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Hispanic travel in Norway

I reviewed much of the archival comments regarding minority travel in Europe and found some consistencies with our experience in Spain in the '90s. My wife is Hispanic; I am white. We encountered obviously racist behavior when trying to check into two family-owned accommodations in Madrid and Seville. We had phone reservations for both prior to arriving. We have not visited Spain since.

We are considering travel to Portugal, which we visited as part of the Spain trip. We received nothing but the warmest of receptions by all we encountered.

We are also considering visiting Norway, from which my family emigrated, but my research indicates Norway is undergoing a political and attitudinal shift to the right. Some of this may be attributed to relatively recent immigration of non-whites. I saw only a couple comments about visiting Norway/Sweden in the Forum archives. Comments?

Posted by
2081 posts

SS,

I was up in the Scandinavian countries, (Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen) late last year and didnt feel or believe i was treated bad or wrongly due to my race. All of the people i interacted with were more than friendly and helpful.

this is just my opinion and how i feel, but i will travel to anywhere i want to unless there are some serious issues going on.

Its unfortunate that you had an issue in the 90s but i would consider it what happend there and at that time. time and people change, not to say they still cant be that way now.

happy trails.

Posted by
353 posts

Although racism can be prevalent anywhere, Scandinavia is a fairly open-minded, liberal place with a growing immigrant population. Many Scandinavians can come across as a bit cold at first, but they are overall a very accepting group of people.

Posted by
2 posts

Thank you for your replies. I appreciate the fact that 20 years ago, things were different. We'll take that into account. My impression has always been that Norway is a very accessible country with very few racial issues for travelers to be concerned about.

Posted by
5835 posts

Every country has its share of small thinkers (or should I say non-thinkers). That said, Norway and Scandinavia seem to be more welcoming to minority groups than the USA.

I have heard that Norway accepts the largest number of political refugees on super capita basis. That may be some of the recent push back from right wing groups.

As a visitor spending money, you will be welcome in Norway.

Posted by
5835 posts

An interesting story is that of Farouk Al-Kasim, an Iraqi immigrant to Norway. Al-Kasim is a geologist married to a Norwegian. They immigrated to Norway in the 1960s because their son had cerebral palsy and Norway's medical benefits were better than Iraq's.

Fortunate for Norway, the Norwegian geological survey hired Al-Kisim and he was the first to recognize the significance of early reports that other Norwegian geologist dismissed. His finding led to the Ekofisk oil field find.

Equally important, Al-Kasim coauthored a policy paper leading to Norway's sovereign wealth fund management policy. Norway only spends the earnings from the fund and while Norwegians live very well, they do not live excessively liker some other oil rich counties.

The take away: Norway medical benefits attracted skilled foreigners and Norway benefited.

Posted by
1 posts

Your only concern should be how much it will cost you to visit Norway. I am a POC and I live in Norway.