7-Day Norway Road Trip Itinerary: Oslo, Fjords, Trollstigen & Geiranger

Perhaps for the first time, I find myself wanting to describe my impressions of a country through images from fairy tales. That is how much fairytale Norway surprised and impressed me.

Norway, Norway, how beautiful your landscapes are!

Driving along the deep and picturesque fjords, it is impossible not to admire the views. How majestic the long mountain ridges look, covered in the dense green of the trees. In my imagination, they turn into enormous bears, as if lying down and resting on the shores of azure lakes.

And in the dense Norwegian forests, green moss spreads like a thick, soft carpet. As it rolls over the hummocks, you can imagine forest trolls sitting there beneath it, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You peek between the trees, admire them for a moment, and then continue along the well-trodden path — you don’t want to disturb them unnecessarily.

And the best way to experience this side of Norway is from the road.

This is our Norway road trip itinerary exactly as we travelled it, day by day. Over seven days, we drove from Oslo through Hemsedal, Borgund, Sogndal, Loen and Olden, Ålesund, Åndalsnes, Trollstigen and Geiranger, before returning through Lillehammer and Oslo.

We travelled in our own car, stayed in hotels and B&Bs, spent one night camping with our own tent, hiked in the mountains and drove through some of the most beautiful fjord landscapes in Western Norway. We started and finished the journey in Gothenburg, Sweden, where we live.

Along the way, I’ll share where we stayed, practical details from the drive, and my own impressions to help you plan a similar Norway road trip.

Our 7-Day Norway Road Trip at a Glance

Our 7-Day Norway Road Trip Map

We started our road trip from Gothenburg, Sweden, but the map below focuses on our seven-day route through Norway, from Oslo through the fjord region and back.

Day 1: Arriving in Norway and Our First Night Near Oslo

Our drive from Gothenburg to Oslo went smoothly. Before leaving Sweden, we registered our car with Epass24, which made paying Norway’s automatic road tolls straightforward — the car is identified by its number plate and the charges are linked to your account.

We had booked our first night in advance at Thon Hotel Snø via Booking.com; all our other accommodation during the road trip we booked along the way. The hotel is outside central Oslo, but this wasn’t a problem with a car, and there is also a train station nearby with connections into the city centre.

We paid NOK 1,088 for the night and NOK 115 for overnight parking. The room was cosy and comfortable, but the breakfast was probably the highlight — excellent quality, plenty of choice and, overall, very good value for money.

That evening we drove into central Oslo for a walk. In hindsight, taking the train would have been a much better idea: without checking the price first, we parked in a city-centre garage and ended up paying an astonishing NOK 450 for just two hours. A useful lesson for the rest of the trip!

Oslo was lovely on that summer evening, with its distinctive modern and futuristic architecture. We walked around the centre, waited out a short summer shower, saw a rainbow afterwards, and then headed back to the hotel to rest and plan the next part of our journey.

The following morning, we left Oslo behind and headed for the mountains of Hemsedal.

Day 2: Hemsedal — Camping and Hiking to Veslehødn

From Oslo, we continued towards Hemsedal, where we spent the night at Hemsedal Fjellcamp. We had brought our own tent and sleeping bags, and paid 450 NOK for the night. This was our only night of the road trip spent camping.

We were very happy with the campsite. Everything we needed was there and worked well: separate showers and toilets for men and women, as well as a shared kitchen where we could prepare breakfast or simply boil water for a hot drink.

There was no staff on site during our stay — check-in and payment were handled through a self-service box — but everything was straightforward and we had no problems at all.

Hiking to Veslehødn in Hemsedal

After setting up our tent, we drove towards the starting point of the Veslehødn hike. On the way to the trailhead, we reached a barrier on the private toll road leading up to Hornslie parking. We paid 70 NOK at the payment machine there and continued by car to the parking area. The hike itself is free.

From the parking area, the trail starts climbing almost immediately, and the first part is quite steep. I remember the ascent feeling surprisingly vertical at the beginning. Fortunately, it doesn’t stay like that for long. Once you get higher, the trail becomes much gentler and opens into beautiful high-mountain terrain.

At the trail sign, we had a choice between Veslehødn (1,300 m) and the higher and longer Storehødn (1,482 m). As it was already later in the day and we weren’t sure we could complete the longer hike before dark, we chose Veslehødn.

And I am very glad we did.

The views from up there were spectacular. The trail takes you above Hydnefossen, and as we climbed higher, the views opened over the Hemsedal valley, the surrounding mountains and the small mountain lake.

