How much does Van life Norway cost – is it as expensive as you think?

Norway is renowned for being a super expensive country, in fact, it’s one of the most expensive countries in the world.

Aswell as being one of the most expensive countries, it is also one of the most spectacular and in some ways, you can see why it is so expensive, you do get what you pay for.

The scenery in Norway is out of this world, some of the most incredible scenery we have ever seen and there is free overnight parking all over the country, definitely making it one of the very best countries for van life.

If you’re reading this blog post, you’re probably considering your own Norway road trip, so we wanted to give a breakdown of what we spent in the three weeks that we spent doing van life in Norway in hopes that this will help.

See below a table breakdown of our van life Norway cost:

Van Life Norway Costs

Fuel

Along with everything else, fuel is very expensive in Norway. In September / October 2022 when we visited, the average cost of fuel was around £2 a litre. The price of fuel was particularly high at this point though due to the Russia and Ukraine war.

TIP – The price of fuel fluctuates daily in Norway, and we even saw prices as high as £2.50 a litre at some points. If you have the time, the best thing to do is shop around for fuel prices in Norway because it will almost certainly be different from one hour to the next, and one fuel station to the next.

Food

Food in supermarkets is also expensive in Norway. We usually like to do our own cooking and make our own meals as much as we can as we’re travelling on a budget so we try to save as much as we can, especially in expensive countries like Norway.

Fresh food like fruit and vegetables are particularly expensive in Norway.

We shopped in the Kiwi supermarkets as we found these to have the best selection of products whilst also being one of the most reasonably priced supermarkets.

Activities

Our activities in Norway included kayaking in the Reinefjorden, Scuba Diving and a Floating Sauna in the Lofoten Islands, and although the activities were expensive, in our opinion they were worth it.

TIP – If you would like to do Kayaking in the Reinefjorden, we booked our tour through this company – Check availability – Reine Paddling // Book & reserve kayak trip in Lofoten – They were really professional, the booking process was easy and we had the best time, it was definitely one of our favourite things that we did on the Lofoten Islands!

Campsites

We didn’t stay at many campsites in Norway, there was no need to really. There were amazing free places to stay overnight all over the country and also services like drinking water and toilet emptying were also available all over. The main reason that we stayed in campsites was to do washing. I think we only stayed in two campsites for two nights out of the whole three weeks. Norway is definitely one of the best countries that we have been to for wild camping.

Ferries

We took two ferries whilst we were in Norway, one from the Lofoten Islands back to the mainland, and then one when we were leaving Norway to Denmark.

Car Parking

There are some places in Norway where you cannot park for free, such as at the start point of some of the popular hikes.

A lot of the car parks in Norway are cashless and most of them you can pay via the Easy Park app. This app is great as it allows you to add on extra time whilst you’re out via the app if you need to, and most importantly it doesn’t charge you until you actually leave the car park.

Summary

In Summary, although Norway is expensive, there are ways in which you can try to save money by not eating out and staying in the free park-ups rather than campsites.

Norway is hands down the best country that we have been to in our van life travels over Europe, and we have been to a lot of countries. We can’t recommend van life Norway enough, it’s well worth the money!

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You can take a look at some of our other van life posts which include lots and lots of hints and tips on all things van life here – Van Life – Travel Information, Hints, Tips and Advice (threeasabird.com)

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Ryan Clarke

I have always wanted to travel and luckily I always got to travel to some amazing countries while I was growing up with my family and this really encouraged me to continue this and get out into the world on my own when I was older.

My goal growing up was really to see as much of the world as I could, but then I started going to work and really concentrating on my career and travel took a back seat. I still tried to get away a few times a year but I always knew there was an end goal which was to travel as much as possible.

So I got my head down and worked as hard as I could as an e-commerce manager. I have always been techy, I love computers and websites, so that’s where it gave me the idea to start this blog and also have my own web design agency. If you want to check it out or need any help then please take a look rrwebdesign.co.uk (shameless plug there)

But after covid, we both knew this was now the right time to take the leap and go and see the world after being trapped inside our house and working from home for a couple of years. We realised more than ever that you only get one life and you really need to make the most of it and do what you love!