lot of tourists don’t really know how to drive those roads. And it can cause traffic jams and accidents because it’s so narrow. So if you want to go to stick a sign or go up like a mountain like that, if there is an electric bus tour, just book it. Yeah.
14:47
And the other thing was a variety of languages in Norway. You know, a lot of Norwegian people speak Norwegian and English. But there were a lot of people from other parts of Europe that were traveling through Norway and so there were a lot of people from a Try to. So I like to heard a lot of French Spanish Korean Mandarin. But since you know I went during the summer during peak season, there’s a lot of tourists. And this was like a observation that I made. So if I like went into a store or anything, and I said hi. Norwegian people might respond to me in Norwegian. But if I said hello, they knew that I was English or American. Because like Norwegian people, like, they also say hi, like HEI instead of just like Hi, but they will like say like hi, hi. And I just say hi back. And so then they would proceed to ask me if I needed any help in Norwegian, to which I had to ask them like, Do you speak English in Norwegian? And then they would switch on me. So yeah, that was kind of like a fun thing to see.
15:50
The next question is, did you find it easy to navigate your way around? And is it somewhere you would recommend for solo travel? So I definitely thought it was super easy to navigate around with the public transport system. I personally have not done solo travel myself. So I just like searched on Google for factors or go solo travel. And so the criteria they gave me more public transport, safety, budget language barrier, dress codes and customs, which I will address in order.
16:19
So number one, is public transport. In Bergen. There is a rail direct from the airport to the city centre. And there’s also a pretty good bus system and train system that will go between cities. And so you can just buy the tickets for those things there. Once you get there through the Skyss, which is SKYSS for the bus or Vy, VY for the train, you can just buy those through the app. So pretty easy to navigate around with Google Maps as well.
16:52
So for budget, I’ll include eating out accommodation and activities. Like I mentioned, eating out in Norway initially seems expensive, like an entree could go for $25. But when you think about it, it’s kind of comparable to the US because, you know, you have to include tip and things like that. So like my family and I what we did was that we stayed at hotels, I had all you can eat breakfast, and we just ate a lot for breakfast, or like maybe pack some snacks with us. And, and then like we ate a slightly earlier dinner, maybe like 5pm. So we would just skip lunch entirely, or maybe like buy a snack or something. But we would skip lunch. And then so we really only had to pay for dinner. So dinner was like probably going for like 100 $250 for a family of four. I also saw hostels available in Bergen. But I think that these were a lot harder in the smaller towns. And so I would probably say this is like the most important part to plan ahead for especially if you plan to go during the summer.
17:53
In Bergen, I stayed at two hotels one was called the Grand Hotel Terminus, which was really expensive. And then the other one was Quality Hotel or Quality Inn Edvard Grieg, which was a little bit outside of town, but definitely accessible by rail. But it was a lot cheaper. I would definitely recommend that one for more like budget friendly, but if you want like right smack dab in the city center Grand Hotel Terminus is good for Bergen. In Flam, we stayed Flamsbrygga which was also really nice. Right in the middle of Flam. There’s also not a lot of accommodations in Flam. To be honest, there were like some camping options, but camping is like out of the question for my family. So we definitely just stayed there. And then in Voss, I slayed at Fleischer motel, they have a hotel, but I thought the motel was like a lot better because it was like right on the lake and the value for like a an apartment style accommodation with like a mini kitchenette. I thought that was a really good value. So then you could they also had like cooking supplies and things so you could probably like cook for yourself if you wanted to. Also in Bergen, you could get a Bergen Card to get discount or free entry to a lot of museums. So depending on what you want to see and how much you want to see, you could get a lot of value out of it. But once you go to the other towns, you might have to book the activities ahead of time, or just like research for local sights and trails and things that you want to find.
19:29
The next is safety. In Bergen, I felt pretty safe. You know, I wasn’t worried about like pickpocketing or anything like that. I think just like maintaining general awareness of your surroundings and apply common sense. Like you know, don’t go out by yourself in the middle of the night or like go on strenuous hikes alone and things like that, like you should be okay. Again, I did travel with my family, so traveling in a group – I felt fine. I didn’t think there was like any issues with that. infom I think you know, there were a lot of tourists and things but again, I didn’t feel like I was concerned about that at all. And definitely a Voss it was just like quieter town. So there was no concern. In terms of that.
20:12
Next was language barrier. Almost everyone I encountered in Norway spoke English, but it’s probably best not to assume I do wish that I had prepared like more Norwegian before going to Norway. But I think they’re like really used to the tourists coming during the summertime. And so they just, they know English, you know, you can find your way around things and eventually, like being there for like a week and a half, it was pretty easy to like, identify certain words.
20:42
And finally, dress code and customs. Um, you know, there are a lot of the parts of Norway that I went to are pretty casual, since it’s like very integrated with nature. So it’s really common to see people in like jeans, T shirts, workout wear. So I definitely think that it’s probably like not like super like high end. So you could probably just, you know, wear like leggings t shirt jacket, you would be fine for for women. And for guys, like probably, like, yeah, active wear is totally normal. Yes.
21:16
And finally, the last question is, what was your favorite memory? And so in the last episode, I shared, like my entire itinerary, you know, the entire trip was really a core memory for me and my family was really glad that we were able to spend time together, especially now that we were, you know, been separated because of work for like my dad and my brother, and then me school. So you know, we haven’t had that type of family time in a while. And it was really great that we got to do it in Norway. But if I had to choose my favorite memory, I think it would have to be kayaking in the fjords in Flam. You know, it was a round trip guided kayaking experience about like three to four kilometers. And it was just really peaceful. It was really different to see the fjords in that way at that speed too, because you know, there were other options like you could take like a speedboat through the fjords. And then we also did take a cruise through the fjords. But I think that’s just like a different vibe. Because when you’re in the kayak, and you’re and you’re kind of going you, you know, you see and you look up. And the fjord is so tall, you feel like so small. And then you know, it was drizzly too. And so that just added to like the ambiance. And, you know, I think that you really can’t get that experience. You’re like, yes, you can go kayaking. I’m like, I can go kayaking and Madison, we are in between two lakes, but to see those sites and to see like, the clouds and the sky and that, you know, on that certain day is just like once in a lifetime. You know, and our guide was also very well versed in the history of Flam and the fjords and so we got to learn some history too. And so that was also interesting. So I would definitely recommend kayaking as another way to see the fjords in addition to a cruise. Um, so that’s really it for this episode.
23:20
You know, if you have other questions about like my experience in Norway, please feel free to you know, send me an email at hello@brittanytrinh.com or send me a DM on Instagram or message on LinkedIn.