If you were going to design a child- or family-friendly destination for travelers, it would look something like Norway. Norway has famously family-friendly working and pay conditions and this commitment to inclusivity extends to travel.
Throughout Norway, everyone – from hotels and campgrounds to restaurants and outfits offering activities – bends over backwards to make it easy and enjoyable to travel with kids in tow. There's even a dedicated kids' playroom carriage on the train from Oslo to Bergen. Norway also has a host of world-class attractions, to complement its great outdoors, which children love as much as their parents.
Read on for the best reasons to take your kids to Norway.
Norway is a model for how other countries could make themselves more family friendly. There is, for example, a near-universal acceptance of breastfeeding in public and restaurants and hotels are genuinely welcoming to children. These attitudes are also reflected in policies such as parents of newborns receiving nearly two years of parental leave at close to full pay – and parents are strongly encouraged to take the leave.
All of this flows into the way that the country treats traveling families. Getting around in most Norwegian towns and cities is easy enough in a stroller or pram, although cobblestone lanes in older parts of some towns can be difficult to negotiate.
In restaurants, high chairs are widely and freely available, while toilets routinely have baby-change facilities. Many hotel rooms comfortably fit families, and most hotels offer some form of family-friendly pricing; in some places, especially in summer, children under a certain age stay for free. Some hotels even have dedicated indoor play areas for kids.
The Thon Hotel chain also has small, moveable stairs at reception so children can see over the counter and be welcomed as part of the whole check-in experience.
The main difficulty in traveling as a family is the cost. Like most items for sale in Norway, everything from nappies (diapers) to formula is ridiculously expensive compared to other countries. The same applies to food. While supermarkets are plentiful, some restaurants have child menus, and snacks like the ubiquitous hotdog can help keep costs down, it can still be expensive making sure your kids eat well and often in Norway.
Most regions of Norway have attractions that will entertain children. Natural landscapes such as the fjords, the glaciers of central Norway, or the Lofoten Islands will impress children of a certain age, while chances to see wildlife – from whales off Vesterålen to walruses in Svalbard – can be very exciting, not to mention educational. Sprinkled throughout Norway are theme parks designed with kids in mind, while museums across
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Simply put, Norway is spectacular. Along the west coast, shimmering blue fjords carve deep into the interior, with picture-perfect villages hugging the shores and gravity-defying farms clinging to the steep slopes above. Elsewhere, the coastline is less dramatic but still stunning with white-painted towns and countless islands, while interior Norway has some of Europe’s wildest, most beautiful mountains, interspersed with green agricultural valleys and stretches of deep forest.
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