Top 7 Hidden Gems in Northern Norway with Joël Schwalenstöcker
Zero To Travel Podcast
Host Jason Moore interviews Northern Norway native Joël Schwalenstöcker to uncover travel destinations far from the crowded tourist tracks
Key takeaways
- Helgeland offers extensive sandy beaches and mountain climbing without the heavy crowds found in Lofoten.
- The island group of Træna features a unique summer music festival held in natural cave settings.
- Bleik in Vesterålen is a premier location for birdwatching puffins and spotting whales or orcas.
- Sommarøy serves as a quieter, beautiful alternative to the overcrowded streets of Tromsø.
- The Varanger Peninsula provides a rugged tundra landscape perfect for trekking along reindeer tracks.
Main topics
- Hidden gems in Northern Norway
- Avoiding mass tourism
- Arctic travel logistics
Notable quotes
Don't go to Lofoten. Go to a place called Helgeland.
Conclusion
This episode provides actionable, expert-led alternatives for traveler
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:00) Here's something to get in early on that's going to help you stay organized on any trip, and it's free right now. It's an app called TripWaffle. They have one goal, to calm the chaos of travel planning via a streamlined app that tells you exactly what you need to know, when you need to know it. Here's how it works. You simply forward any travel-related email you get to TripWaffle, including flights, hotels, cruises. trains, your bike tour reservation, pasta making class, whatever. That whole hot mess of travel confirmations you get in your email is automagically turned into a coherent travel plan complete with timely reminders, useful insights. And a visual itinerary that's a pleasure to use. I've tried it out. It's great. I've gotten several emails from listeners who have also tried it and loved it. They have other features as well, including the ability to share trips with others, expense tracking with auto currency conversion, and more. Go to tripwaffle.com or search for Tripwaffle on the app stores. Throw some older upcoming booking emails at it and see what it can do. Tripwaffle.com. Speaker 3 (1:06) Hey there, I'm Travis Hoyum, one of the hosts of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. Each weekday on Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, we talk through the business news you need to know and the stories moving stocks on Wall Street. On weekends, we game plan personal finance strategies and dive into the industries shaping tomorrow and host the experts, authors, and executives that understand them. Tune in for insights and a long-term perspective on investing and of course, stock ideas, plenty of them. To quote a listener, it pays to listen. Check us out and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:40) Now, with the boom of tourism, especially in Northern Norway, it's never been easier to Google it and find places to go. But it's the same names popping up everywhere. In Northern Norway, Lofoten. Everyone knows Lofoten. In Southern Norway, probably Geirangerfjord is one of the top three search hits. And the Tromsø Northern Lights routes. So the circuit around Tromsø for Northern Lights in January, February is completely going crazy. Especially with tourists from Asia, but also European and American tourism. All these places sit at the top of every list and every feed and all the pictures and everything. It looks amazing. And that creates sort of a feedback loop that results in sort of crowds and just not that of a pleasant experience. And for me, you're not really getting the essence of a place. And I'm not saying you need to interact with people. You need to learn about the history and the culture and all this. Just not getting the experience that I think is there. It's up for grabs. And many times, I think that experience is a lot cheaper as well. Speaker 1 (2:40) You're listening to the Zero to Travel podcast, where we explore exciting travel-based work, lifestyle, and business opportunities, helping you to achieve your wildest travel dreams. And now your host, world wanderer and travel junkie, Jason Moore. Speaker 1 (2:57) Hey, Jason Speaker 4 (2:58) here with ZeroToTravel.com. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here, letting me bring a little travel into your ears today. This, of course, is the show to help you travel the world on your terms. And we've got Joel Schwalenstocker here. You might wonder about that name and think that doesn't sound very Norwegian. It's Speaker 1 (3:15) a Speaker 4 (3:15) crazy story how we ended up growing up in northern Norway. And I love to tap locals for these episodes. And look. He talked about the feedback loop there where you get on, you start doing the research, and a lot of the same places come up. That's why I bring you these episodes. Don't tell anybody because you're in the know. These Hidden Gem episodes, they're deep recommendations from local experts. So get ready to take some notes. This is great because this applies to all seasons. The thing about northern Norway is many people travel up there in the winter as well to see the northern lights. And of course, in the summer months too. And I haven't spent a lot of time up in Northern Norway, really. So I had a blast recording this one and bringing you these lesser known places to visit in Northern Norway. I think some of them are going to surprise you. And here's something really cool. Joel is giving you a cheat sheet. It's got a hundred stays and restaurants away from the noise in Norway. If you go to noraventura.com slash unlisted. Use the promo code zero at checkout just for the listeners of this show. You'll be able to grab that and we'll link up to that in the show notes. Stick around in the back end. I'll leave you with a quote to wrap this one up, which I think is apropos for now. Please enjoy my conversation with Joel. