Scandinavian Skies

Did my $10,000 estimate scare you? Good, it was meant to. Yes, you can definitely get there for less, but you’ll spend more than you realize once you’re there. It adds up in a hurry.

If $5,000 is really all you have, don’t fret, you can do this. You just have to limit your destinations to less expensive options. The longer the flight, for example, the more expensive it will be. Every extra hour of flight time adds $100/person. So, instead of Rome or Prague, stick to the western edge of Europe.

Iceland fits this bill – you can get there in less than 6 hours from NYC, for $500/person. And it is technically a part of Europe. They speak a form of Norse that is readily understood by a Dane or Swede, and vice versa. I’m told the countryside is other-worldly, especially the volcanoes and thermal baths. And the Icelandic peoples are considered the most beautiful, physically, in Europe: tall & fit, if you go for that kind of thing. After all, their Viking forefathers did have a habit of carting off the prettiest girls from wherever they raided.

Beyond that…off the top of my head I couldn’t name a single famous Icelandic sight. There are no castles or cathedrals. No famous museums or medieval districts. No shopping boulevards or ancient ruins. If they have a national cuisine beyond herring, I haven’t heard, much less tried it. And I have no idea what they drink: meade? Beer, I suppose, but I can’t name a notable Icelandic brewery or style. And wine is right out. It seems to be a few cute & colorful seaside houses, and a lunar landscape beyond. Unless the latter is really appealing to you, I don’t get it. Please be sure: I don’t doubt the people are very friendly, and the fact that they haven’t emigrated en mass to the US is a good sign – life in Iceland is probably pretty good, currency crises not withstanding. However...visiting Iceland strikes me as the equivalent of going to Quebec for a week and saying you were in France. Quebec is lovely, the Quebecoise are delightful, and Quebec should be on your list of travel destinations -- but it’s not Paris.

Perhaps then you want to spend an extra few hundred and get all the way to, oh, Olso? I won’t stop you. Norway has more of what you’re looking for, starting with those darn fjords. They are unique, and astounding – nothing else quite like them anywhere else. Plus, Norway has a good chunk of continental culture, too – e.g., Edvard Munch was Norwegian. You’ll find art and architecture – bonus on that side, I find the cheery wooden temples of Norway to be a great break from the stone gothics further south. And remember that plucky Norwegian Air flies NYC-Oslo direct, at bargain rates. Go for it.

Norwegian Air, in fact, has stops all across Scandinavia. A week at the fjords seems like a long time to me, too, so perhaps you should include Sweden on your itinerary – or even start there. Sweden is an old kingdom – their relation to Norway is similar to Spain & Portugal. Sweden had wanted to dominate the peninsula for centuries, sometimes even successfully, but the Norwegians just wouldn’t let it happen. Sweden, in fact, had aspirations of being a world power, but could never quite get past pesky Russia. Eventually, they grew tired of their kings being killed on some foreign battlefield. They decided to just stick to themselves and build their own Great Society, based on equality, innovation and design; who can gainsay them on that? Visit Stockholm and you’ll find a clean, unspoiled, cosmopolitan city with great restaurants, fine shopping, friendly people, and a nifty mix of old and new. That's why the Swedes (along with the other Scandi countries) always rate high on those “happiness index” reports. They have everything – why be unhappy?

I don’t quite buy it, though. The Swedes should be happier than, say, the Italians, whose economy is perpetually on life support. But go visit both places, and you tell me who seems to be enjoying life more. I’m not much of a grit and earth traveler: I don’t vacation in Borneo so I can eat grubs like the locals, or spend a week in Almaty searching for the perfect hand woven tapestry. But I want some adventure, just a little, please? I think the Scandis, deep down, feel the same way. When you take away the struggle for the basic needs in life, food and shelter, what’s left but to drink, and ponder mortality? The Italians stared at post-Modernity and produced Fellini. The Swedes gave us Bergman.

Anyway, such for Sweden. Let’s pop on down to Denmark, a country which, frankly, should not exist. You figure Germany or Sweden would have scooped this guy up some time ago, it’s just hanging out there without the easily defensible terrain of Switzerland or Norway. And had Germany not been busy reassembling itself out of Richelieu’s 100 splintered principalities, Denmark probably would now be in the Bund, along with, oh, Luxembourg and chunks of Belgium, at the very least

Anyway, Denmark is lovely, with a vibrant kid-friendly culture – bring your little ones and you’ll get Hans Christian Andersen, the Tivoli gardens in Copenhagen, and Legoland, the good one, not those cheap mall-located Lego playrooms you’ll find scattered about the US. You can find excellent beer, haute cuisine, and fine shopping.  You can marvel at how these guys terrorized coastal Europe for centuries, and then settled down to peace and productivity. You can spend a fortune.

Did I mention that? Iceland is indeed a bargain – easy to get to, as mentioned, plus they’re desperate for tourism, having been crippled by the recent banking crisis. Their currency, the Icelandic Krona, was seriously devalued against the Dollar (and Euro), not having recovered: it’s a cheap stay. In contrast, Stockholm regularly ranks as one of the most expensive cities on the planet. Take a look at the “Big Mac” index: the cost of a Big Mac, adjusted for market currency exchange rate. The top five countries are:

1. Switzerland - $6.82 (6.50 CHF)

2. Norway - $5.65 (46 NOK)

3. Sweden - $5.13 (43.70 SEK)

4. Denmark - $5.08 (34.59 DKK)

5. United States - $4.79

You get the picture? Your dollar gets a lot less in Scandinavia proper. (Side note, makes me proud to be an American, landing at #5 on this list. Roughly, you can tell how well a country is doing by how quickly it drains your travel budget). Suddenly your $10,000 budget creeps into $12,000, and I’m not going there. Iceland starts to look a lot better in this regard, and, if I were living in NYC or Boston, I’d think about a short week or even a long weekend in Reykjavik. It would be cheaper than me, from Birmingham, spending a weekend in NYC or DC. Why not? It’s just not practical, though, to get there from the Deep South. So, no, as it is, the Scandis just don’t make my travel list. There are better options, stay tuned.