Norway: Vesteralen and Lofoten Self-Drive Adventure

Twelve nights through Arctic Norway, self-guided, across the Vesteralen and Lofoten archipelagos, with the price quoted on application.

These are islands rather than a mainland drive: steep granite peaks dropping straight into the sea, fishing villages at the heads of the fjords, and bridges and tunnels linking one to the next.

A flight reaches Andenes on Andoya, where two nights are spent in a hotel converted from the village’s old primary school. Whale watching goes out from there, along with white-tailed sea eagles and a puffin colony of some eighty thousand birds, and the Andoya Space Centre nearby is the only operational space centre in Norway, with northern lights research and a virtual trip to Mars for visitors. The drive then crosses to Hinnoya and a stay at Kvitnes Gard, and on to Lofoten, where the night is spent in an original nineteenth-century fisherman’s cottage, a rorbu, on the water. The food along the way is a real part of it: tasting menus built on the day’s fish and whatever the kitchen gardens have produced.

The rental car, the accommodation including the rorbu and knowledgeable guides for selected activities are included; international flights, fuel and most meals and optional activities are not. The price is given on application. No wildlife sighting can be promised. Summer brings the midnight sun and the puffins, winter the northern lights and very little daylight, so the season chosen changes the trip entirely. Thirteen days is enough to work through both archipelagos at the pace the roads demand, and the operator describes the route as one it has tried and tested itself, which on islands this remote is reassuring.