04 The North Atlantic Norway
Sixty-Eight North
Ten days in Lofoten and on Senja, the island north of it that nobody drives to — once in late February for the dark, once in late June for the light that does not stop.
- Duration
- 10 days
- Party
- 4 to 6
- Season
- Two departures, late February and late June
- From, per person
- £16,200
The route
- Evenes
- Svolvær
- Henningsvær
- Reine
- Andenes
- Senja
The Lofoten Islands sit at sixty-eight degrees north, well inside the Arctic Circle, and they have become — in the last decade — one of the most photographed coastlines in Europe. We still run a journey there because the islands are still extraordinary, but we changed its shape in 2022: three of the ten nights are now on Senja, the island to the north that most visitors never reach, and the Reine days no longer include the ridge walk in winter.
Two journeys, one name
Sixty-Eight North departs twice a year, and the two departures share an itinerary and nothing else. In late February there is about five hours of usable light, the sea is the colour of slate and the aurora is a possibility on most clear nights. In late June the sun does not set for the whole ten days, and people who think they will sleep through it do not. We ask every enquiry which they want. Roughly two in three choose the dark.
Sigrid
Sigrid Norheim was a coastguard officer in Bodø for fourteen years and runs the journey the way a coastguard would: with a weather window, a fallback and a phone call to the next guesthouse before the car leaves. Her brother Arne owns the boat at Reine. It is a working boat and it smells like one.
Why Mefjordvær
Senja has a handful of good places to stay and one we will book: a six-room house in a fishing hamlet at the end of the Bergsbotn road, run by a couple who moved there from Oslo in 2015. It takes one party at a time. That is why this journey caps at six.
Day by day
The shape of it
Days 1–2
Svolvær
Arrive, and a first walk up the Fløya path if the light allows. In February the light allows about five hours.
Days 3–4
Henningsvær
A converted cod-drying loft on the harbour. A day out with a working fisherman, cleaning what he catches.
Days 5–6
Reine
The far end of Lofoten. Reinebringen in summer; in winter, the fjord by boat instead, because the ridge is a rescue waiting to happen.
Day 7
Andenes
The long drive north, and the ferry to Senja from Andenes in summer, or round by road in winter.
Days 8–10
Senja
Three nights at the only place we will book on the island: a six-room house at Mefjordvær. Out via Tromsø.
What the price covers
Included
What £16,200 buys
- Nine nights in five houses, none of them on a tour-bus route
- Sigrid Norheim for all ten days, and her brother's boat at Reine
- A day with a Henningsvær fisherman, and the cod dinner after
- Breakfast daily, dinner on seven nights, and packed lunches
- Winter-rated boots and outer layers on the February departure
- Ferries, fuel, and the Tromsø transfer on the last morning
Not included
And, pointedly, what it doesn't
- Flights to Evenes and out of Tromsø
- A guaranteed aurora. Nobody honest can sell you one.
- Reinebringen in winter, whatever the internet says
- Glass igloos, northern-light domes, anything with a heated roof
- Snowmobiles — they are loud, and on Senja they are mostly banned