Tromso, Norway in the Winter: Favorites and Photos

December 21, 2019

Tromso, Norway is a total delight, even in the winter when daylight lasts for only a few hours. The folks in Tromso do not let the winter cold or dark crush their sparkly spirit.

Tromso is Northern Norway’s largest centre, and is located approximately 400km north of the Arctic Circle. I know that sounds extremely cold, but it actually isn’t. It is situated in an area where there is a warm ocean current coming through that makes it warmer than other Arctic zones; the average temp is around -5 C in the winter (although it can get to -25 C).

Tromso church — The stunning Arctic Cathedral, built in 1965.

Our favorites for Tromso:

Favorite place we ate at: the Huken Pub— it is a small, cozy, super comfy, kitschy place filled with vintage items and old furniture with delicious food. The baked potato was to die for, and the berry bacon pancake made us want to come back the next day.

Favorite in town activity: While I should say “run the Polar Night Half Marathon” (see my blog post on this!), the best thing we did was talk the adorable front desk guy into letting us use the hot tub on the top of one of the hotels on the waterfront, the day after the marathon. The views were amazing and the hot tub was glorious.

Lucky to find a hot tub on a roof! We talked our way into a hotel’s rooftop patio. Thank you adorable gay counter dude!
The view of the Tromso harbour, from the rooftop hot tub.

Favorite out-of-town activity: self-drive dogsledding. We went on a tour where we learned to mush our own set of (obviously well-cared for) dogs. One person drives the sled and the other sits in the sled. Jill and I took turns and switched regularly because it is actually hard work to drive the sled and to not flip the sled and dump your partner into the snow face first—which happened 2x to another pair! We went in the early evening while it was dark. Thankfully, they give you super suits and boots to wear to keep you warm. After the rather long ride, the group helped feed and put the dogs away and then we enjoyed hot drinks around a fire, and the Northern Lights came out briefly. Pretty cool. Definitely recommend doing this!

Dogsledding in Tromso — Our dogsledding adventure. The oldest dog was on our team a sweet 13 year old girl. We had a team of 6 dogs. We managed to not dump each other in the snow, even through a small blizzard (one couple dumped themselves 2x!)

What I wish I had haven known about: Vulkana– a ship turned into a Nordic spa in the port. This would have been my dream come true!

What I wish I had have seen more of: Northern Lights. Although they are common in that area in the winter, we were not so lucky, and the only time we saw them was on our dogsled ride for a few brief minutes.

Place to stay: We stayed at a really lovely AirBnb right near the centre of town (click here for listing), which was totally the way to go in Tromso. Considering how dark it is, it was really nice to have a comfortable place to hang out in, eat and puzzle the long winter nights away. I think if we had have been in a hotel room, the long nights would have become too long. Instead, I remember this part of the trip so very fondly.