Getting to Norway

Oslo Airport, the main airport and hub for international traffic, has scheduled flights to and from more than 100 destinations. However, be prepared to change planes at some point, in order to reach your final destination in Norway.

Other airports with international flights can be found near the cities of Bergen, Kristiansand, Sandefjord, Stavanger, Tromsø, and Trondheim.

All larger cities and towns have airports offering both international and domestic flights. In fact, there are more than 50 airports in Norway, making even remote places such as the Lofoten Islands, the North Cape, and the Svalbard Islands easily accessible by plane, especially if you fly with Widerøe, that has connections to 41 of them.

An extensive rail network links Norway to the other Scandinavian countries and the rest of Europe. There are regular train connections to Oslo from Copenhagen, Stockholm and Gothenburg.

Most train journeys from the continent are overnight, and you will find sleeping compartments on all of them. A variety of discount passes are available for train travel in Europe and Norway. Not all trains offer first-class services, but second-class is of a high standard as well.

Having arrived in Norway, it is easy to explore the country further by train on some of the world's most beautiful railways.

You are most likely to arrive by car from Sweden, but Norway also borders with Russia and Finland. 

Whether you enter Norway by road from Sweden, Finland or Russia, customs checks are in place. Full passport control checks are found in the Norwegian-Russian border crossing between Borisoglebsky and Storskog.

Major roads to Norway include European route E6 which runs through Malmö, Helsingborg, and Gothenburg in Sweden, before crossing the border at Svinesund in the south-east of Norway, and E8 which runs through Turku, Vaasa and Oulu in Finland before crossing the border at Kilpisjärvi.

You can reach Norway by bus from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Russia.

Bus service from Gothenburg in Sweden and Copenhagen in Denmark is almost hourly. The service from Stockholm is also far more frequent than the train. Different operators offer cheap bus tickets between the large cities in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

There are regular ferry routes to Norway from Denmark, Germany, and Sweden. Most operators offer package deals for cars with passengers and discounts for seniors, students, and children.

If you want to take your own boat to Norway, there are guest marinas with facilities all along the coast.

Many cruise lines call at Norwegian ports, mostly by the fjords and in pretty coastal cities such as Bergen, Stavanger, Ålesund, Trondheim, and Oslo. Others offer trips to The Svalbard Islands, Honningsvåg, Tromsø, Hammerfest, and Bodø in the northern parts of Norway.

Go on a designated northern lights cruise in the winter or experience the midnight sun from the deck in the summer! One of the most popular cruise lines in Norway is the historical coastal express Hurtigruten, often called “The world’s most beautiful voyage”.