This post about visiting Jostedal Glacier with kids is part of a series covering our trip to Scandinavia. Previous posts are on Amsterdam Airport Schophol (possibly the most eco-friendly airport in the world), Bergen, Norway, and seeing the Fjords on the Norway In A Nutshell route.
We wanted to visit the Jostedal Glacier because it’s the largest glacier in continental Europe and this trip was the closest any of us have ever been to a glacier. I figured out that we would be able to hike as a family to the foot of one of its ice arms called Nigardsbreen without the help of a guide or any real hiking gear. We just made sure to wear sturdy shoes with a good sole and dressed in layers as the temperature can fluctuate wildly as you’re getting progressively closer to a massive chunk of ice.
I’m going to start by being totally real and admit that up until we were actually in Bergen we didn’t know if we’d be able to get up to Jostedal.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. Because we wanted to take the train from Bergen and do the Fjord Ferry, then drive to the Glacier (and then take the train to Oslo afterwards), that meant that we had to rent the car along the ferry route instead of in one of the major cities. (Since I strive to be an eco-conscious traveler, I had first looked into taking public bus transportation instead of driving but given the distance it was just not realistic with two young kids). And as it turned out, there was only one rental car agency (at that time anyway) in Flåm where the ferry landed, and it was a small operation basically run by one guy.
As such, despite contacting him several weeks in advance and going back and forth on the details, we didn’t have actual confirmation that a car would be available for us until we were already in Bergen. Thankfully, he came through with about 48 hours to spare because this part of our trip was a true bucket list experience.
But of course, the fun didn’t end there.
Once we disembarked from the ferry, we thought it’d be a ten minute walk to the rental car location. And it should’ve been. But through a series of errors beginning with Google maps not having his address in the correct location, and then him giving us the wrong directions on the phone, we ended up walking 45 minutes out of our way, carrying all our luggage, with two tired kids, until we figured out where the car rental location actually was.
On the bright side, the scenery was gorgeous. We walked along a river past no less than three skinny waterfalls. That said, my husband ended up carrying our 60 pound child on his back, while still pulling a suitcase, as I pushed our daughter in the stroller, wearing the carry-on backpack, while lugging another suitcase behind me. We were dripping with sweat when we finally got to the right spot, which as it turns out we had walked by because it was a small shed in the parking lot of a brewery. Go figure!
But, the rental car was exactly what we had requested, a hybrid vehicle to boot, and everything from that point on was smooth sailing.
So, this is all to say, sometimes with travel you have your not-so-instagrammable moments, but those in hindsight end up being the stories you laugh about the most, and make you thankful for the other experiences in your trip that go exactly to plan.
The Drive
The first part of our drive up to visit the Jostedal Glacier with kids took us through Lærdal Tunnel, the world’s longest road tunnel! It has three rest stops along the way with beautiful blue lighting, in case your eyes get tired and you need a rest. The drive through the rugged caverns is fun at first, but the novelty soon wears off. You start to crave sunlight once again. We spent 10 long minutes driving through this 15+ mile two lane highway. However, the time lapse (sped up) video below that I took is just 38 seconds long!
Borgund Stave Church
We made a slight detour after the Lærdal Tunnel over to the Borgund Stave Church. This is an incredibly well-preserved 12th century medieval church of Norway, of which not very many remain. They’re made out of wood, and feature intricately carved roofs and interiors. Even though it was not easy to reach by any means, this one is actually Norway’s most visited stave church and perhaps its best preserved! In fact, during our visit it was actually undergoing preservation efforts. You can see where some of the exterior was roped off in my photo from Instagram below:
The church was situated in a lush green valley next to a babbling brook. It was a gorgeous setting and I would’ve been happy to pitch a tent right there for the night, but we had our sights set on visiting the glacier so pushed onwards.
Car Ferry
In order to get up to Jostedal by car, we had to cross the fjord via boat! Thankfully, the process was very well organized with clearly marked lanes for cars to line up in, and attendants waiting to take your toll payment. The ferry takes about 10 minutes across each way, and there were two of them, so even though we had just missed one when we arrived, it was an easy wait. The kids got out of the car and stood by the fjord’s edge to watch the boats cross in the middle. Before we knew it, they had to get back in the car so we could board the ferry!
