Norway in November on the Hurtigruten

This trip started, as most of my trips do, with a fairly strong impulsive "Let's book a flight" moment, and that's exactly what happened last August.

I was home in Cumbria for the summer, getting itchy feet, and going to Norway on the Hurtigruten has long been a bucket list item for my mum and I. We really wanted to go and see if we could chase the Northern Lights in Norway. There was a decent discount for the Hurtigruten, plus they were flying out of Newcastle… so that YOLO moment rolled around, and we booked our trip.

Is it a cruise though?

Neither of us had ever been on a cruise, and although die-hard fans of the Hurtigruten apparently don't call it a cruise, to me, the uninitiated... it felt like a cruise. 😂 It is officially a mail boat/ferry and drops off passengers, cargo and post along the route, so it is still a working ship.

I suspect more people hop on and off in summer to enjoy different parts of Norway. It was fun to watch things rolling on and off the boat at the various stops. Some stops were just 10-15 minutes, others were 30-45 minutes which allowed you to get off and walk around. Others were longer still, from an hour to the whole day almost (as was the case at Alesund).

The good, the bad (and the ugly?)

Let me tell you about some of the bits I enjoyed and some of the bits I didn't enjoy so much.

First off, Norway is stunningly beautiful, even in the dark. Of course, we were there at the end of November, and we expected it to be dark, and it was. But this also coincided with a full moon, which was quite an interesting experience for us, to be there and experience what it is like to have the Arctic night.

Somewhere out at sea. About as light as it got in November/December

Is it dark all the time?

As we got further north, in fact, the sun never rose above the horizon, and we were on the boat for nearly 2 weeks, until December 7 —12 days in total. We flew into Bergen and set off from there in the evening, heading all the way up to Kirkenes and back.

The first stop the next day was Alesund, and we took advantage of nearly a full day in dock to do a walk around the town and a bit of a hike up one of the hills overlooking the town. At this point I was very very glad I’d bought YakTrax (grippy things you attach to your boots) even though a Swedish friend later told me after they’re for old people. Well, I don’t care. A literal lifesaver, I’m pretty sure I’d have spent a lot more of this trip on my a*se otherwise.

As you can see from my photos, we had amazing weather for that time of the year and witnessed the most incredible moonrise of my life, I think, to date.

Tromsø was another favourite stop. At this point I forced my mum into running away from the organised tour and going rogue. Oops. But it was worth it.

Is it still a Danish pastry if you eat in Norway?

The city was very festively lit up and I literally felt like I was an extra in “Home for Christmas”. If you haven’t seen it yet, add it to your wishlist for next Christmas. Thank me later.

So, we started off pretty strong. I won't do a blow-by-blow review of every single stop, but maybe break this down into some things I liked and some things I didn't like.

Likes:

- The food: OMG. Okay, I have Scandi roots, so a lot of this felt like coming home, but yeah, wow. Fresh, delicious, varied, and relatively healthy. 10/10.

- The staff: Everyone was giving 100% all the time. Not an easy job. The staff rotate, generally doing 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

- The scenery: It really is breathtaking. I think we were lucky with the full moon and the weather, as even on dark nights, we could often see the landscape.

- The boat itself: Was pretty comfortable, with nice lounge areas and a walking deck that we made good use of. There’s no “entertainment” like a traditional cruise ship, but that suited me just fine and I mostly was happy reading.

Dislikes:

- The cost of alcohol: I know this is Norway, but it was prohibitive. We did sneak in the odd beer and had bought some booze in duty-free on the way through, which we had in our cabin, but wow.

- I don't think this is a dislike necessarily, but a side note: In my 30s, I'm a lot younger than the average customer, it seemed 😂. However, this isn't an issue for me, and I'll talk to anyone, but this is something perhaps to be aware of.

- Cabin size: Yeah, my mum and I get on pretty well, but this tested even our patience 😂🤪😝.

- The length of the trip: We'd priced up getting off at the end of the northbound route in Kirkenes and making our own way back from there, but this would have been a lot more expensive than just doing the there-and-back with the boat. But I think by the time we'd done one way up, it would have been the perfect timing for us to hop off there. We were both kind of "done" by the time we got back to Bergen.

- The cost of the excursions: Ouuuuch. Let’s just not talk about it, okay?! But it was expensive. In the spirit of the, we’ll probably only do this once, vibe, we did do the things we wanted to. But yes, ouch. Some of the hikes led by the excursion team were more reasonably priced and these were announced on board the day before, usually. We’d booked the ones we didn’t want to miss out on ahead of time. I would recommend doing this if you ever go, because the Husky trip was fully booked and some people were sad to miss out.

Favourite stops:

- The Northern Lights: So, did we see them? Well, yes... But it wasn't quite like we'd hoped or expected. We had once seen them in Cumbria, way back in 2013, so we knew how often they look better in photos than in real life, and yep, for us, that was certainly the case on this trip.

The green of the aurora borealis from onboard the Hurtigruten

I do think there are days where you can see them as spectacularly as you might imagine, but we didn't get quite *that* lucky, although I'm by no means complaining.

- The nighttime Icelandic pony ride: Dude, we literally rode in the dark, and it was a blizzard when we set off from the boat. Let's just say I had serious misgivings, but it turned out to be good fun. It was also the first time I'd ridden a horse since breaking my ankle in 2021 (not because of a horse, but still), and it was nice to get back in the saddle. AND we saw the lights from the ponies! However, it was a bit of a shame to not see any of Lofoten in the daylight - I’d go back to Norway in summer to explore this area better, for sure.

- The Husky dog sled: Another bucket list thing, especially for my mum. It was a cool experience, but felt very packaged. However, it was quite special to sit in a sled and listen to the bells tinkling.

- North Cape: This was cool. Not often you can say you're at the northernmost point of Europe, is it?!! Also slightly mad to think I live almost at the most southwesterly point of Europe, too! Shout out to Sagres haha (blog on that coming soon).

North Cape, at 71°10′21″N 25°47′04″E, pretty much the northernmost point of Europe

Would I do it again?

Yeeees, but in summer, and I’d hop on and off. And go camping!

Overall score?

7/10... I think this was actually a pretty good trip to do as a mother-daughter one — shout out to my mum, one of my best travel buddies/who is probably also to blame for my travel addiction! — and I would recommend it to anyone as an intergenerational trip.