🇳🇴 Norway Road Trip: 5 important mistakes to AVOID! 🫣

What are the rules of travel? Like anything, when you travel to another country, it's not always clear what the rules are or what is the best way to do things. That's why doing some research before you go is so important. In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you five things that I learned either on or just before my Norway road trip and some mistakes I made to help you avoid making the same ones. If you're ready, let's dive right in. So mistake number one to avoid is trusting too much to your SatNav or Google Maps time estimations. The roads in Norway are beautiful but they can be very winding and it can take quite a long time to get from point A to point B. If you imagine like Cornwall or the deepest darkest Lake District, lots of very narrow roads at times and also the speed limits are a lot slower than you might expect them to be in the UK. Especially if you're driving with a motorhome or a campervan, you are not always going to be doing the published speed limits. Not only that, but your SatNav or your Google Maps app does not know how many times you are going to stop along your journey to take photos or drone shots of the incredible scenery that you're going to enjoy on your road trip. Seriously, it is one of the prettiest places I have ever been ever. It's absolutely amazing but you're going to stop a lot and of course your estimated time doesn't take into account any of that. All of which means it's going to take you a lot longer to get between stopovers. Now if you are in a motorhome or a campervan and you're meandering and you don't really have things planned out on when you're going to stop each night, which is what I did, it doesn't really matter how long it can take you to get there. The times that does matter is if you have booked campsites in advance and sometimes, especially in the summer, the really busy campsites or the most popular campsites can be booked up. So if you need to stay there or you want to stay there and you have to be there on a certain date, that can be a bit stressful. Also, if like me you had someone flying in for a few days, you have to be at an airport. I got this quite wrong when I was up in northern Norway. My partner was flying in for a few days up to Tromso, so I went and explored a bit of the Lofoten, well all of the Lofoten Islands. I had to be back at Tromso by a certain date and I got the timing totally wrong and ended up having to do two 10-hour driving days. I was exhausted and that was just really bad planning and bad anticipation on my part. So try and avoid that if you can. So mistake number two to avoid is not fully understanding the Norway toll system and the ferry system. Now the Norway tolls don't work the same way as tolls that you might expect to find say in France or on the M6. What happens in Norway is it's all done by registered camera, so you don't stop at toll booths very often, but I don't think I've ever seen a proper toll booth as such in Norway. Perhaps that's because I avoid the main roads as much as possible, but normally you drive through one of the toll cameras, it picks you up on the ANPR system and you have to be registered with Norway system in advance before you go and then they will charge your card appropriately. That's fine, but there are better ways of doing this. So when you go on the Autopass website, you will find several different companies that you can register with and actually when you are registered with them in advance, you can actually get discounts and things as well. So that's really useful. So what I did was I registered with a company called Toll Tickets. I'm not affiliated with them in any way. I literally just chose them out of the list and registered with them. So that sorted me out for the tolls. What I then discovered really quite close to my departure date was that you could register on the ferries as well. So you don't then have to pay with your card on every single ferry trip. And if you do register using this system, you get a massive discount. I think sometimes it was as much as 50% discount on the ferries, which we definitely didn't do last time we went to Norway. So this added fun. That system, setting yourself up, especially in a motorhome or a campervan, but as a non-Norwegian, so as a foreigner, registering on that system was a freaking nightmare. It took ages and they didn't have a way of setting up the card system. So there were emails. I think I had to make a phone call at some point. It was really not very intuitive and not very 21st century, but it did work. It worked brilliantly. I didn't pay with a physical card for any toll or ferry throughout my entire trip. So well worth doing, but do not leave that until just before your trip. Other mistake I made was I changed my registration number on my motorhome three weeks before we were traveling, which was a ridiculously stupid thing to do. Don't do that. I literally had to change the ferries out of the UK and back again, all of the ferry across to Sweden. Then I had to go into the toll companies, which again, like I say, isn't that intuitive and change the reg on all of that. And they were like, oh, it's a different vehicle. No, same vehicle, new registration number. That was a mistake. Not to mention the Crit Air sticker that I had just ordered that is now null and void and I need to get another one. But that's a whole other thing. But yeah, don't do that three weeks before an enormous trip. That was silly. Mistake number three to avoid is not understanding properly the drone laws. Now the drone laws across all of Europe are actually changing quite a lot. And even now, if you have one of the mini drones like I do under 250 grams, if it is fitted with a camera, which let's face it, pretty much every drone is, you have to register it properly. And I didn't realize that this had changed. I assumed that the drone rules in Norway would be the same as the last time I was up there