Explorer Genes

Road Trip, Day 4: Sept. 19 (Skjolden)
During nights three and four of our Norway road trip, we stayed in the tiny and tranquil fjord village of Skjolden at the end of Lustrafjord, an arm of the country’s enormous Sognefjord, which stretches a whopping 127 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

We chose Skjolden because we were able to find an “affordable” apartment, and we were hoping for a full day of hiking on this iconic fjord. Unfortunately, this failed to happen because sheets of rain fell from the sky the entire day. 🫤

Instead, we admired the still phenomenal view from the patio of our functional apartment, enjoyed our day of unexpected downtime, and checked out a few nearby waterfalls, which was the only advantage of the weather….extra gushing action.

Oh, and I threw a temper tantrum in front of the supermarket. Hopefully you saw that fun in the previous posts…

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Road Trip, Day 3: Sept. 18
(Beitostølen to Skjolden)
Day three commenced with wondrous sunny skies and ended with buckets of rain which would accompany us for the next three days.

It also included stops to a Norwegian open history museum village, a drive through the world’s longest tunnel, extending 15.2 miles (24.5k), and plenty of gushing waterfalls, rolling farmland and fjords.

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Road Trip, Day 2: Sept. 17
The first full day started with one of the most redeeming features of our time in Norway….the lavish Choice Hotel breakfast buffets, where we gorged ourselves 4 out of 7 mornings with smoked salmon, brown cheese, fluffy eggs, the creamiest yogurt, and pickled herring…for the first time. Mmm….

We also meandered through some lovely countryside, stopped in Fagernes, and spent ample time at the Riddergaarden Mountain Lodge in Beitostolen, which we got for 15k points and would be the highlight of our accommodation selections, thanks to its included spa experience.

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Bratislava>Vienna>Madrid>Lisbon>Praia

Well, as usual following a string of fast travel days, I’m slogging behind and still have the rest of our adventures in Norway and Slovakia to write about.

That said, I’ll have plenty of time to do it as we jump into a bit of a wild card for our next one-month stay.

That’s right, the next month will be island-style as we head off the coast of West Africa for some new cultures, flavors and warmer temperatures. It’s a continent we haven’t stepped on since 2022 and we’re excited to return.

And no surprise…from Slovakia…it’s been quite a process to get here…

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(Sept. 16) Road Trip, Day 1
For those who have been following us awhile, you know we always believe in showing both sides of any given destination, which is why we posted the less-than-stellar experience we had on our road trip yesterday.

Travel is not just gorgeous views.
It’s not just incredible architecture.
It’s not just breakfast buffets.
And, it’s certainly not just rainbows and flowy dresses.

This life is not perfect, though there are many beautiful things to be discovered, as with any life.

That said, if you’ve always wanted to go to Norway, you should still go. Just maybe consider a cruise…a group tour…public transportation first.

All we’re saying is, this was our first experience renting an EV in the country (or any country) and it truly put a dark cloud on a destination we had very high expectations for.

But now it’s time to highlight the good….

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(Sept. 16-23) Norway is an undeniably stunning country which, landscape-wise, reminded us a lot of our experience in New Zealand. And like New Zealand, it should be made for road tripping.

It’s not. At least for a foreigner who rented an electric vehicle.

In fact, there are more layers of sh*tshow when renting an EV for a road trip in Norway than a tiramisu. Everything about this experience brought upon stress and frustration, even for my tech-savvy and normally chill husband.

Yep, 92 countries in…including India and Ethiopia…and Norway is the one that broke my Captain Calm.

We thought after a few days we’d get used to this serious technological learning curve, which has really only become prevalent in the last few years, but no.

Each day was like a modern-day blend of Kafka, meets Black Mirror, meets Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yes….calling Larry David to head to Norway if he wants some legit material for a Comedy of Errors.

Because ultimately, all we could do was laugh. And come up with our own catchphrase to help soften our frustrations every time we encountered a new WTF….why are they doing it this way?!…moment…

BIFN. Because it’s f’ing Norway….😅

NOTE: We will have many other forthcoming posts detailing the better parts of the experience. But because our stressors were a daily struggle, I decided to mostly dump them in one post rather than interspersing them throughout.

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September 2026 Budget Update
$2035 ($360 OVER) of $1675; (Two people: $55/day or $20,075/year)

We are hardly surprised to exceed our September budget, having spent most of the month (22 nights) in Norway—a country that is plainly difficult to manage cheaply. Alongside the expected financial and climatic pressures, the trip brought several unforeseen stresses, which we will detail in future posts, but begin to emerge here.

All this said, we feel pleased with the money-saving efforts we accomplished, despite the challenges faced.

The final eight nights were spent in Krakow, Poland followed by Eastern Slovakia, which is where we are currently.

