We've just touched down in Tromsø after a mindblowingly beautiful time in the Lofoten Islands.  We saw wild orca hunting during the midnight sun, stumbled upon a landship on Kvalvika beach and drove through some of the most beautiful seaside towns I've ever seen.  

When visiting a new and exciting country, it can be tempting to fly into a city, set yourself up in a hotel room and flit from coffee shop to coffee shop.   While this is a beautiful and relaxing way to experience another place, it’s only one way to do it.  I’m an advocate of taking your travel off the beaten track, getting outdoors and spending time with locals (whether those locals be human, fauna or flora).  Here are some of the key reasons you should consider taking your next adventure outside.

While the thought of doing 12 days of planned out cruising didn’t particularly appeal to us, doing a short stint on a fancy and convenient boat did.  The Hurtigruten started off as a practical fleet of ships, going from port to port to deliver passengers and goods.  Over time, roads were developed and it became less necessary, but now offers luxury cruises up the Norwegian coast.

I recently had the joy of doing the Norway in a Nutshell tour on my way from Oslo to Bergen.  It was recommended in Lonely Planet as a great way to get into Fjord country, so I paid the hefty fee attached to the tour and set out. 

In January 1904, a huge fire ravaged the burgeoning, wooden town of Ålesund, burning it to the ground.  A village that had experienced exponential growth due its thriving fishing industry was literally reduced to ashes in just a few hours.  We still don’t know how the fire was started.

On my recent adventure around Scotland, I decided that I needed to see some puffins.  Being from the great Land Down Under, we have lots of birds, but none quite like the clown of the sea.  To see puffins, you’ve really got to get off the mainland and onto the Hebrides, particularly the Treshnish Isles, which were all formed by a huge volcanic eruption. 

When we were in Oslo, we got started looking at some of Norway’s amazing and bewildering geology.  We’d hoped that we would hike some of the fantastic rocks Norway has to offer, like Trolltunga, Pulpit Rock and Kjerag Rock, but the seasons were working against us, and not all the necessary buses were running.  As a compromise, we had decided that on our way up the coast, we would make a stop at Kannesteinen rock in the little town of Måløy.

For two months during spring, Nick and I drove around Scotland, exploring its sites and taking in the magic of this beautiful country.  As a result, we've developed a pretty definitive list of things you'll need to tick off if you've got a visit there on the horizon!

We woke up sore from sleeping in the car and decided to drive to Fjærland, where almost a whole town’s worth of buildings had been abandoned, and then turned into second-hand bookstores.  Stopping by the climate change center on the way (and refusing the pay the exorbitant fee to get in) and making several stops to marvel at the beautiful Fjærlandfjord.

On Tuesday morning we woke up with the sun – not that it ever fully went down – and headed down our little mountain to the town of Sogndal.  Sogndal isn’t a particularly big town, but it’s a lot larger than the other scattered settlements we had seen along the fjords.  Halfway down the hill we stumbled upon a red stave church, which really set the tone for the day, which was to be filled with visits to the beautiful, fairytale-style buildings.

When we woke up this morning, the rain was falling thick and fast on top of the tent.  Nick rolled over and swore loudly.  We couldn’t leave the tent up and hope it would dry, because we were leaving Bergen that afternoon.  We’d have to roll up a wet tent and towel it out in the evening – not ideal, but our only choice.

In May, I was lucky enough to ride the amazing Jacobite train.  Any Harry Potter lovers will immediately recognize the scarlet steamtrain as the Hogwarts Express from the film, and will recognize the Glenfinnan Viaduct it skims over from The Chamber of Secrets.  It’s not the cheapest daytrip to do in Scotland, but it was a definite highlight from my trip.

 Nicholas first woke up with the sun, but I was still falling in and out of sleep until after 7am.  The tent was far too wet – and the inside damp with condensation from our warmth inside – to take down, so we decided to leave it pitched and hope nobody came along and damaged it.  We hadn’t had the guts to do this yet, but figured that camping was so commonplace in Norway that the tent would be fine for the day.

This morning we were out of bed before 5am – the Norwegian sun was up before us though! – and set off with a thermos of hot soup for central station.  From here we were headed on the first leg of our Fjord adventure.  A little touristy, perhaps, but with good reason – we were taking the Norway in a Nutshell tour up to Bergen.

On Wednesday morning, we woke to more chats with Roger, and shared some smoothies and juices with him.  He’d concocted a pretty delicious juice of apple, lemon, ginger, avocado and banana, which he called “the elixir of youth”.  He looks pretty good, so I’ll take his word for it.