Only the fourth most expensive country to visit

Odds are, when someone here in the States finds out I'm Norwegian, the first thing they'll tell me is how they've heard it's so beautiful. Mm-hmm. This is true. The next thing is how they want to go there someday. Well … start saving.

Obstacle number one to Fjørdgasm: Money. Norway is famously expensive. Norway's so expensive even Swedes joke about it, and Sweden is not exactly a bargain, either. But, hey, the good news is more expensive destinations exist. So hurra for that and heia Norge: The Land of the Midnight Sun is only fourth on the list of most expensive places to visit. Bermuda, Switzerland, and the Bahamas are more expensive.

So there's that.

In any event, we're going. One way or another we were going to pull this off, so here's a crash course on how to make a Norwegian vacation, if not affordable, at least not sell-both-kidneys-and-your-left-eye, absolute-ruin, sackcloth-and-ashes pricy.

Rule number one: No hotels. US $100 buys you one night in a tiny room at the airport. OK, fine, but we're going for three weeks and there are six of us. One room? No way. Two. And we're going to awesome destinations of such mind-boggling scenery that, ugh, tons of other people want to go there, too, damn their local-economy-supporting hides. Guess what that does to prices on lodging. Can you say “That will be one million billion kroners please” in a Norwegian accent?

No no no. We're hardy. Adventurous. Tough. We're bringing tents, goddammit. A campground, of which there are tons, will run you US $20 per tent, plus a few ducats for the car, and another few for an outlet. Usually there's a shared kitchen and coin-operated showers, washers, and dryers.

And if all else fails, you can just traipse off into the woods a bit or out on the beach and pitch your tent for zero moneys. Norway has this nifty rule we kept from the days when the locals had names like Eric Bloodaxe and Sveyn Fork-beard, allemannsretten. The right to roam, which basically gives you the right to set up for the night anywhere as long as you're not on cultivated land, within sight of someone's house (Norwegians are really protective of their personal space, all 250 feet of it), or, to be really obvious here, in a parking lot or the center of one of the approximately 345 million roundabouts.

Awesome!

Except, we have a toddler. So now we have to bring a Pack'n Play. She sure as hell isn't going to stay put in a tent at bedtime considering (a) she can hear everyone's voices, both ours and the gemütlich (read: drunk) German tourists in the RV next to us, and (b) did I mention we're going to where the sun doesn't set? No can do; the baby must be contained, fenced in, penned — or she'll not sleep for three weeks.

Except also, a kitchen does no good if you don't have pots and pans. So now maybe we have to haul that between continents, too. And a propane stove, because what if the kitchen is crowded or there isn't one?

Except also also, weather. It could rain for three weeks solid. It cold be windy. It could be cold. It could be wet and windy and cold. Trust me, this is a near certainty at least part of the time.

So that sounds really tiring. A few times, hell yes! We're so rugged. Ruggedy rugged. But honestly, we also like beds. And walls. And heating. And showers that aren't $2 for five minutes of lukewarm water. And chairs, tables … you know, comfort. Now what?

AirBnB to the rescue. Turns out, Norwegians love AirBnB as much as anyone else, and you can find some really neat places for reasonable prices. Not just reasonable relative to Norwegian standard, but reasonable by reasonable standards.

So here's what I did. I booked a few nights here and a few nights there, so we could stretch our legs a bit and not pack and unpack every damn day.

First, we take a breather in Ålesund, where we'll spend Sankthansaften, midsummer night's eve, watching some college kids light a 150-foot tower of wooden pallets on fire because why not. We'll be watching it from the Borgund Fjord in a boat that comes with Reidar's Bukkholmen Rorbuer. We're staying on a little islet. In the fjord. With a boat. For less than $80 a night.

Next, we found a little rorbu, a fisherman's cabin, in Lofoten, which was a real find: Lofoten has gotten so popular with tourists that you can scarcely drum up a shoebox for less than the cost of a gold-plated Rolls Royce. Thanks to the reasonable and level-headed Kjell Arntzen of Rorby Kjell Arntzen, we're spending three nights at the absurdly scenic tip of the absurdly scenic Lofoten islands without having to take out a second mortgage and selling the dog.

Finally, we cap off the trip (at least everyone but Traci and Quinn, who at that point will be three weeks sober from Fortnite — they're headed for their own, second adventure, on which more later) in the crown jewel, a place as Lofoten as Lofoten if not more and not yet discovered by hordes of Germans and Dutch caravaners: Senja. That's where we splurged. Do this: Splurge once, and pick the best place to do it. And for that one splurge, you can do worse than Senja. On which, more later. For now, the bottom line is we're spending a couple of hundred a night to stay here:

If that's not worth it, I don't know what is.