Anyone driven to the Arctic circle? (Tromso, Norway)

[scz4]

So I'm planning a massive roadtrip to celebrate a milestone birthday.

I'm in the NE of Scotland and always dreamt about driving to the Arctic Circle... Google tells me it's 2700+ miles each way. Scotland > England > France > Belgium > Netherlands > Germany > Denmark > Sweden > Finland > Norway

Sadly it doesn't look like you can get a car ferry from the UK to Norway, but could save around 600 miles by going from Newcastle to Amsterdam.

Has anyone done this? Looking on advice on how to stagger the stops, happy to drive for 8-10 hours a day or so. Any recommended stop overs etc?

Edited by scz4 on Monday 17th February 12:16

[Riley Blue]

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[smithyithy]

Harry Metcalfe did a good trip there on his YouTube channel in his old Roller..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIdNcbsgOiM

[scz4]

^ Amazing, thanks. Will have a read tonight. I'm planning a summer solstice, not has brave as that chap doing it over the winter.

So some quick lunchtime planning... heading north up through Norway, coming back via Sweden.

Edited by scz4 on Monday 17th February 13:49

[SamR380]

I'm hoping to do this over midsummer on my bike this year. I'm starting in South Yorks so I'm debating getting the Hull ferry or crossing at Dover.

There is a ferry from Kiel (North Germany) to Oslo which would save driving through Denmark and Sweden.

[NNH]

We did this a few years ago. Our route was London-Calais-Hamburg-overnight ferry to Helsinki-Savonlinna-Nurmes-Arctic Rovaniemi-Skuleskogan National Park-Stockholm-Gothenburg-Copenhagen-Calais-London. We drove in late June and early July, so we didn't see darkness for about a week!
The ferry from Germany to Finland was about 32 hours, leaving at midnight and getting into Helsikni on the morning of the second day. It was actually a perfect opportunity to relax for a day at sea.

[NRS]

How long do you have/what are your must sees? I lived for 5 years up in the north of Norway, so know the area well. Also done a trip to the UK and back, and quite a few other longer trips around Norway too.

Sweden - generally flat and lots of trees, better road surfaces that Norway and higher speed limits. So good for covering long distances and more relaxed, but a lot more boring visually. Be careful for reindeer and moose - on such a long trip you're very likely to come across at least 1 of them. I had to put down a baby calf that was hit by a campervan ahead of me once, You really don't to hit a moose due to their size.

Norway - lovely country. Low speed limits and quite often relatively poor roads. If you get caught speeding they will generally hit you hard. Around 10% or so above speed limit is a few hundred quid fine. Towards 30% it's a bit over a grand I think now, and possibly a few weeks in prison with a bit more. Down south there is more police - in the north there is a few spots with fixed cameras, and very very few mobile checks. Cameras are front facing, and will be signposted before you get to them. Also there is lots of toll roads which will add to the costs - often concentrated around the big cities, but some are used for building new tunnels/bridges etc. Some areas might need ferries too.

If you want to be on more of a budget you can look for "hytte" - cabins. Often they're pretty simple, but have 1/2 bedrooms, a stove for cooking and a living room. Around £50 for the night. These will be outside the cities. I often use them on longer trips as I'm ok to sleep wherever, and prefer to use the money elsewhere. There's generally enough of them that I have a rough plan to get somewhere and see what is available when I get tired.

Petrol stations - basically all of them you stick the card in and do pin, then fill up afterwards. Mostly 95/98 octane available, plus diesel.

Being the middle of summer you will have to deal with the German caravans. They love to come across, taking everything they need with them and drive around. Since a lot of the roads are small and windy then it's hard to overtake. On the mountain roads you often get a train of cars behind them.

Areas to visit:
- Lofoten - up north, most Norwegians regard this as the most pretty part of the country. Sandy beaches, steep mountains dropping into the sea. Lovely! But becoming more popular now. You can take a ferry from Bodø over to save some driving time - recommended to do this if possible! At the southern point of Lofoten is a place called Å - and you can say a super short sentence which makes complete sense in dialect there - Æ e i Å, æ e! (I am in Å, I am).
- "Vestlandet" - the area north of Bergen, and the famous fjords. Lots of stunning scenery, but can often be grey, rainy and foreboding/foggy. My favourite 1 day drive in Norway is in this area - you can do 5 proper mountain passes including Trollstigen (google it). The famous Geiranger is also part of it. Atlantic road (atlanterhavsveien) is famous for all the bridges and a big tunnel.
- If you go even further north (east of Tromsø) then Lyngen is worth a visit - less known, but also stunning scenery.