a couple of years ago, but no, they have changed quite recently. And I'm very grateful to the person in the Facebook group, in the Wandering Bird Facebook group, who told me about the changes because I wouldn't have known otherwise. But now what you have to do is register with the first EU country that you're going to be flying the drone in. And then on top of that, so for me, that was, well, it was actually France and Germany because I'd done a trip previously with the Wandering Motorhome Club. We'd taken a group into Europe. But when you get to Norway or just before you get to Norway, you have to register with the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority, your intention to fly a drone in the country, the date that you're going to be flying the drone, the location that you're going to be flying the drone and everything else. That is really difficult when you're traveling in a motorhome or campervan. You don't have a set location. You could literally be anywhere in the country. Now, I obviously drove up through Sweden and was driving back down. So I knew roughly that I was coming from Nordkapp all the way down, but I didn't even have a date that I was going to be at Nordkapp. And as it happened, because of the weather, I kept changing the way I was going up there anyway. So it got really complicated. I actually ended up emailing them saying, look, I'm a travel blogger. I fly a drone all the time. I've got three weeks or so to come and explore your beautiful country, but I don't know exactly where I'm going to be when. And I was told that is not good enough and that they will need to know more specifically what my plans were. So I tried to be clever and there's like a map that you have to draw around your place that you're going to be flying the drone. And I was just like circled the whole country and put the three week dates in, but that wasn't approved because obviously that included a load of restricted places and airports and all that stuff. So I literally had to give my best guess on what day I was going to be where I had to try and work it all back. I mean, I had a couple of fixed points like I was picking my partner up from Tromso Airport and then we were dropping back off in Bergen a few days later. So I had to rough sort of point so I could guesstimate. And that's literally what I did. It took hours. You had to draw these tiny little circles on the map and link them to date, literally hours. Now I have to be quite careful that obviously I comply with all the drone rules because I put things up on YouTube and I made money off them. So it's commercial and it gets, it gets all very messy. So I am really strict on making sure that I comply with all of these rules. Nobody contacted me. Nobody spoke to me. I've had no other contacts since. So I don't know how strictly they regulate this. I mean, obviously don't fly a drone near an airport or in restricted airspace or anything like that. It's one of the reasons that I love TGI drones. When you start them up, it will tell you if you've accidentally started up in a restricted airspace so you don't fly it. I'll leave the link to the drone that I use below here, but you've got to be really careful because the rules regarding drones are changing so quickly. So do please make sure that you research those before you travel anywhere. Mistake number four to avoid is expecting all of the little ferries that run across the fjords and things to be open all year. I knew obviously I was going up there out of main season. I specifically went up there in September and October time and I went up there as early as I could during that period. I wanted to see the northern lights, but I also wanted to drive some of these famous roads that I've heard about like the Wilderness Road in Sweden. That shuts in mid-October. So I specifically went up through Sweden so I could do those roads and then obviously down through Norway. And I knew that a lot of the attractions might be closed. I knew some of the campsites might be closed. I anticipated that. What I didn't anticipate was some of the little ferry routes like say across the fjords or from the peninsulas to be shut. I assumed that they were all year and it turns out that they are not. And the first time I got called out was right in the top of Norway. I'd just done the Lofoten Island and I was traveling back to Tromsø to pick my partner up from the airport. And there's a ferry that goes from the top of the Lofoten Island across to Tromsø and I just assumed it would be open at some point in a 24-hour period. Foolishly, I didn't look in advance because like I say I just assumed it was open and it turned out it was only a summer ferry which means that I then had an enormous drive all the way back around again to get back to Tromsø in time to catch his flight. So from that point on I then checked and there's a couple of websites that one is Norled and the other one is Vegvesen. Now Vegvesen is great but you have to know the point you're traveling from and to and then you can put that in the system and it will tell you like what timetable you've got and all of that kind of stuff. So after that I became really sort of obsessive about checking that the ferries work but that very first one didn't even occur to me that it wouldn't be running at some point because I'm so used to them going basically like buses. It just didn't occur to me the route might stop so be aware of that. And the last mistake to avoid it's not really a mistake but it's something that happened to me that I didn't really appreciate I don't think before I actually went on my Norway road trip was how expensive basic maintenance to your motorhome, your campervan, your car if you're on a road trip um will be in Norway because stuff is so expensive. So even basic things like we literally saw oil admittedly it was in a posh um like a chandlery kind of shop rather than your basic supermarket or whatever but a five litre tub of oil was like 90 pounds