Traveling to Norway

Rhino

I've never been outside the US/Canada. Couple questions.

I have a passport, my gf will have one soon. Any other documentation we need?

Currency:
- How much do I need (plane tickets are $1.2K). We are planning on staying for ~12 days. I heard they are pretty pricey over there.
- Should I get it exchange before hand?
- I heard credit cards will rape you on fees if you use them internationally. Should I just take $X amount in cash? Travelers Checks? Other?

Other:
- Planning... Should we? By that, I mean can we just land, find a hotel and then travel to another town/hotel?
- Their train system is nice? Can we use that or would it be best to rent a car?

Insurance/Safety:
- Do we need any type of insurance? What if I break my ankle or worse? I have good health insurance (in the USA), will that cover over seas hospitals?
- Crime/safety/other?

elmo

Currency:
Its supposedly as bad here as in Japan, Oslo being among the top 3 expensive cities pretty consistently. Bring as much money as you can, its suprisingly expensive (pack of cigs, $10 i think, beer at a pub can go anywhere from $5 and up), decent meal at a restaurant can set you back $100 (easily) per person, but ofcourse this varies from town to town, other price examples: bottle of coke, $2 at a supermarket, $4 other places. its silly expensive here.

Almost all the places here accept creditcards, so check with your provider for fees, if its not bad theres no point in bringing a vast amount of cash with you, but its always good to have some spending money handy.

Planning:
Check with the places you plan on visiting, if there is a event being held hotels can be packed, id call/email in advance to be sure.

For getting around, it depends on where your planning on going (northern or southern norway), Norway is a long country. No train service in the very (awesome) northern region. Id suggest a car to get around, but be warned about shitty road standards here, but you get to see some pretty spectacular stuff. Depending on your budget, id recommend taking a plane to get around, small and short flights can be cheaper than train/car and will get you around faster. I also highly recommend looking into Hurtigruten, a boat service that goes along (almost) the whole coast of Norway, a awesome trip for sure with some pretty spectacular scenery.

Health insurance:
Get travelers insurance just to be safe, its cheap. Norway has free health service, so dont worry about it, if you have a accident and break something/get sick, you'll be taken care of. Travelers insurance will cover transportation back to the states.

Crime:
Low, also depends somewhat on where you are, but i wouldnt feel unsafe anywhere here. Ofcourse, stay out of obvious bad places, and use common sense. There has been some problems of people getting ripped off on trains, so maybe a lock to keep your stuff in place.

I'd highly recommend going as far north as possible, the midnight sun is awesome during the summer and northern lights during the winter (not really that cold here either concidering how far north it is). If you plan on traveling around the south, go to the western parts, some awesome fjords and whatnot, Hurtigruten is probably the best way to see them, but may be out of your price range (can be expensive).

Arang

Definitely plan. Norway doesn't really throw itself at you like a lot of other countries do because it's just not big enough. If you're only going to be visiting the very biggest cities (Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, everything else is iffy so you should research), you might get away with a spontaneous trip but otherwise attempts to find something fun will probably get you a lot of wasted time. I personally suggest you check out the west (fjords!) or north (more fjords!) of the country.

The quality of the railway system really depends on where you are. The north is too sparsely populated for there to be much of anything and the western parts of the country aren't exactly packed with rail, either. Other than that, you should be good to go. Again, check before you go. Oh, and if you go for the rental car, be aware that Norway has already comfortably passed the apocalyptic barrier of 5 dollars a gallon. I think the current price is like $7,50/gallon.

I wouldn't worry about crime overly much. Norway is one of, if not the safest country in Europe, and unless you're going out late at night, in bad parts of town, in Oslo, while obviously looking like a tourist, you should be good.

As for other stuff, you'll struggle to find someone who doesn't speak English, so there's no point picking up language beyond the staples. If people are impolite it's because they're forgetting to say please and thank you, and the Norwegian emergency number is 112 like for the rest of Europe.