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Ancestral trip to Norway

I am starting to thing about a trip to see the birthplace of my grandparents and my husband's family farm. We will be going to Gjøvik, Stavanger, and Alesund and other interesting place along the way. I am looking for good guidebooks and tourist info that would include these areas. Any suggestions for recommended lodging near these areas would be much appreciated. Scenery is a priority for this trip. Thank you.

Posted by
11052 posts

Click on Norway up above and many helpful posts will appear. ( travel forum/NORWAY/Ancestral trip)

Posted by
583 posts

Thanks for responding, Suki. I have been reading all the threads for several months, but I'm not finding much info that pertains to our specific trip. I know I want a Norway only guide book, so that rules out Rick Steve's book, but Iwonder if I should use Lonely Planet, Foder's, or something else.

Posted by
6168 posts

Scenery is a priority for this trip.

There is scenery everywhere in Norway, so that is nothing to worry about. As for the rest of your trip, what do you want to know?

Posted by
26829 posts

I read as many guidebooks as I have time for. I check first to see what my library has, then I search for used copies of other books online. I'm mainly looking for sightseeing info, so an older edition is still helpful. You always need to check current operating hours (and entry fees if they matter) via the web. In normal times (which these are not, because things have been changing so much since early 2020) I like to travel with the pertinent-to-my-trip sections of one current guidebook.

One thing about traveling to Norway is that you may run into a lot of books attempting to cover all of Scandinavia. Unless you find one that is very, very long, it will not have the same amount of coverage as an all-Norway book. For Norway my library happened to have the Moon guidebook. I liked it, but I'll never know whether it was really accurate, because I've just incorporated info from that book into my notes. I'm not sure there's an edition newer than 2019; that's what initially pops up on Amazon. You can currently get the Kindle ebook for $3.99.

Posted by
583 posts

Thank you, acraven. I saw the Moon book was another guide book option, so I will start there.