This July, a friend and I went on a wild camping road trip around southern Norway. We spent our days driving and hiking through the incredible landscapes and our evenings camping out in the wild.
Norway is a nature photographer’s dream. The scenery is so dramatic and varied with jagged mountains, immense fjords and magical forests. 60% of Norway’s land area is made up of mountains, bogs and freshwater. Forest cover 35% of the country with arable and urban land making up the rest.
There is a huge range of ecoystems and microclimates, which allows for a diverse set of species, including some of Europe’s last megafauna. There are 44 national parks in Norway (including the seven on Svalbard), which cover 12% of the country. This means that nearly an eighth of the country has been given the highest level of legal protection.
We got cheap flights into Oslo and rented a car for the trip. From there we went on a loop around a handful of southern Norway’s classic national parks and fjords.
Wild Camping in Norway
The best way of seeing beautiful wild locations in the light of sunrise and sunset is to camp out in the wilderness, and this is exactly what we did. Each evening we hiked out into a national park and set up our tent for the night, far away from roads and artificial lights.
Norway is one of the only places in the world where there is a “right to roam”. Legally, you are allowed to walk almost anywhere and to camp in the wild. There are a couple of rules though:
- You can’t camp within 150m of an inhabited building.
- Open fires aren’t allowed during the summer months.
- If you want to stay in one spot for longer than one day you need to ask permission.
- Leave no trace.
This right to roam in Norway has its pros and cons. On one hand it has opened up a loophole for tourists to avoid paying for accommodation and just sleep on the side of the road, which is not encouraged and is a bit disrespectful. On the other hand, the right to roam has promoted a real outdoors culture in Norway. Because so many Norwegians spend a lot of time outdoors, they have a lot more respect for nature and take care of the countryside and wildlife.
Highlights
In many ways, Norway reminded me a lot of New Zealand. The towering peaks of Jotunheimen (the tallest mountains in Northern Europe) and the winding fjords along the western coast were some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen.
Two best memories from the trip are probably having a chance encounter with a wild reindeer in Jotunheimen and spending a couple of days photographing musk oxen in Dovrefjell. I’ll write another article about the musk oxen over the next few weeks but here’s the story about the reindeer:
We spent a night wild camping in Jotunheimen national park in the shadow of Storen, Norway’s third tallest mountain. The following morning we woke when the sun began to warm up our tent. I unzipped the door and about twenty meters away was a large wild reindeer. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, like the cartoons, and sure enough a large male with giant antlers was making its way across the boulder field we were camped in.
I couldn’t believe it. Wild reindeer were the animals that I had hoped to see the most but we had been told that it was almost impossible to see them. After centuries of hunting by humans they had become very shy animals and can smell you from miles away.
Our green tent must have camouflaged us amongst the moss and lichen covered boulders. Amazingly this reindeer just so happened to be trotting past us moments after I had woken up and unzipped the tent. Ten seconds earlier or later and we wouldn’t have seen the big stag.
Once the stag had gone out of view I jumped out of the tent and set up my tripod and telephoto lens. We watched the lone stag move across the boulder field, cross a river and then climb up a grassy slope on the far side of the valley. It was a magical moment.
A wild camping road trip is a fantastic way of seeing Norway, especially with their right to roam. In our ten days we visited five of the country’s 44 national parks and never went further north than Oppdal. We barely scratched the surface of what Norway has to offer. I’ll definitely be back.