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the other side, my friend. Speaker 4 (4:46) Joel Schwalenstocker. Joel Schwalenstocker. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:49) Doesn't make sense, does it? Speaker 4 (4:50) From Northern Norway. Welcome to the Zero to Travel podcast, my friend. What a treat to have you up here. We're in person in my living room. I'm so glad you agreed to do this. So thank you. My Speaker 2 (5:01) pleasure. My pleasure. Well, Speaker 4 (5:03) we connected because you sent me a message on email and you're like, hey, I'm aware of your podcast. Basically, I live in Oslo and I used to, or I do work in the music industry and now I'm kind of... sort of transitioning a bit into travel and you sort of did the reverse thing. Like I was in the music industry for a little bit and then got more into the travel stuff with Zero to Travel and everything. And you're like, there's just too many synchronicities here, basically. So we decided to just meet up for a coffee and now we've met up a few times. And, you know, you grew up in Northern Norway and I'm like, well, this is a special area of Norway that I feel like people are really only aware of the sort of main. Speaker 4 (5:43) extreme places, let's call them. Because of course, Northern Norway landed the midnight sun and the Northern Lights, which is what brings a lot of people up there. But there's so much more. You grew up there. You're a travel expert because we're going to talk about your own personal history traveling. But just share quickly, because we were talking before we recorded, you talked about the takeaways you wanted people to have coming from this episode. So I think you should just share that right up front so people know what they're getting today. Speaker 2 (6:10) Well, yeah, well, I want people to, when they search Norway or Northern Norway in particular, I want people to like, when I, when I mentioned these places, I want them to just see the images and see the places that, oh, these are like amazing alternatives to where everyone else are going. And I think that's sort of what I want people to realize that there's so much more undiscovered, wild, crazy adventures to be had in Northern Norway. Where you're not going to just stand in line with everyone else and have the same sort of selfie photo from the same viewpoint. So that's sort of what I want everyone to get from this, hopefully. Speaker 4 (6:45) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's right in line, I think, with what people here love to hear. And it's so easy on the surface when you're planning a trip to kind of end up at those places. And one of the things you talked about before we recorded is... hey, I basically want people to find the places that they're not going to find if they're just Googling or even going into the AI search and all that kind of stuff. And that's the local perspective that you bring. So let's just, before we dive in to some of the hidden gems and talk about tourism in Northern Norway and how we can help you avoid some of the crazy tourism going on there, I want to hear a bit more, I want people to hear a bit more about your background in travel. Because when you say you worked in the music industry, I mean, you were like, you were traveling around quite a bit. doing what you were doing. Talk about your experience traveling around Norway and places around the world. Speaker 2 (7:34) Well, actually, it starts before me. It starts with my parents. Yeah. And so just a little origin story of my name as well. I'm Speaker 4 (7:41) a Speaker 2 (7:41) guy called Joel Schwallenstein. I'm coming from Northern Norway. That sounds German. It is. It is. And French. Exactly. My dad's German. My mom's French. They got nothing to do in Norway, but they met in Finland. or actually they met in Norway and then they traveled to Finland in the 60s and 70s and bought a sailboat. And it was an old, like a sand boat working and transporting sand on the Finnish lakes. And then they rebuilt it and redid it into a houseboat so we could live on it. And they spent, I guess, like 10, 15 years sailing around Scandinavia and they went to France for a while. And then my dad had this dream. He wanted to go to Svalbard. For those who don't know what Svalbard is, it's an island group of islands almost at the North Pole. But it's Norwegian. So it's at like, I don't know, like 82 degrees. Special place. It's really, really special. This was like the late 70s. They started sailing from France. And then I think they were like a bit broke and they were arguing a little bit. They had like crew that were coming on and jumping off in random ports along the way. They basically spent too much time up the Norwegian coast. And coming to a city called Tromsø, where I'm from, they were broke and it was the autumn already. So they couldn't sail up because they wouldn't be back before the winter storms. So they spent the winter