If you go from Oslo to Trondheim and then north it is some faster roads, but less spectacular. North of Trondheim has several hours of pretty standard roads. Once you get to Saltfjellet near Mo i Rana then you go up into a plateau area, which is where you cross the Arctic Circle. The surface is great, and you can really max out if you want to risk it (although rumour has it sometimes the police sit on a mountain and hit you from a long long distance since it is so flat)! There is a centre, which you can stop at. In winter this area looks super arctic-y!

Be aware with the midnight sun that you won't feel like sleeping naturally, so you have to force yourself to go to bed to help your body start to shut down. You can last a lot longer each day than normal, but after a while it catches up with you.

Any more questions just drop a message/ask away! I'm in Bergen now, but miss the north a lot.

[NRS]

Oh, something else to add - if you are using google maps now you will have issues in some parts due to mountain passes being closed. Some of them don't open until late May, and so google will not show these routes as available, and sometimes give stupid/massive detours that are really not needed. Sweden/say Oslo-Trondheim-Tromsø will not have this issue, but if you want to do Vestlandet then it will be something that is a problem.

[IJWS15]

My parents did it the year the ferries stopped running from Newcastle, no extra charge to go up to Trondheim (IIRC) on the Ferry. They went all the way up to North Cape with the caravan on the back.

Some of the comments I remember:
- Make sure your tyres have plenty of life in them - he almost had to replace some during the trip - see next point
- Many roads are rough due to the studded tyres,
- Look out for Reindeer in the north
- There are miles of tunnels.


Their return trip was down through Sweden, Denmark Germany etc. Some round trip!

[scz4]

NRS said:

Any more questions just drop a message/ask away! I'm in Bergen now, but miss the north a lot.

Thanks very much for taking the time to respond, I'll look into some of your suggestions. I'll PM you when I've done a little more research.

Perhaps Lofoten is a better destination than Tromso, looks stunning and would potentially give me one day less in the car and stay an extra night up north, depending on ferry times.

In terms of an agenda, well I have two weeks door to door, the only stops I'm really fixed on are a full day\night in Oslo and 2 days in Tromso (or surrounding towns) and ideally Stockholm on the way back.

I'm totally open to suggestions on routes to take in the best scenery\experiences. I lived in Oslo for 1 year back in 2008, since then it's always been a dream\goal. I spent time travelling the west coast, Bergen and up to Alesund, whilst beautiful, I don't feel the need to revisit the area, this time.

Edited by scz4 on Monday 17th February 21:05

Edited by scz4 on Monday 17th February 21:11

[agent006]

Can only second what NRS has posted. We did Sweden and Norway over 2 months in our motorhome last year.

I'd go north through Sweden first. Cut west past Kiruna which lands you right by Lofoten. Senja is well worth a look. I wouldn't (and didn't) bother any further north unless you really want to tick some boxes.

Personally, unless I had some amazing car that I was desperate to drive round Norway, I'd fly there and rent something instead. Get 6 days travel back as actual holiday.

[Kawasicki]

Drive up there every year. Just got back. It was ace.

[NRS]

scz4 said:

Thanks very much for taking the time to respond, I'll look into some of your suggestions. I'll PM you when I've done a little more research.

Perhaps Lofoten is a better destination than Tromso, looks stunning and would potentially give me one day less in the car and stay an extra night up north, depending on ferry times.

In terms of an agenda, well I have two weeks door to door, the only stops I'm really fixed on are a full day\night in Oslo and 2 days in Tromso (or surrounding towns) and ideally Stockholm on the way back.

I'm totally open to suggestions on routes to take in the best scenery\experiences. I lived in Oslo for 1 year back in 2008, since then it's always been a dream\goal. I spent time travelling the west coast, Bergen and up to Alesund, whilst beautiful, I don't feel the need to revisit the area, this time.

An alternative/addition to Lofoten in that (rough) area is Senja. It's likely to be cheaper/more accomodation available in summer probably, as in recent years Lofoten is taking off in popularity. And as mentioned if you go even further north but to the east of Tromsø you have Lyngen, which is also beautiful and more quiet at that time of year (super busy in easy with skiers though!). There's even the world's most northerly whisky distillery up there if that is of interest - with their barrels stored in an old NATO bunker!