I filmed quite a lot along the way because this was one of those places where photographs simply don’t convey the scale and beauty of what you are seeing. The landscape feels much bigger when you are standing there yourself.

Day 3: Borgund Stave Church and Sogndal

We left Hemsedal in the morning and continued west towards Borgund.

Our first main stop was Borgund Stave Church, one of Norway’s best-preserved medieval stave churches. Built around 1180, it is almost entirely made of wood, with dark timber walls, carved portals and dragon heads rising from the roofs.

Not far away came one of those completely unplanned stops that sometimes become the best memories of a road trip.

We decided to stop for a short coffee break — or fika, as we would say in Sweden — at Borgund Vedovnsbakeri. We had no particular expectations. It was simply a bakery we noticed along the way. And what a surprise it was.

The bakery is actually located in the old schoolhouse in the small centre of Borgund, right beside the historic Kongevegen, or King’s Road. It specialises in sourdough bread and other baked goods from its wood-fired oven.  

Inside we found wonderful Norwegian cinnamon buns made with sourdough and excellent coffee. We ordered pour-over coffee, sat down with our buns and had what was probably the best fika of our entire Norway trip, and I am not exaggerating.

From Borgund we continued towards Sogndal, and this was one of those stretches where the drive itself became part of the experience. Mountains, water, tiny settlements and places to pull over appeared one after another.

We stopped at one of the roadside rest areas for something to eat. We had a small gas stove with us, so we heated some water, made coffee and ate outside with the mountains in front of us. Nothing sophisticated — just food from our bags and coffee made by the road. This was exactly what I loved about travelling by car. 

Sogndal: A Place I Would Happily Return To

By the end of the day we reached Sogndal, and Sogndal turned out to be one of my unexpected favourites of the trip. There is something incredibly cosy about the town.

It sits in the Sognefjord region surrounded by fjord and mountains, so wherever you look, nature seems to form the background to everyday life.

Sogndal is also a natural base for exploring this part of Fjord Norway, with glaciers, stave churches and mountain areas within easy reach. But I think what I liked most was simply the atmosphere. After spending so much of the day driving, we went for a walk around town without trying to see anything in particular. Sogndal felt peaceful, welcoming and very easy to enjoy. 

For the night we stayed at Sogndal Vandrerhjem via Booking.com. We paid NOK 939 for the night, including breakfast. It wasn’t cheap, for the same price, you could stay in a very good hotel elsewhere in Europe. But we knew Norway was expensive, so the price didn’t come as a surprise.

The accommodation itself was very pleasant and comfortable, and we were happy with our stay. Breakfast was quite simple, but perfectly fine for us before getting back on the road the following morning. And the next stretch of the journey would bring us even deeper into the landscapes I had come to Norway hoping to see.

Day 4: Fjærland, Bøyabreen Glacier and the Road to Loen

We left Sogndal and headed north towards Loen, and this turned out to be one of the most beautiful driving days of our entire Norway road trip.

The road took us along Fjærlandsfjorden, a branch of the Sognefjord. This was fantastic! You drive between the mountains and the fjord, waterfalls appear on the slopes, and around almost every bend there is another view that makes you want to stop. We stopped a few times.

One of our stops was at the Fjærlandsfjorden viewpoint. Looking at my photos now, I still feel that they don’t quite show how beautiful it was in reality. The scale of the mountains, the colour of the water and that feeling of being completely surrounded by nature are difficult to capture in a photograph.

Bøyabreen Glacier

A little further along the route is located the Bøyabreen Glacier, one of the arms of Jostedalsbreen. It is an especially easy glacier to see on a road trip because you don’t need a long hike to reach the viewpoint — Bøyabreen can be seen very close to the road.

The glacier comes down between enormous dark mountain walls towards a small glacial lake, with streams of water running down the rock around it. Clouds were hanging over the mountains when we were there, which somehow made the whole landscape even more dramatic.

This was another moment when Norway felt more like a fairy tale than a real place.

From there we continued north towards Skei. We stopped at Bakar Jon, where we bought salads for lunch. By this point we had become quite fond of these spontaneous roadside lunches. We had our small gas stove with us, so whenever we found a beautiful equipped rest area, we could stop, heat some water, make coffee and eat outside.

Olden and Loen

Later we reached Olden, where we made another unplanned stop at Olden Outlet and the nearby souvenir shop. The prices were surprisingly good for Norway, especially for products actually made in Norway, and we ended up buying a few sports clothes at a very good discount.

