Rashley...I am planning a Scandinavian vacation in August. We are a
family of 3 with a 7 year old. Your itinerary is serving as a great
starting point for me. We are traveling from Boston. I have a couple
of questions and appreciate your and others feedback....
I think you have a pretty good plan. No non stop flights from Boston unfortunately, but a couple of one stop options.
If we could have gotten a non-stop from LA to Stockholm, I think that
would have been a great idea. I definitely would have liked to include
an overnight ferry, but the best inbound flight we could get was to
Copenhagen and the rest of the planning cascaded from there.
If it's already booked there is not much to do, but an open jaw ticket flying to Stockholm and home from Bergen is a good way to travel this route in an efficient way.
It had not occurred to me that Bergen would be a worthy stop for a
whole day. I will read more about it and reconsider.
It is a nice town, the old hanseatic town centre is on the world heritage list. But with limited time you have to prioritize.
Thanks for clarifying. While I was researching, I also came across an
itinerary that started in
Bergen-->Flam-->Oslo-->Copenhagen-->Stockholm-->Helsinki (overnight
ferry Oslo to Copenhagen & Stockholm to Helsinki)....seems like a lot
of ground to cover and if I was to consider it...I am thinking at
least 14 nights ....would appreciate feedback from experts....
As a local, for someone who wants to see Scandinavia in 10-14 days, we usually recommend the route Stockholm-Copenhagen-Oslo-(Flåm-)Bergen. Get an open jaw ticket to Stockholm and home from Bergen, or vice versa. If you have a bit of extra time you can add stops along the way or maybe an overnight cruise to Helsinki or Tallinn.
- Can we stay in either Flam or Balestrand and cover the other? It seems like they are at least 2.5 hrs apart ...
- Would it be silly to spend 2 nights at each Flam and Balestrand?
In my opinion, two nights at each is a bit too much. If you want to spend that much time in the nature I'd suggest going a bit further to somewhere less touristy.
So far, I am considering the following....is this realistic or too
ambitious? arrive in Stockholm (2n and 2.5d) overnight train to
Copenhagen (2n and 2.5d) overnight ferry to Oslo (2n & 2.5d)
Balestrand (2n & 2.5d) OR Flam (2n & 2.5d) Bergen (2n & 2.5d)....leave
for Boston Thanks in advance and appreciate everyone's feedback
Looks reasonable, but I'm not sure about the reasoning behind 2 nights in each, some places are worth more than other. How much depends on your interests. But I'd start by adding an extra night in Stockholm to have some time to deal with jet lag. Maybe cut one day in Oslo. Personally I like Oslo, but it seems to be the least popular of the Scandinavian capitals (and the most expensive).
Also note that there are no overnight trains all the way to Copenhagen, they only go to Malmö where you have to change to a local train across the sound.