ANGELA B. PAN

Just got home from an amazing trip to Norway. It was honestly one of the best trips I have ever taken! The scenery, the culture, the experience was something I will treasure for a long time. But it took a lot of time and research to plan the whole trip. So I thought I would take some time out and lay out everything I did to prepare for the trip to help future travelers.

Side note: This trip was Andrew and I’s big trip for the year but he didn’t plan any of it. He was so great that he let me plan whatever I wanted to do and he was going to be ok about it 🙂 So obviously I planned this trip all around taking pictures. 

To be honest, I didn’t know much about Norway before I booked this trip. Obviously I have seen some stunning images of the country on Instagram but it wasn’t until I was saw this one old episode of the Amazing Race that really got me interested in going. I know, cheesy but true. The very next day I received an email from TravelZoo with a promotion to travel to Norway. I figured that if that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is!

Prior to booking, I read that the best landscapes were along the west coast so Andrew and I booked round trip tickets to Bergen for a week. From then on I was all over pinterest and tripadvisor looking for recommendations of what to do in Norway but in the end it was the advice of my friend, Frithjov who helped out the most.

The Goal:

1. To drive as much of the Norwegian coast as possible without being in a car all day
2. Not have to drive past the same sights when traveling back to Bergen
3. Some short hikes here and there would be great

Frithjov asked one of his friends for recommendations and laid out an ambitious itinerary for us including Kristiansund, Dombås and Odda.  But I did not want to have to be on a very strict time table. So after a lot more research and several changes, here’s what our more relaxed schedule finally ended up being

Side note: Booking a ticket on the Hurtigruten was key! It’s a cruise ship that stops at many ports along the west coast of Norway. Luckily you can customize your travel with shorter segments. I’m so thankful for that ship and the ability to bring back the car with us back to Bergen. So booking this ship was the first thing I did and the rest of our travel based on the fact that we were going to take it from Ålesund to Bergen at the end of our trip. Consider goal #2 accomplished.

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As you can tell by now, it’s really rainy in Norway or at least while we were visiting. Way more than I had expected. But in some ways it was a good thing and it definietly did not prevent us from doing anything we would have normally done. I think the clouds and rain brought a certain moodiness to all these images and I’m really liking it. For example, this image that I captured at “sunset” in Sognefjord in Flåm, Norway.

Sognefjord was our first fjord experience while in Norway and I was super pumped to drive up to Stegastein to see it. Stegastein, is this beautiful outlook area where I expected to see tons of people. You drive up this really windy road with the famous Norwegian hairpin turns and at every corner was a beautiful viewpoint. To my huge surprise when we finally reached the top, Andrew and I were the only ones there! No bus full of people or anything. Literally the only car in the entire parking lot. I think all the rain, fog and drizzle chased everyone out. Honestly, there was a moment there where I thought we were in the wrong place because there was no one there. The other people must have found the real Stegastein or something better? Because how could no one be here? *Confused face emoji*

Anyways, it was beautiful and larger than life. It was really cool to see this up high perspective because being down by the water you would have never imagined there were so many layers to it. It may be difficult to see but there’s actually several waterfalls in this image too. I think there’s at least 4 captured. Can you see them?

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 1/320 sec at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.