Hello friends.

For all you curious ones, I'd like to tell you about my first ever solo trip. Long post ahead, apologies in advance. I hope I can make it worth your while.

First: the pictures. https://imgur.com/a/chLbUXz

I know, taking pictures in Norway is just straight up cheating. I love this country so much, people included.

About the trip

I went at the end of September 2018, and including the travel time I was gone for five and a half days.

Budget: Screenshot of the Budget Spreadsheet: https://imgur.com/6xG6Fdw

I listed every single Cent spent on the trip. Although this is such a freakin huge amount of money, I have to say I see it well spent. Even after seeing the total amount after the trip, I was 100% happy I did it the way I did.

Things to consider regarding the budget:

• I planned and booked the trip rather shortly (3-4 weeks prior). If you're able to plan early, you can save on flights
• In Norway, as in Sweden and Denmark, they don't use the €. That's why I paid everything with my electronic cash card. I found out about the fees, which were charged by my bank, after the trip and took it as a lesson. :)
  So thats another 20 bucks you can save: Pay with a real Credit Card.
  From personal experience I'd say credit card today is more widely accepted than cash in all of Scandinavia.
• The whole car rental was a luxury I allowed myself and not necessary for doing the things I did on the trip. Although in Norway the distances between cities can be somewhat bigger, public transport is well organized, ferries included.
• Gas was 13 €s because I was lucky and got a Toyota Yaris Hybrid.
• Breakfast was included with the hotel price, but other than that I ate out for every single meal I had. If you prep and cook for yourself, you can save around 50 - 80 €.

All in all I am certain one can do the same trip, just more planning and travel time required, for around 600 €.

Flight: I flew from Frankfurt FRA, Germany, to Stavanger Sola SVG, Norway and back. I flew with KLM both ways and had a stop+ plane change at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. It's a good airline with nice food onboard (wraps, toast, dutch cheese, all the standard drinks, all free). No incidents.

Car Rental: Why the car rental? I wanted to hike to the Preikestolen, but the one thing I heard about it over and over again is how crowded it is from an early daytime on. Public Transport gets you to the starting point between 8.30 and 9.00 o' clock and you start the hike with waves of older people groups, mostly asian as I witnessed later. That's why I decided I'm gonna spend money on a car to be independent from public transport.

Parking @ Preikestolen: Now that was just standard tourist scamming and honestly bugged me big time. 30 € for parking your car about 5 hours, that is airport price level and just sucked.

Cinema: I watched The Incredibles 2, it was SO worth it. Good thing in Scandinavia is they learn English from an early age on and most international films are not even dubbed. The film ticket was, as with the overall cost of living in Norway, a bit more expensive compared to Germany.

Fjord Safari: That was the single biggest item on the activity budget list. There's a service offered by a young team of locals to ride a speedboat across the bay into the Lysefjord. What an experience. You travel with est. 65-70 km per hour across the water into the fjord with its steep as hell several 100metres high cliffs. Awesome.

https://www.lysefjordsafari.com/

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The hike to Preikestolen

Most important thing first: I made it without a single scratch, but besides me being a trained and well equipped hiker, hiking an unknown trail in complete darkness is just reckless and retarded. I do not recommend doing it in the dark when it's your first time. Not the experience, not even the view, is worth risking your health or even your life. Reflect on you capabilities realistically.

I looked up the time of sunrise for that day and planned the trip accordingly. I wanted to be on the Preikestolen platform at sunrise, preferably ahead of large groups of people for some nice pictures.
So: The day of the hike I got up at 3:00 in the morning, took the car via a ferry to the starting point, started the hiking trip at around 4.15 in the morning. I found out that some tourist agencies offer such a sunrise trip as a guided tour, but I figured I'll just try it alone.

You can imagine, at 4.15 this whole place is still completely dark. So as you can figure, most of the pictures from the hike were taken on my way back down in daylight.

I can tell you, fellas, that was one hell of a trip. You learn so much about yourself when wandering uphill in a forest in a foreign land that even has bears far up north. Regardless of my headlamp + torchlight, let me assure you - pants were almost shat, many times. When you walk through a dark forest all by yourself, you start seeing things. Stones, tree barks - faces start to appear in everything. Honestly, at some point I started singing to myself to simply have something to do. I pulled through, though. And after maybe 30 minutes into the hike my perception limited itself to the cone of light from my headlight and the mind stopped worrying. Also, as you can see on some of the pictures, the trail is well built and has reflective posts every 100-200 metres. In hindsight some parts of the trail were easier to navigate in the dark because of those highly reflective posts. I always had the next waypoint in sight. After the forest I walked across a swamp-like more open landscape. The silence was terrifying. So more singing. It's astonishing how many lyrics you can bring up from memory when in need - songs you haven't heard in years.

The swampland made place for wide, wide rocky plains. I kept going, the time of the sunrise in mind. After about 2 and a half hours, I made it to the top. I arrived on the famous Preikestolen. What an indescribable feeling of pride, relief and acomplishment. Wow. I had about 20 minutes left until sunrise, so I ate a banana and a sandwich. I took a look around and found out that indeed, I was the first person on this day to arrive.

Unfortunately, the clouds didn't break up for the sunrise, so it just brightened up. I was finally able to take pictures.
The view was overwhelming.

A few minutes later a group of people, lead by a local guide, showed up. We had a chat, they took some pictures as well, and we all rested for maybe half another hour.

I started my hike back. It was as if I took a completely different route because I was now able to see my surroundings. Again, every moment had a breathtaking view to offer. Getting close back to the parking lot, I came across more and more people trying the hike I was about to finish. Some asked me if I forgot something and they were surprised to hear that I was already on my way back.

Arriving at the parking lot, I was SO happy with my decision to start early, get there by car and stuff.

SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

Literally BUSLOADS of people started the trail, some even in sneakers or Chucks. I talked to the few first people I encountered in their everyday casual dress, but I stopped bothering rather quick.

While I'm all for people getting out and enjoying nature, I must say, the hike, and with it the whole experience, would have been completely different, had I started it at this time of day.

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In Summary:

I had a great experience in a great country. It took a budget no one could afford every other month, but I'm deeply satisfied and definitely recommend it.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Save traveling to all of you!

M