Getting Around Arctic

From Tromso we took the bus south to Fauske via Narvik. Boy, what a beautiful landscape it was - I enjoyed every minute of this ride!

There is a seat guarantee, so you don't have to make reservations ahead of time! Just go there, take your seat, pay and enjoy!!!

Thanks to VT member knerten we found out about this fabulous offer: just 199 NOKs for a ticket one way from destination A to destination B. Just a little bit more expensive when you decide to take a sleeper....

So I booked in advanced - and boy, I got a wrong reservation, because I had not paid attention enough! Still, nsb was kind enough to reimburse me for the wrong tickets and give me another chance to book the correct ones!

It worked out just fine - the bus arrived in Fauske just in time and the conductor new we were coming and had our tickets with him! The only BUT was that the compartment was extremely small, so we had a hard time fitting the three of us in plus all of our luggage - but at the end it worked out fine and we went from Fauske to Trondheim for a real cheap fare!!! Loved it!!!

From Trondheim to Oslo we had a 199 NOK special fare ticket as well and that included a reservation. Well, unfortunately those seats were not nice - no window... so I stood up and looked for an empty seat with a nice view!

I did enjoy the train ride all that much, but the landscape and the weather just were not as nice as in the north, so it was only a so-so journey...

I guess it was not their fault, it was just a matter of circumstances!

If getting to Tuktoyaktuk is relatively easy, getting around isn't very much so. First of all, except for the village area, there's not many placews to go: you can choose between the arctic Ocean and the Mackenzie River Delta. So basically you're stuck there unless you have a boat. I was there for about a week and I used the Arctic Tour Company to get around - which is the only way to leave the village. They organised boat trips to nearby former settlements, deserted islands and whaling camps. If you decide to go you can contact the ATC at this address:
Roger & Winnie Gruben
Box 325 • Tuktoyaktuk, NT
CANADA • X0E 1C0

Flying Aklak Air is the only way to get from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, at least in summer. The flight, in a small plane (8-12 seats) lasts about 30-40 shacking minutes, and the scenery below, over the Mackenzie River Delta, is spectacular. In winter there's an ice-road over the MacKenzie river but, obviously there's no public transportation. The flight should be around 130 canadian dollars.

M/S Nordstjernen is a small coastal-ship offering cruises of 4 or 5 days, starting in Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard.
The greatest advantage against bigger cruiseships is the fact, that a ship of that size ( just 2500 GR-tons ) may easily go into small fjords and bays without danger, where larger ships like Vistafjord would have to stay outside...

The ship has just 79 cabins and 164 berths and offers cruises in Svalbard between june and August only.

Hurtigruten - that is the name of the postal-ships taking you along the norwegian coast from Bergen to Kirkenes. Every day of the year one of their ships are starting a new cruise in Kirkenes and Bergen on a fixed schedule.
The Hurtigruten are NOT a real cruise and in most ports you will stay for just about 30-60 minutes in the port, but in Honnigsvag, Hammerfest. Bergen, Trondheim, Tromsoe and Kirkenes the ships stay in port for a longer time, see the details below in their webpage! The ship will open the gangway for passengers to go ashore and they will also start to unload and load all sorts of goods, cars, different articles from small boxes to giant machineries. In case that you like to see more of the places closeby, you have to book one of their excursions and join the ship again at the next port.
Cars can be taken onboard of a Hurtigruten-ship, when they are not higher than 2,5 meters and not wider than 2,45 meters.

I had the idea to drive all the way from Vienna to Nordkapp and even to Kirkenes in my motorhome in August 2009 but then I unfortunately had a problem with the engine in Trondheim, so I had to give these travel-plans up.
My conclusions after driving a motorhome ca. 6000km through Norway:
You need a lot of time and patience in order to really enjoy the norwegian landacape that way. The roads are quite narrow and not always in perfect condition, your average speed will be between 60 and 80km/h, petrol&Diesel are more expensive than in the rest of Europe, restaurants with a good service are quite pricey and they are hard to find and self-service restaurants will have mostly just sausages and french fries, that gets quite boring already after a few days.
You will find lots of parking-spaces along the way, many of them with grilling-facilities, free of charge, that was great, but "wild" overnight-camping at these place in your motorhome is mostly forbidden.
Then they have this stupid automatic toll-system for cars : your licenceplate will be scanned while passing by and as a tourist you have 3 possibilities to pay:
1)register online in an internetcafe with your creditcard and licenceplate-number
Thats a dangerous way in my opinion and lots of people keep saying: Never give your CC-details in an internetcafe ! - so I gave up this idea !
2)pay at some gas-station in the area, it will be Shell in the area around Oslo and BP maybe around Tronheim etc. , BUT when paying there YOU have to know the amount you owe them, then you pay in that money, thats all. So have your calculator handy and calculate each time that you pass one of the many toll-plazas, some with an amount of 20 NOK , some with 65 NOK etc.
3)an invoice will be sent to your homeadress and that might take between 2 weeks and 6 months and maybe they will send the invoice not at all, like in my case.
BUT of course you never know, maybe they send around an invoice for my use of toll-roads to a wrong adress and there might be high extra-fees for me some day. It leaves a very bad feeling for me, and that is why I call this system STUPID !
WHY cant you have a system of a prepaid sticker according to a tourist's drivingtime through Norway, afterall the amount I owe them is not much more than maybe 25 euros on the total.
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June and July is a good time to drive through Norway !
August & September are too late for many museums
and its also getting dark quite early already !