I also came away with one of my favourite purchases from the whole trip: a beautiful 100% merino wool sweater from Norlender, a Norwegian knitwear brand. I already know it will get plenty of use back home in Sweden when winter arrives.

Our last stop of the day was ⁠Josygaard, and this was another place that felt as though it belonged in the fairytale Norway I described at the beginning of this article.

Josygaard is a restored former farm surrounded by the beautiful landscapes of Sunnmøre. The accommodation feels more like staying in someone’s country house than in a hotel. There is a shared kitchen where you can prepare your own meals, as well as shared bathroom facilities and a living area.

We paid NOK 900 for the night without breakfast, which by this point we had come to recognise as a fairly normal price for simple, budget-friendly accommodation in Norway. We had brought our own breakfast food, so in the morning we simply used the kitchen and prepared it ourselves.

But for me, the best thing about Josygaard was the setting. I could easily imagine staying here for more than one night, simply enjoying the nature and slowing down for a while.

Later that evening, we went for a walk around the lake near the house and wandered a little way into the forest. And this was exactly the kind of Norwegian forest I wrote about at the beginning of this article: thick green moss covering the ground and rolling over rocks and hummocks, making you imagine that little forest trolls might be hiding underneath.

We didn’t meet any trolls in the forest. But we did find one hiding on the wall of a house.

Day 5: Ålesund and Alnes Lighthouse

The next morning we continued towards Ålesund. This part of the drive included another very Norwegian part of travelling by car, taking the ferry from Festøya to Solavågen before continuing towards the city. The ferry is part of the E39 route, so it simply becomes part of the journey rather than a separate excursion.

Ålesund immediately reminded me of the west coast of Sweden, where we live. The sea, harbours, islands and that particular coastal landscape all felt strangely familiar. It was noticeably warmer here than in the mountains, but also windy, again, very much like the Swedish west coast.

We spent some time simply walking around the city before heading up to Mount Aksla, probably the most famous viewpoint in Ålesund. From Byparken, 418 steps lead to the top, where the view opens over the city centre, surrounding islands, the sea and the Sunnmøre Alps.

And from above you really understand Ålesund’s unusual geography. The city seems to be scattered between the water and small islands, with mountains rising behind it. After seeing it from street level, it was worth climbing up just to see how everything fits together.

Alnes Lighthouse on Godøya

From Ålesund, the road takes you across and between the islands towards Giske and Godøya, and once again the landscape changes. The mountains and fjords of the previous days give way to a much more open coastal scenery, with the sea suddenly becoming the main character.

Alnes lies at the outer end of Godøya and was once an important fishing village. Its protected lighthouse stands right beside the open ocean; the present tower dates from 1937, while the first lighthouse here was established in the 19th century. 

Next to the lighthouse is the Alnes Fyr Experience Centre, with exhibitions about local coastal culture, an art gallery and a café. We arrived too late to properly visit the lighthouse and exhibitions, so we decided not to rush through them. But then we discovered the café.

With its large windows looking directly out towards the open sea, it was difficult to simply walk past. I bought a slice of Norwegian-style chocolate cake for NOK 100 and but it was absolutely worth it!

That night we stayed at Borg Sommerhotell, and this was quite a different experience from the small B&Bs we had stayed at earlier.

During the rest of the year, the building functions as a folk high school and boarding school for students, while in summer the rooms are used for tourist accommodation. That explains the feeling of the place quite well: this is a large building with many rooms rather than a small, cosy guesthouse.

We paid NOK 1,161 for one night without breakfast. There was a kitchen where we could prepare our own breakfast, and this time we had our own toilet and shower in the room, which was definitely a plus.

For one night it was perfectly acceptable and had everything we needed, but personally I wouldn’t choose it for a longer stay if I were looking for somewhere quiet and relaxing.

Day 6: Trollstigen, Geiranger and the Most Spectacular Roads of Our Trip

After checking out in the morning, we set off in the direction I had probably been looking forward to most during our entire Norway road trip — Trollstigen.

To be honest, even at this point I still wasn’t completely sure whether we really have to drive along that famous winding mountain road. Part of me thought that perhaps we would get there, take a look and decide on the spot. But after travelling all this way from home, there was no chance we were going to come so close and not experience it. And I am very glad we did.