Cars disembark from the ferry in orderly fashion. We couldn’t believe how many fit in that one ship!
On the ferry, there was an upper and lower deck for cars and we were packed in alongside full size trucks!
From both the lower and the upper deck, you could take the stairs up to the top to enjoy the fjord view. We opted to stay in the car because of the time it takes to remove and rebuckle our kids into their carseats.
When we reached the other side, we had a really lovely drive on a winding two lane highway through rolling hills and past charming little towns. If we had done this drive in the dead of winter it might’ve felt a bit treacherous, but on this sunny day, it was a complete joy. Plus, the kids fell asleep at some point during the drive so we could enjoy the scenery without interruption.
Solvorn
Once the kids woke from their naps, we detoured again down an even more winding road to the tiny waterfront hamlet of Solvorn. I don’t think this village even had a stop light. But it had this friendly convenience store / Thai restaurant (yes, Thai!).
We bought the kids ice creams and sat on the flowered patio. Local boys were seated next to us doing the same, and it was cool to feel like we were just part of the fabric of this community for a moment.
The Solvorn Harbor. Water was so blue, I was tempted to go for a quick swim, but then I remembered that the water is also quite cold this far north even in the summer!
Jostedal Hotel
We finally reached the Jostedal Hotel just before dinner time. This friendly inn is run by a mother/daughter duo and I cannot thank them enough for all their hospitality and assistance in helping me plan this part of our trip. (By the way, I’m including affiliate links here if you’d like to book a stay at the Jostedal Hotel. It costs you nothing to click, but I may make a small commission and very much appreciate your support! You can read more about this in my Privacy Policy page.)
The cozy and clean Jostedal Hotel. You can see the balcony of our room on the second floor just above the main entrance!
View of the gorgeous valley and farm below the Jostedal Hotel. This alone was worth the drive.
I cannot overstate how clean and crisp the air felt up here! Like, pure pollution-free oxygen. Quite a difference from smoggy SoCal where I live. Seeing this beautiful countryside I can understand why Norwegians have prioritized sustainability and eco-conscious living to preserve their natural assets for future generations.
Hotel Interior
Stone, wood, and metal were the building materials of choice here. Very fitting with the natural setting of the entire hotel.
Each room had a solid wood door with a photo of the glacier. We were in room 203.
View from the hallway.
Wooden closet smelled like fresh pine.
Beds were very comfy and cozy. The hotel kindly provided a pack n play for our toddler.
Our son slept in the single bed. Note that all the furniture and flooring use the same light-colored wood as the rest of the hotel.
The bathroom. Definitely smaller than an American style restroom, but clean and had everything we needed. I appreciated that they had an eco-friendly soap/shampoo dispenser instead of offering toiletries in mini plastic bottles.
Dinner At The Jostedal Hotel
The main dining room, where guests gathered for a continental style breakfast and hot made-to-order dinner.
The hotel had multiple high chairs for kids, including the same wooden Stokke ones we have at home!
The restaurant had a very streamlined menu featuring typical Norwegian dishes. We weren’t expecting much from a remotely located hotel, but the cuisine really impressed us!
Our daughter had the kid’s meatball plate. The meatball was enormous, and served on an adorable kids place setting. Also, as an eco-friendly mama I appreciated that the milk came in a glass cup without a plastic straw and the utensils are also not plastic but stainless steel.
My son had the pizza which he gobbled up too quickly for me to snap a photo of.
For dinner, my husband ordered this duck dish, which he said was quite good. The photo doesn’t quite capture how pretty the plating for it was.
I had the local fish, and whatever this cream sauce was that came with it was super yummy.
After Dinner And Laundry
One of the tricks to traveling with kids is to pack light. This is also a good eco tourism practice as it reduces the overall weight on airplanes which in turns lowers their fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. At this point in our trip, we were out of clean clothes. Thankfully, there was a public washer/dryer at the camp site just down the hill from our hotel.