Makes sense about not visitng the west coast etc again. The main problem with heading all the way north is a lot of driving with nice but not amazing scenery to get there. It could also be worth checking the Hurtigruten (cruise/ferry ship along the coast) too - it's probably not quicker than driving, but it could be a way to have a break from driving if you need. Sometimes it can take a lot longer if it is going into all the fjords, but other parts it is not too bad on time. If it matches your plan you could also use it to keep travelling north while you sleep overnight on it, and get some extra distance covered at the same time for a more boring stretch.

[scz4]

Thanks again guys,

Will spend the next week researching, suspect ferry times could influence the route\destination. I've no problem driving 8 hours a day... with a few rest days thrown in.

Hope to take my F-Type which I've only had a month so don't really want to rent a car. My dream has always been to leave the house and drive to the Arctic circle.

I still have my Z4 and have been considering keeping it for this trip as there won't be many Jaguar dealers\parts up that way and not sure I trust it to be 100% reliable yet, plus the Z4 will be a lot better on fuel, but a smaller tank. I don't think range will be an issue though.

Edited by scz4 on Monday 17th February 21:49

[NNH]

You'll be fine! We took a Porsche Cayman, which coped fine with the roads and occasional long distances between fuel stops.

[Frank7]

Not Tromsø, but I almost went to Narvik about 40 odd years ago.
I was working for two brothers who had a transport firm in Bow, East London, they had maybe a dozen 44 tonners, and we went all over Europe and Scandinavia, right up to the Russian border.
One day I was told that I was going to a power station in Narvik, Norway, with a load of pipework.
The ferry was apparently Immingham to Brevik, then about 950 miles to Narvik.
I didn’t really want the job, as I hated the cold, I found it easy to drive in ice and snow, but I was always fearful of breaking down in the cold somewhere.
Fortunately, a friend was slated to to take a load just over the Albanian border, into northern Greece, and he had a phobia of trying to work out signs in the Cyrillic alphabet, he’d had murders crossing from Poland into Belarus once, so he swapped trailers with me, and went to Norway.
Phew! Dodged that bullet!

[NRS]

scz4 said:

^ Amazing, thanks. Will have a read tonight. I'm planning a summer solstice, not has brave as that chap doing it over the winter.

So some quick lunchtime planning... heading north up through Norway, coming back via Sweden.

Edited by scz4 on Monday 17th February 13:49

Just saw this now. Your times are maybe something to consider. I see you're generally using google times plus 30min. In my experience of driving here google times generally work out to be only driving time, and generally assuming around +10kmph (indicated) above the speed limit. So with 8-9 hours driving time you'll likely need more time for breaks (taking photos for example), lunch etc?

[Seventy]

NRS said:

lots of interesting stuff

Thanks for that, I'm definitely doing this trip now!
Thanks to OP for broaching subject, too.

[Watchman]

Frank7 said:

I found it easy to drive in ice and snow, but I was always fearful of breaking down in the cold somewhere.

Both statements are interesting.

I also found it easy to drive on snow and ice up there. I believe it is because there is no water on top, making it slippery. At -13 degrees the ice is actually sticky, and I was able to proceed almost as though it was dry asphalt.

But, being miles from another soul in the Swedish mountains was something that gave me pause for consideration. I did wonder, if I broke down, whether my car and me might be uncovered in the spring, entombed in a cartoonish block of ice.

[NRS]

Watchman said:

Frank7 said:

I found it easy to drive in ice and snow, but I was always fearful of breaking down in the cold somewhere.

Both statements are interesting.

I also found it easy to drive on snow and ice up there. I believe it is because there is no water on top, making it slippery. At -13 degrees the ice is actually sticky, and I was able to proceed almost as though it was dry asphalt.

But, being miles from another soul in the Swedish mountains was something that gave me pause for consideration. I did wonder, if I broke down, whether my car and me might be uncovered in the spring, entombed in a cartoonish block of ice.

Yes, it's generally around the 0C that you have issues. The most slippery stuff is thick compacted ice which starts melting/plus has rain on it. That's when spiked tyres make a huge difference. But even with them I had a few times where you took several attempts to get up a hill in those conditions. One thing to note is Scandi winter tyres have a softer compound than "mainland" European winter tyres. So in general you'll have less grip (just to be aware of when following people in a UK car).

It's actually (mostly) not as bad as you think. People are used to travelling longer distances, so you'll likely meet more people than you expect. However it is important to remember to have clothes if you break down for a bit - I've been out in -25C in shorts and a t-shirt, and don't really recommend it, There is a few cases of people being buried under avalanches on small roads and not being discovered. I think one managed to survive 3 weeks like that, drinking melted snow through the window. But basically a risk to not even consider unless you're very unlucky with the conditions.