Before heading towards Trollstigen, we stopped for fika at Vollan Café in Åndalsnes. It is a small bakery and café in the centre of town, and it turned out to be a perfect stop before the most exciting part of our drive. I ordered a cortado and svele, the soft Norwegian pancakes that I had discovered at the beginning of this trip and had already become very fond of. If, like me, you love pancakes in almost any form, I definitely recommend trying svele while travelling in Norway.

Driving Trollstigen

On the way towards the famous bends, we stopped at Trollstigen Gjestegård. There were plenty of people here, including groups arriving on large tourist buses, and of course the enormous trolls were impossible to miss. Naturally, I had to have my photo taken with one of them.

Then came the road we had been waiting for.

Trollstigen — literally the Troll’s Ladder — climbs the mountainside through 11 hairpin bends, with waterfalls and enormous mountain walls surrounding the road. At the top, there are viewing platforms overlooking both the winding road and the dramatic landscape below. 

After all my hesitation beforehand, I can now say that I absolutely recommend driving Trollstigen if you have the opportunity. Seeing photographs of the road is one thing; actually driving those bends and watching the landscape unfold around you is a completely different experience.

One practical thing is worth knowing: Trollstigen is a seasonal mountain road and can close because of weather or road conditions, so check its current status before planning your trip.

From Trollstigen to Geiranger

It turned out that Trollstigen wasn’t the end of the spectacular driving that day.

As we continued towards Geiranger, we reached Ørnesvingen Viewpoint, with an incredible view down towards Geirangerfjord. And then came another road that I hadn’t really expected.

The road descending from Ørnesvingen towards Geiranger — Ørnevegen, or the Eagle Road — twists down the mountainside in a series of sharp hairpin bends. After all the attention Trollstigen gets, I was surprised to find another road on the same route that felt almost as dramatic to drive. And from there, it seemed as though one breathtaking view simply followed another.

There are places where you can stop, get out of the car and just stand looking at the fjord, mountains and road below.

Geiranger and Djupvatnet Lake

We continued through Geiranger and further into the mountains, where the scenery changed yet again.

One of the places I remember particularly well was Djupvatnet Lake. The road runs through a high mountain landscape around the lake, surrounded by bare mountains with patches of snow. It felt wild, cold and almost unreal, especially after the greener landscapes and fjords we had seen earlier that same day.

We would happily have stopped much longer at many of these places, but we still had a considerable drive ahead of us. Our plan was to reach Lillehammer before dark, so eventually we had to stop taking photos, get back into the car and continue east.

Day 7: Lillehammer and the Drive Back to Oslo

After a long drive from Geiranger, we finally arrived in Lillehammer and checked into Overgaard, where we paid NOK 995 for one night without breakfast. The location was excellent, within walking distance of both the town centre and the Olympic Park. Check-in by phone was smooth, and it was very quiet during our stay.

Overgaard is a large old house divided into guest rooms, with a shared kitchen and a private bathroom in our room. The old mansion with a slightly worn and even a little spooky atmosphere that was fun in its own way.

Lillehammer and Olympic Park

I found Lillehammer a very charming little town. Its central pedestrian street isn’t particularly long, so it was easy to explore without any plan simply walking along it. At one end of the central area, we stopped in the park for a cold beer and coffee.

After six days of driving through mountains, fjords and tiny villages, it felt good to spend a little time doing absolutely nothing.

One thing we noticed was that eating and drinking in Lillehammer seemed more expensive than in many of the smaller places we had stopped at earlier in the trip. It didn’t surprise us too much, though. Lillehammer felt very much like a holiday and outdoor-sports town, busy with people who come here to enjoy the surrounding nature and activities.

From the centre, we drove up to Lysgårdsbakkene, the famous ski jumping arena built for the 1994 Winter Olympics. The chairlift to the top cost NOK 80 per person, with beautiful views over Lillehammer and Lake Mjøsa. 

There are also 936 steps between the bottom and the top. So we took the chairlift up the hill and walked down the steps, enjoying the open panoramic views over the city along the way.

Lillehammer is also surrounded by hiking routes and places for both summer and winter sports, and many of the Olympic facilities are still in use today. So if hiking, skiing and outdoor activities are the main reason for your trip, there is certainly enough here to stay much longer. 

By the time we reached Lillehammer, we were already at the end of an intense seven-day road trip, so we only had the energy for a relaxed evening and next half-day in town. Still, it was a lovely place to slow down before starting our drive back towards Oslo.

Back to Oslo

From Lillehammer, we drove back to Oslo, where we had arranged to meet some friends before the final drive home. We met at Kruttverket in Svartdalsparken, a cool café and bar in an old industrial building surrounded by greenery, a place I already knew and liked from one of our previous visits to Oslo.

