Bucket List Adventure - Planning a trip to Norway Part 1

Vanessa de Vere on 16 November 2017
As many of you know, I started in travel in 1978 and the travel bug has never really left me. I work at home now and run my own business as a travel professional who "delivers travel solutions to people who want to travel". I'm part of Travel Counsellors Ltd. Every day I have access to hundreds of airlines, suppliers; I attend webinars and supplier days and come away armed with brochures, pens and key rings and lots of inside information.

I've been to Norway so many times; on a cruise ship bobbing around the Fjords, on a business trip bobbing around a PowerPoint presentation but I feel I've never seen the real Norway. Often called the happiest country in the world they have so much passion and enthusiasm for their country it’s hard not to feel the love rubbing off.

Norway has always fascinated me. A few months ago, I did one of those ancestry tests and found out I'm fourth generation northern Scandinavian. Well the first question you ask is "who was it"? With no real way of knowing I'm even more resigned to the fact that I must explore this gorgeous country urgently.

I started by making a list of all the things I want to do. Visit my Sami ancestors (should I call everyone cousin?) shout mush-mush at the top of my voice and hurtle across the snowy plains in a sled propelled by Husky power, break land speed records on a snow mobile in the dark chasing after Northern Lights, go to the Lofoten Islands (where you ask...why I ask I don't know it's just telling me I have to go there), stand on the deck of a ship slowly cruising in peaceful waters for days along the Norwegian coast, get up to Svalbard to catch up with the polar bears, catch the train on the world’s most beautiful stretch of railway, stay in an iconic hotel in the country's capital, eat lots of Herring, spend a night in the snow hotel, drink vodka in the ice bar, fall asleep on a fur, go ice fishing, hike across a glacier, ski down a mountain with sea view, wear my Norwegian cardi and my bobble hat.

So that's what I'm about to do - plan my own holiday with the same care and attention I give to my clients.