It’s no secret that travel in Scandinavia can be expensive, so I am going to tell you how back in 2008 I managed to spend several weeks traveling through Norway, Sweden, and Finland on an average of $15 a day.
Considering that a beer in Oslo can cost $15 you may think I am a little nuts, but this is a post for those who want to see Scandinavia, but are put off by the costs. It can be done.
Forgive the quality of the photos in this post, but they were done on an old mobile phone in 2008 with a 2-mega-pixel camera!
First of all a disclaimer: This is not a post for people who are looking for a lot of comfort travel around Scandinavia. That being said, I did have some very comfortable living at times, and it didn’t cost a thing.
Answer this question:
What is one of the best reasons to visit Scandinavia?
With wild mountains, forests, deep fjords, beautiful seaside locations, it can easily be considered the “New Zealand” of Europe. That should lead easily to the answer: Visit Scandinavia for the nature.
And what better way to see nature? Hiking and camping of course. That should give you a rough idea of where this post is going.
Yes, when I decided to pay a visit for a few months during the summer of 2008, I went mainly to see the great outdoors. They have a law where you are allowed to camp anywhere, as long as you are a few hundred feet away from someones property. That makes things a lot easier.
So the first step toward traveling cheaply is to camp everywhere, it wont cost you anything. Also, these days I would use couchsurfing to stay with people in the cities and towns. I didn’t have couchsurfing when I did my trip, so I basically explored a city or town just for the day when passing through and then camp in the wilds outside.
It’s easy to do this in summer, as it’s warm enough and you have 24 hours of daylight. As far as winter goes, the advice here would not really be valid, except for the couchsurfing aspect.
Getting between places I would hitchhike. People stop, no problem, for hitchhikers, especially in the north, where public transportation is not as common. And with hitching comes another benefit: Sometimes the people who give you a ride will also invite you to stay with them.