So, after dinner, the kids and I set off down the hill with our bags of laundry. The owner of the camp site happens to be the sister of the Jostedal Hotel owner, and was also very nice and helpful. She showed me how to use the machines, and while we waited for our clothes to be done, the kids explored the stream running past the campgrounds, and also made friends with some horses.
While this wasn’t the most glamorous event of our trip, it was exciting for the kids to have so much face time with these gentle animals. Traveling with kids requires lots of flexibility and a willingness to stop and smell the roses (or horses in this case) from time to time.
Breakfast
As this was the northern-most point of our entire trip, the eternal summer sun made it hard for us to get to sleep at a reasonable hour the night before. And therefore, we slept in late and were literally the last ones down for breakfast. Thankfully, it was a plentiful Scandinavian spread so there was lots left for us to choose from.
Cold cuts and warm brown bread. And of course my favorite, smoked salmon.
Homemade strawberry jam and other condiments.
Just like our hotel in Bergen, the Jostedal Hotel had a separate section for Gluten-Free options!
Love these tea cans.
The hotel had a lounge area which included a kids corner with toys and books. They were kind enough to let our kids bring the bucket of toys out to the dining room and play there while we finished our breakfast.
For an extra fee you could also pack yourself a picnic lunch. We opted for this, and made ourselves cheese and turkey sandwiches. We also grabbed a few apples. This was clutch as we didn’t see any other lunch spots on the way to or from the glacier, and it was quite affordably priced too.
Getting To The Jostedal Glacier With Kids
The drive from our hotel to the Nigardsbreen arm of the glacier took about ten minutes. We knew we were getting close because the scenery just kept getting more and more gorgeous! We passed this body of water which was filled with aquamarine-colored water, melted directly from the glacier.
After paying a small fee to enter the national park, we drove by the Breheimsenteret Glacier Center. It seems fitting that it looked like an alien space ship, because the scenery here was truly other-worldly.
We would’ve loved to go in and explore, but ran out of time.
Ferry to the foot of the Jostedal Glacier
After parking our car in a lot overlooking the glacier lake known as Lake Nigardsbrevatnet, we walked down a short path to catch the small ferry boat. You could opt to start your hike to the Jostedal Glacier with kids from the parking lot, but that would’ve added about a half hour of walking time each way. With two youngsters, we didn’t want to risk tiring them out before even reaching the glacier itself.
View from the parking lot of the boat landing and the glacier in the distance.
From far away, you can really see how much the glacier has eroded. As little as a few decades ago the permafrost ice reached almost all the way down to the lake water. Now due to climate change and global warming it has receded several hundred yards up into the mountain range.
View from the ferry. It was a small boat that fit maybe a dozen passengers. At this point, though the sun was shining in a cloudless sky, the temperature felt brisk and we zipped up our jackets.
Hiking To The Jostedal Glacier With Kids
The ferry boat let us off closer to the glacier, but it was still a decent hike up from there. The trail was marked with spray painted X’s and was fairly easy to follow. It was also fairly easy to walk along the lake’s edge but the path became more challenging once we were on the mountain itself. Our 6-year-old hiked it the whole way. Our toddler fell asleep so my husband carried her on his back in the carrier, which worked out well because it would’ve been too challenging for her to make it all the way up on her own.
Jostedal Glacier with kids…we’re doing it!
The view looking back to the ferry dock from the base of the mountain. You can just barely see some people walking down the gravel on the left hand side, for scale.
As we ascended towards the glacier, the stone got smoother and smoother. This is because it had been covered in glacier ice for thousands of years until recently, and was worn smooth as a result. See if you can spot the humans in this photo for a sense of the massive scale!
Finally the glacier comes into view. It doesn’t look impressive from here, but we’re still quite a ways away. if you zoom in and squint you may be able to see there are people standing in front of it!
If our children were older, we might have considered hiring a guide to take us onto the surface of the glacier itself. That is a much more treacherous climb where you do need real hiking gear and are roped into a safety line. Even if they were of age (I believe the minimum was 8 years old) to go on a guided climb onto the ice, I’d have been worried about them the whole time. Hiking to the foot of Jostedal Glacier was more than enough of a thrill for our kids and for us as well!