Below are the breakdowns for the month.
All prices in USD and are rounded. As always, let us know if you have questions! 🙂

TRANSPORTATION: $878
$82: Buses and train from Moss to Notodden (4 hours)
$347: Rental Car, Hertz, for one week. Yes, $49/day is a great deal in Norway, which we booked in April. The catch was this rental price only came with an EV (electric vehicle). Since 98% of new cars sold are now electric in Norway, the country is set up for these, and we thought we’d save serious money on gas, we figured…why not?! Oh…you’ll be hearing why not soon enough….😅
$30: additional driver fee
$28: tolls and ferries (?)
$27: Parking fees (this is incredibly low and took a LOT of extra effort and car relocation!)
$185: Electric charging (370%, or 3.7 “tanks”)
$88: Shuttle Bus/Local Bus to Oslo Airport (yes, insane!)
$76: Flight from Oslo to Krakow (one flight, we used points for the other)
$15: Train & Uber combo to Krakow hotel

ACCOMMODATION: $533
Surprisingly, Norway does not offer a lot of the standard big-box hotels usually targeted by using hotel points, such as Hyatt, IHG, or Marriott. But what they do have are a splendid array of Choice Hotels, which became the biggest ace in our pocket for the country, and major cost savings for the month.

Choice Hotels, at least from our experience in the States, are middle-of-the-road hotel chains including Comfort, Quality and Days Inn. There you might get a “hot breakfast” which from what we last remember included DIY waffle iron goop, some rubberized scrambled eggs, and limp bacon. The situation in Norway is drastically different and a quite posh experience in every regard.

To achieve five free nights during our time, we opened two Choice Privilege cards in early 2026, which offered 60k points as a sign-up bonus (no annual fee) and planned our road trip around where we could arrange these free stays.

It broke down as follows:
(15) nights Notodden at housesit (FREE)
(1) night Drammen, Choice Hotel for 12k points (FREE), valued at $225/night
(1) night Beitostolen, Choice Hotel for 15k points (FREE), valued at $220/night
(2) nights Skjolden, Booking(com) apartment for $90/night
(2) nights Florø, Choice Hotel for 12k points (FREE), valued at $277/night
(1) night Garmo, Booking cottage for $96
(2) nights Krakow, Poland, Hyatt transferred from Chase, 5k points (FREE), valued at $130/night
(1) night camping Bžany, Slovakia $10
(1) night camping Polonia, $20
(2) nights camping Mala Bara, $34/night
(2) nights Airbnb house, Kolinovce, $52/night (split with friends)

In our accommodation budget, we also included the air mattress and blanket we had to buy for camping at $52.

GROCERIES: $532
As for food, we bought almost all our food for the month at supermarkets. We found Kiwi to be the cheapest option in Norway, and our usual go-to, Lidl in Slovakia. Also, we saved on food in a few major ways:
-We bought two Too Good to Go packages for about $5-6 each which were filled with fruit and vegetables, even including 6 avocados
-We bought a lot of discounted products
-We picked grapes and black currants from our backyard at the housesit
-We had 5 included hotel breakfasts so we stuffed ourselves on those mornings, did a sensible amount of squirreling, and only ate a light dinner
-Minus one b**r when Greg may have had a breakdown without it, we did not drink alcohol in Norway, which would have been a major budget buster.

GENERAL: $53
($26) Toiletries
($13) Laundry Krakow, Self-service (very high!)
($12) Tello payment for US phone numbers
($1) Apple photo storage

RESTAURANTS: $39
If you want to call it that, we ate out one meal this month other than a splurge below….at a Norway Circle K gas station on a Sunday when supermarkets were not open for $19 😬

Also…
$6 for one Circle K coffee (black)
$5 at the Oslo airport for our $50 Priority Pass overage
$8 for 4 desserts in Slovakia

Our “OTHER” Buckets
ANNUAL SPLURGE: ($1000/annually)
We spent $130 from our splurge bucket, all in Slovakia.
This included:
($57) Two w**e tastings and a bottle of w**e & ($11) Taxi to w**ery
($27) Castle entrance fee
($34) Nice meal out with friends (two entrees and two b**rs)

MEDICAL: $3000/annually
We spent $113 from our medical bucket.

(Sept. 13) Most countries do their religious structures a bit differently and Norway’s stave churches are no exception.

These medieval wooden churches are famous for their unusual construction, tall narrow shapes, and elaborate Viking/Norse-inspired decoration.

While in Notodden, we were fortunate that our housesit was located near the largest of the 28 remaining structures in the country.

Heddal Stave Church was built in the 13th century, and is the only one with three towers. Its symbols and ornaments reveal that it was built during a period of transition from Paganism to Christianity.

It is still the main parish church and used as such during the summer months. Visiting on a Sunday, we even got to see a confirmation congregation pouring out, many in traditional Norwegian clothing.

It was like peering into the past.

So fascinating.

(Sept. 13) Our walks with Tango in Notodden were largely absent due to our illnesses and distance from any trails. Yet this was the one occasion we managed to escape for a brief dose of exercise and nature therapy.

(Sept. 1-15) Of course we never would have even contemplated going to Norway without a housesit to offset the budget, which would be our destination for the first 15 nights. It was located outside of Nottoden, which is a small town of 13k centrally located between Oslo and Bergen.

The little cottage where we stayed, rented by a Colombian expat named Marcela and her Chocolate Labrador, Tango, was located directly on Lake Heddalsvatnet with a stellar view.

Although we had access to a car, we only used it a couple times because we both got quite sick with nasty head colds during most of the stay, which is not surprising considering this is Europe and the seasons just shifted dramatically for us.

Still, it was an ideal place for healing and slowing down, especially when the days were rainy and cold. We only wish it had been for longer!

***Click photos for details