the equivalent of 90 pounds not 90 knock I've not got this wrong I promise you it was like 900 something knock it was nuts um obviously the exchange rate fluctuates but if you divide everything by 10 you'll get roughly so like a kind of thing that's how you do the exchange rate and this was 900 knock for a tub of oil silly um also obviously my wing mirror got smashed so I had to replace that that was 800 pounds just for the wing mirror not including fitting just for the wing mirror it was crazy money but I was not happy to drive although this was in north this was on a certain island so northern Norway to drive all the way back home without a left-hand wing mirror because obviously when you are on big road running that's what you look at to see if you can pull out I wasn't happy to go all that way without doing it so that was a necessary but really expensive it wasn't a mistake because I was in the right point of the lane someone came flying around the corner on the wrong side and just clipped it um which apparently has happened to quite a few people in Norway so be careful of that on the narrowing roads and then the other thing of course was that both of my water and waste pipes disappeared were lost fell off the van or were taken we don't know but the two pipes under and for both of them to go with the brackets still in place seemed unlikely but I did have an issue with one of the water pipes previously that I then had to go and get fixed and when I went into another motorhome shop and inquired about the cost of the water pipe I decided I could wait for that until I got back to the UK and it would just be fine and I did actually manage for about three weeks the video for that I'll leave at the end for you but yeah things are really expensive so my top tip when you are traveling in Norway or indeed anywhere in Scandinavia is take extra engine oil take screen wash take AdBlue if you need that in your vehicle take spare bulbs and fuses even more so than you might otherwise take because obviously it's like in Sweden you've got to have your headlights on all the time they burn out a lot quicker than you might be used to so just having spares really is helpful and duct tape I wouldn't have been able to do half of what I managed to get through without duct tape so make sure you have got some of that they do sell all that stuff there but like I say it's expensive the other mistake I made with getting my vehicle prepped was obviously I got brand new lovely tires on I got Michelin cross climate fitted they were fantastic but I also got some other work done I got a new water pump fitted I got some other bits and pieces done just basic maintenance on the motorhome before I went off on my trip and what I didn't do was check it all out thoroughly before I'd set off so actually turned out that the water pump wasn't fitted properly and just wasn't working which meant that I had to replace or buy a new water pump and get it sort of replaced whilst I was in Europe admittedly we did that before went up to Norway so it wasn't quite as expensive as it could have been but it was still part of the maintenance of that trip that was really expensive so yeah make sure you test out any new systems or whatever before you go I just thought of two more mistakes that I made that I've got to share with you so that you don't make the same mistakes the first one of these do not do the Bergen Park Run if you are one of these crazy park running people the Bergen Park Run is horrendous if you have ever done the Queen Elizabeth Park Run in the UK it's worse than that it's basically Bergen is surrounded by seven hills and it is basically up and down and up and down and up and down this sort of route it was Mac gave up my my cock spaniel gave up he was like I am done um yeah no that was really really hard work the second mistake not to do is to be tricked by these hardy Norwegians that it is okay to go swimming in September and October time we weren't to be fair the best bit about the Bergen Park Run was going to the outdoor pool the saltwater pool in Bergen afterwards the views were absolutely incredible and it's heated and everything it was lovely but there's also a cold plunge bit where you can actually swim in the fjord and there were people just sort of hanging out in there and there was one lady she must have been I don't want to put an age on her bless her but older than me and she'd been there for minutes I mean minutes and she was she looked like it was cold but not horrendous so I thought when in Norway I'll go into I lasted about 10 milliseconds it was really literally I have jumped into the water in Antarctica that was cold don't get me wrong this felt colder I don't know if it's just because I've just been in a really warm pool whereas in Antarctica they sort make you stand around in your swimming costume for a few minutes before you get in so you're a bit more climatized to the cold but it just felt horrendous so don't be tricked if you are a soft Brit especially if you're Scott to be fair you might be a bit more hardy than us southern softies but it was cold so anyway avoid those so I'll get back to the practical tips now so there we go there were five key mistakes and tips for motor homing or campfanning in Norway hopefully now you are better prepared for your own adventures if you'd like to know the full breakdown of what my trip through Sweden and Norway cost me I'll leave the link in the notes for you you can download that and see exactly what I spent on the trip it wasn't that cheap but then the information will be all there for you and don't forget if you want to know my exact route and places I stayed and things that I found and basically everything about the trip the Scandinavian Road Trip Planner is now available to buy again I will leave the link in the notes for you here is the link to the water video that I mentioned I hope you find it useful as always thank you for watching and I'll see you there take care bye