About Glacier Erosion and Global Warming
Jostedal Glacier is the largest glacier in continental Europe. And yet, if this photo above had been taken a hundred years ago, the glacier would’ve stretched all the way down to the edge of the photo and up the sides. Basically everywhere you see the lighter colored stone. Tragically, it has been receding in historic proportions due to global warming. In fact, in 2012 alone, one of the “arms” of Jostedal Glacier lost 160 feet of ice in just a matter of months.
Though you can see that beautiful aquamarine color coming through, the top of the glacier was much darker due to pollution. The contrast is perhaps more noticeable in the photo below:
This is as close to the glacier as we could safely go without a guide. The guy standing there actually crossed over the chain barrier to get a closer look. He’s still hundreds of feet away from touching it. The scale was truly massive!
If you’d like to learn more about how global warming is causing glaciers to melt all over the world, here’s a good article from The Guardian on the topic.
And by the way I definitely would not recommend crossing the safety barrier like the man in my photo above. Several people who have done so in the past have died from falling ice, and in fact a tourist sadly died there just about a month after our visit.
Lunch on the glacier
We sat here and had our lunch, enjoying the incredibly fresh air and beautiful views. Even though we were just a couple hundred feet from a massive chunk of ice, we peeled off our jackets because the hike had warmed us up. But then promptly put them back on once we cooled off. It was still quite brisk up there!
At this point, sitting at the foot of the Jostedal Glacier on the other side of the planet from home, I felt incredibly peaceful and proud of my little family for making it to this point. It was worth all the many hours of planning, all the plane/train/bus/ferry/car/ferry rides, and all the hard work to make this trip happen. We were in awe of nature, in awe of ourselves, and inspired to keep moving towards leading a greener life. And seeing the undeniable effect of climate change on such a massive piece of the planet redoubled my commitment to doing what I can to live a more eco-friendly life and reduce my ecological footprint. Truly a bucket list experience and worth every effort if you can try to see the glacier in person (…or what’s left of it!).
On our way down, my son found this stone-shaped heart with a U inside it that a previous visitor had left. He added the I, and said it meant “I love you icy glacier!”
Hiking back down Jostedal Glacier with kids
In this photo from our descent, you can see how slick the rock is. We had to go very carefully so as not to slip on the smooth surface! There were guide ropes in the steepest sections, but otherwise you were on your own.
Our toddler had awoken just in time to see the glacier up close and have lunch. Then my husband put her back in the carrier so she could safely get back down the mountain. You can see her legs dangling behind his back in this photo. Super daddy for the win.
We did it!
We hiked the Jostedal Glacier with kids! From the snafu with the car rental at the beginning, to managing energy levels during the hike, pulling off this part of our trip really felt like a feat of endurance. But in the best possible way. And with the best possible reward: taking in the natural beauty of the Jostedal Glacier as a family before it potentially melts away completely.
From this point, we got back in our rental car and drove back down to Aurland for a couple days in a fjord-side cabin before catching the train to Oslo. You can read all about that portion of our trip in my post about Norway In A Nutshell! Thanks to the car being a hybrid, we only had to fill the gas tank once at the very end of our drive, which was a good thing because gas in Norway was quite pricy compared to the US.
Stay tuned for my upcoming trip report about our stay in Oslo, home of the Nobel Peace Museum, the sprawling outdoor Norsk Folkemuseum, and Vigeland Park.
Lauren (Where the Wild Kids Wander)
Norway is so beautiful! I can’t wait to bring the kids there one day.
Eco Friendly Mama
It should be on everyone’s travel bucket list. Truly a spectacular country in every way possible.
Tessa Zundel
Ah, yes, the “non-instagrmable moments” in travel with kids! These photos are stunning and your children had an incredible experience they will always treasure. That’s the point of family travel, after all!
Eco Friendly Mama
Haha yes, life is what happens between the Instagrammable moments after all. Some of my best childhood memories are from traveling with my family, both the beautiful sights and the funny travel fail moments. And travel helped me to develop my understanding of the world and respect for other cultures, which I hope to cultivate in my children this way as well. Thanks for your comment! : )