in Tromsø, working, making some money. And then they just never left. Because they fell in love with the area? I don't know. Maybe. My dad probably liked my mom less. She wanted to go back to France. And this was like 79. And my oldest brother was born in 82. So I guess they just started like having kids and just selling down a bit. Yeah. We lived like, I lived my first six or seven years on this boat. It was a hundred foot sailboats, like seven sails. It's a huge thing. A wooden boat. So I lived my first seven years on that boat, just outside of Tromsø. And then, you know, later we just moved on into a house and it just became like the place we grew up with a French mom, a German dad speaking French at home. And sort of that's, I guess, sort of the adventurous side of me and the traveling. Or it's like the wanderlust in me. It must come from something. Probably my dad. But then, you know, I never really thought about like where I'm living. If it, you know, there's the scenery, the nature, which is sort of our playground. And I wanted to go into music. I, you know, started playing instruments and I started working with. production, et cetera, et cetera. Many years later, I became an agent and I'm, you know, I've been doing that for close to 20 years now, 15, 17 years or something. So I've been booking artists tours and their shows around Norway and around Scandinavia for, you know, a fair amount of years, traveling and seeing places where there are festivals, where there's concerts, where there's stuff happening. And then I just realized that, you know what, I'm doing this for all these artists. And at the same time, I love traveling myself. And I spend like every bit of spare time I have on Google Maps, just looking at places that I could go where I could like, I would take my kids and have an amazing adventure in some, you know, create some new memories. And then I just realized, you know what? Tourism in Norway is sort of backwards these days. I think it's booming. There's so many people coming, especially to Northern Norway, especially to the city I'm from. But... I think everyone's going to the same places and there's so much more alternative. And when I go abroad, for example, I'm looking for the places that I want people to discover in Norway. Like the places where there's someone that has thought it through, curated something special that's bound to the place and to the territory and to the people and maybe also to some culture and some history. It doesn't have to be like hyper Norwegian, but there's someone that's created something of quality. that isn't for the masses, but for those that know where to look. I think that's sort of the places I'm looking for. And that was sort of a mission that I found like, you know what, I could do this for Northern Norway because I'm seeing like where everyone's going. And it's like, if you just go 15 minutes that way, you'll be on your own. Speaker 4 (11:53) It can be crazy that... literally 15 minutes from where you are can be a completely different experience, but you just have to know about it. Before we dive into some of the recommendations, where can people get in touch with you if they want to connect after the show and get some of your advice around travel in Northern Norway? So my Speaker 2 (12:12) platform is called Noraventura, which is not a Norwegian name, but it's sort of an international name of adventures in Norway. So it's noraventura.com. or go at noraventura.com. So I'm not really too much on the content side of things. I try to keep more in the background. I guess it's something I just have from also being in the music industry. I'm not on stage. I'm in the crowd looking at my artists, but everyone here is here because of me. And I know that, but no one else does. I kind of like that feeling. And I guess it's the same approach with this. It's like I'm not creating the, I'm not holding people's hands on the adventures. I just want to help them get there. Speaker 4 (12:50) Yeah. Fair enough. Have you ever been fully starstruck with one of the artists you work with? Can you share? So we've just been like, I do this professionally and this is fine. This is what I do. But oh man, I can't believe that person's right there. Because you've worked with some big artists, I imagine. Speaker 2 (13:09) Yeah, mostly Norwegian and Scandinavian artists. And no, I don't get starstruck. Speaker 2 (13:14) It's weird. I have this respect for people and their privacy in a way that I don't really see them. I see them as like... Speaker 4 (13:20) But Speaker 2 (13:20) even Speaker 4 (13:20) inside, you were just like, oh... Speaker 2 (13:22) I think it's like cool maybe to have like they're in my contact list or something like that. Yeah. It's mostly to, you know, it used to be to show off to my friends, but not being starstruck in their presence. No, because I'm like, I see that they're just people and they just want to be by themselves. And it's the same, I think. Speaker 2 (13:44) with international artists as well. It's like they just want to be left alone. Speaker 4 (13:49) Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, you're professional. I have had moments backstage where I've been completely sort of blown away by who I'm in front of and trying to keep my cool. But inside, I'm like, oh, my God, that's... Well, my Speaker 2 (14:03) wife, I met my wife in the music industry. She also works