We had coffee and drinks, shared some stories from our trip and took a short walk through the park to stretch our legs after the drive. It was a lovely little break before getting back into the car for the final stretch to Gothenburg — and home.

What to Know Before a Norway Road Trip

Norway is an expensive country to travel around, but a road trip gives you quite a lot of control over how much you spend. Accommodation and eating out were the two areas where we noticed the biggest difference in our daily budget, while toll roads and ferries were simply unavoidable parts of travelling this route by car. We didn’t try to make this a particularly cheap trip, but we did save money where it made sense.

Driving in Norway: Tolls, Ferries and Parking

Norway’s toll system is automated and uses number plate recognition. Before our trip, we registered our Swedish car with Epass24. Norway uses automatic toll stations that read your licence plate, so there is no need to stop and pay while driving.

Another option is an AutoPASS agreement with a toll tag, which gives a 20% discount on most toll roads for vehicles under 3,500 kg, but the tag needs to be ordered in advance and isn’t available for light vehicles at the Norwegian border.

After returning home, our Epass24 account showed NOK 825 in Norwegian road tolls for the seven-day trip, plus NOK 140 for the ferry crossing on our way to Ålesund.

One thing I would definitely recommend is checking parking prices before leaving your car, especially in Oslo. As I mentioned earlier, we once paid NOK 450 for just two hours of parking in central Oslo. That was one Norway expense we could easily have avoided.

Finding Accommodation Along the Route

We didn’t book all seven nights before leaving home. Apart from our first hotel near Oslo, we mostly looked for accommodation as we travelled, which gave us more freedom to decide how far we wanted to drive each day.

We used Booking.com for rooms and B&Bs, and NorCamp was useful for finding campsites and cabins along the route. NorCamp lets you search a map for campsites, tent pitches, cabins and facilities.

Many Norwegian campsites also have hytter (cabins), so camping doesn’t necessarily mean bringing a tent. It is also worth contacting campsites directly, especially when looking for simple accommodation for just one night.

We spent only one night in our own tent, at Hemsedal Fjellcamp, and paid NOK 450. That was roughly half what we were paying for our simpler B&B accommodation.

We could certainly have reduced the cost of the trip by camping more often. But after long days of driving, hiking and exploring, we decided that a proper room and a good night’s sleep were worth paying for.

How We Saved Money on Food

Food is another area where you can make a considerable difference to your Norway road-trip budget.

We travelled with a small car fridge, which we filled with food bought in Sweden before leaving, and we also brought some dry food with us. Whenever breakfast wasn’t included in our accommodation, we prepared our own in the shared kitchen.

Having food in the car was also useful during the day. At some of the scenic stops along the route, we simply took out our little gas stove, heated water for coffee and had something to eat while enjoying the view. 

When we needed more food, we bought it from Norwegian supermarkets. Larger supermarkets and even some smaller shops had very good ready-made food and salad bars, which became an easy alternative to eating in cafés and restaurants every day.

And this really can make a difference. As a rough current reference, Visit Norway puts a meal in a budget restaurant at around NOK 190–350 per person. We live in Sweden, so we are already used to Scandinavian prices, but even we were sometimes surprised by the cost of food in Norway.

At the same time, I don’t want to give the impression that we were surviving on sandwiches for seven days. We ate very well. The food we bought along the way was consistently good quality. We never felt hungry, and we even brought some of our dry food back home with us.

Final Thoughts on Our 7-Day Norway Road Trip

Seven days in Norway went by incredibly quickly. Looking back, I think what I loved most about this road trip was how different every day felt — fjords and glaciers, mountain hikes, winding roads, small towns, waterfalls and the open sea. We planned some parts of the trip in advance and decided others along the way, and I think that freedom was part of what made the journey so enjoyable. 

If you are planning your own Norway road trip, I hope our route and experience give you a few useful ideas, but leave some room for spontaneous stops too. Some of our favourite moments happened in places we hadn’t planned to visit at all.

You Might Also Like:

Sweden to Estonia by Car: My Ferry & Baltic Road Trip

Explore My Sweden Travel Guides

About the author:

Hello and welcome! I’m Victoria, a travel writer and the creator of Best Kyiv Guide. I spent years working as a private tour guide in Kyiv, sharing the city’s history and everyday life with visitors. I now live in Sweden and write about the places I explore firsthand, sharing personal travel experiences, practical tips, and stories from Sweden, the Baltics, and across Europe.