Norway

Norway is a long, thin country that runs further north than almost anywhere people choose to live, and its geography is essentially one idea repeated at scale: the fjord — a glacier-cut sea inlet walled by rock — multiplied along a coastline that, unfolded, would wrap much of the way around the planet.

The classic fjord country sits in the west, around Bergen: Geiranger, the Nærøyfjord, the Sognefjord reaching far inland. North of the Arctic Circle, the Lofoten Islands give the country its most dramatic profile — granite peaks rising straight from the sea above red fishing cabins — and Svalbard, further still, is the polar trip proper. Oslo, the low-key capital, has grown a waterfront and a food scene worth the stop.

June through August is the practical window: the midnight sun, the open mountain roads, the coastal towns at their most alive. Winter offers the other Norway — the aurora, the dog sleds, the dark — for travellers who know which one they came for.