Scandinavia Travels

How much days / weeks do you have?

What are your interests?

Which means of transport do you want to use? Also rental car?

What other cities in Norway? For a month you should think about how many places you can reasonably visit in that time. Also, don't underestimate the distances involved.

Thank you for the replies. I hope to receive a few more.

Answering the previous questions:
We can travel for a little over 4 weeks. We are not interested in museums. We like to walk and explore the older part of town. Parks are nice to and the well known sites. We enjoy stopping for a drink and people watch.

We are no longer hikers due to back issues.
The other towns in Norway I am considering are Stavanger, Trondhein, and Tromso.
I appreciate thoughts.

I forgot to add that travel will be by plane, train, ferry, and bus. We will not be renting a car.

You should not miss out on stockholm (a minimum of 3 days recommended).

RICK STEVES ON SCANDINAVIA:
Have a look at Rick Steve's Scandinavia guide book. The descriptions are accurate. "If I had to call one European city home, it might be stockholm. One-third water, one-third parks, one-third city, on the sea, surrounded by woods, bubbling with energy and history, Sweden's stunning capital is green, clean, and underrated". Mr Steves must like the Venice vibe, with all the islands, as he also thinks that it is "Scandinavia's grandest city".

Watch his TV episodes on considered countries here for free and get a feel for them (30 minutes apiece).

Here's what I think you should do:

If you use Excel or another spreadsheet program, this'll be easy, but even if not, you can do it on paper.

• Make a list of days (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc.) down the left column. You say you have a little more than 4 weeks, so number it up to 30 or so.
• Then, for each potential itinerary, add a column and fill it with the city where you will sleep. Be sure to include Day 1 as "on the plane." And if you take an overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki or Tallinn, make sure to count that.
• See how many locations you are comfortable fitting in for each potential itinerary, and move things around as necessary; You can play with different orders, different numbers of day per location, etc.
• Come up with two or three workable itineraries this way, and then come back and share them on this forum for feedback.

Give serious thought to how many times you want to be packing and unpacking and transferring from hotels to train stations and ferry terminals.

Thank you for your response. You sound like the planner I would like to be. Through a variety of methods and reads…this might be our plan. Thoughts are welcomed. Copenhagen for 5 nights due to points. Fly to Gdańsk for 3 nights. Fly to Riga for 3 nights. Bus to Tallinn for 3 nights. Ferry to Helsinki for 3 nights. Ferry one night over to Stockholm with stay of 3 nights. Unsure of transportation to Oslo (flight or train) for 3 nights.
Norway in a Nutshell train/boat/bus to Bergen. Three nights in Bergen.
I appreciate input as we zero in on our bookings.

I haven't been to Copenhagen for 50 years but visited your other cities in 2018 (Gdansk) and 2022/2023 (the rest). I found a great deal to do in all of them, often involving architecture. I think my shortest stay aside from Gdansk (which was competing with many other Polish cities) was 8 nights. Given the fixed number of days you're working with, I'd consider shifting one night from Helsinki to Stockholm. Stockholm is much larger and seems to me to have more sightseeing variety.