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Julia Mattos

My name is Julia and I am originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I moved to Norway in 2017 to study and ended up meeting my now husband and deciding to stay in this beautiful country.

What places and activities do you specialize in?

"Norway"

How did you get involved in travel?

"I started traveling very young. My family would always take family trips to nearby towns and it made me love traveling. When I became older and was able to travel by myself I started doing so and have not stopped yet and don't plan to anytime soon. I love discovering new places and experiencing different cultures and cuisines. "

Please share a unique travel experience you will never forget.

"My first trip in Norway with my husband was a road trip to go hiking in Kjerag and Preikestolen. I remember that even the scenery from the drive was amazing. Preikestolen was a very nice and easy hike with great views, while Kjerag was much more demanding and difficult, but it made the trip even more fun to be able to conquer it. "

Julia is part of the following groups: Sweden Travel Agents, Denmark Travel Agents, Norway Travel Agents
Top itineraries and travel advice

Favorite experiences

Geirangerfjord Waterfall Cruise

Embark on a scenic fjord cruise through the UNESCO World Heritage Site Geirangerfjord. This 9-mile (15-km) stretch offers an incredible introduction to Norway’s famed fjord scenery. You’ll pass high mountains and spot abandoned farms that seem to cling to hillsides. As you cruise from Geiranger...

Explore Stavanger like a Local

Stavanger is a lively university city with a vibrant atmosphere. Its compact city planning makes it easy to explore, even in a short amount of time. Wander the city like a local, visiting beloved neighborhood spots, historic sites, artsy districts, or areas outside Stavanger on a day trip. Start...

Hike Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock)

This excursion amid the Norway fjords isn't any ordinary hike. On the contrary, it's an adventure unto itself—a moderately difficult trek up one of the most beautiful trails in the world. And the reward, once you reach the endpoint at Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock), is a viewpoint the likes of which...

Hike the Kjerag Boulder

This guided hike sets off early from the city of Stavanger to beat the crowds. The destination is the top of Kjerag, one of the most famous mountains in Norway and one of the most beautiful hikes in Scandinavia. Known as the "majesty of the Lysefjord," it gets its name due to its location in the...

Explore Oslo's Hidden Gems

Oslo, the capital of Norway, is a city of endless possibilities. Located between the water and evergreen forests, it takes a mere 30 minutes to travel from one end to the other by metro. It's a metropolis known for its rich history and museums, some of which celebrate the macabre works of the...

Viking Heritage Walk

Let a local help you discover Bergen's historic Alrekstaðir, the Norse King's residence during the kingdom of Norway. The old estate sits dramatically at the base of Ulriken, one of the seven mountains surrounding the city. You’ll first follow your guide through Bergen, exploring the cultural...

Recent trip reviews for Julia

Our Scandinavian Adventure
Norway | Jun 29 - Jul 22, 2025

Jim
Jim B.
San Jose, CA | Reviewed on Jul 29, 2025
Norway and Sweden are both fabulous travel destinations and the trip we planned with Julia's assistance was absolutely wonderful! Despite having a great time in both countries, I regret that, aside from Julia, who was a delight to work with, our experience with Kimkim was less than positive. At times it was extremely frustrating, not to mention that the service you provide is quite expensive and more time-consuming than if we had booked the entire vacation on our own. First and... Read more

Norway and Sweden are both fabulous travel destinations and the trip we planned with Julia's assistance was absolutely wonderful! Despite having a great time in both countries, I regret that, aside from Julia, who was a delight to work with, our experience with Kimkim was less than positive. At times it was extremely frustrating, not to mention that the service you provide is quite expensive and more time-consuming than if we had booked the entire vacation on our own.

First and foremost, I disagree with your business philosophy. Julia was wonderful. I gave her clear cut direction regarding the vacation experience I wanted, and she provided me with guidance and advice as to how my expectations could easily be achieved. Based on how well we worked together, I asked her to give me a quote, which she did. The price was high, much higher than I expected. I then took the time to price the trip myself, and discovered that Kimkim's mark-up was approximately 20-25% higher than if I booked everything on my own. Yet, I wanted to work with Julia. I felt she put time and effort into planning our vacation. I wanted her to get some remuneration, so I asked her to provide a quote, just for the transfers and tours, to which she agreed.

Even though it was still high, I accepted the revised quote because I wanted Julia to get credit for the booking. Then after paying a non-refundable deposit, Julia told me that she only worked as a travel planner. Since the planning process was now complete, one of her colleagues , a woman named Fenne, was now in charge of booking our trip. After a brief introduction, I never heard from Fenne again.

Five months later a new person, Jacob, pops up in the chat. He told me he was taking over for Fenne. Frankly, at this time I was somewhat worried that over five months had elapsed since my last conversation with Julia, and I had yet to hear from anyone at Kimkim confirming that our tours and transfers had been booked. I was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to obtain the tour guides we previously had requested from Julia, despite having paid a deposit months earlier. Unfortunately, this delay created some problems. In both Oslo and Stockholm, the most knowledgeable and professional tour guides had already been booked.

In Oslo, Jacob booked a private guide for us. Her name was Ana Maria. Abby and I have visited more than 60 countries in the world. Never have we ever experienced a guide who was so incompetent. First of all, we never asked for a private guide. A group tour would have been fine. Secondly, Ana Maria was not Norwegian. She was an unemployed free-lance publisher from Columbia, South America who had lived in Norway for less than two years; only because her husband got a job in Oslo.

Our tour documents said we should meet Ana Maria at Jembanetorget, but we couldn’t find her phone number on the voucher. Jembanetorget is a main square in Oslo with lots of people milling around. Another tour guide was standing at the tiger statue holding a sign up for a walking tour, but our name wasn’t on his list. He phoned Oslo Walking tours on our behalf and was told that the meeting place was Oslo’s National Theater. Since we didn’t have time to walk there, he was kind of enough to ask us to join his tour, which we did. Ten minutes into the tour, my phone rang. It was Ana Maria calling to find out where we were. As things turned out, she had been at Jembanetorget all along, but she didn’t carry a sign with our name on it, so we could find her. BIG MISTAKE! We finally connected at the Oslo Opera House.

While Ana Maria is a lovely lady, she was the worst tour guide I ever had. She had no plan regarding what we should see, nor did she have any experience other than referring to a guidebook and then reciting what she had read, back to us. Fortunately, we were able to see the Opera House as well as Oslo’s new library right next door, but nothing else. As our travel agent, Kimkim made absolutely no effort to use tour guides with five-star reviews from other travelers. They simply subcontracted all of our tours to Nord DMC or to some other some other Destination Management company.

We also never requested a private tour guide in Oslo, especially a guide as inexperienced as Ana Maria. In our case, a group tour would have been far preferable. I blame this solely on Kimkim, as we were traveling during the peak season, and Kimkim waited five months before starting the booking process. Our tour guide in Stockholm, who also was booked through Nord DMC, was equally incompetent. I believe his name was Daniel, but I’m not sure.

There were two reasons for my dissatisfaction with the Stockholm guide. First and foremost, he was not as prepared nor was he as thorough as other tour guides who we observed walking a group of tourists through the Old City to the same sites. Other guides spent 2-3 times longer at each site than our guide and the information he dispensed was superficial at best. The other guides also provided their visitors with an audio headset to block out street noise so visitors, who were not standing right next to them, could hear every word they had to say. Our guide also seemed to be more interested in talking about us, who we were and where we came from, as opposed to engaging in an in-depth conversation regarding the history of Sweden and Stockholm in particular.

Unlike Visby and Bergen where we did have excellent guides, our guides in both Oslo and Stockholm were a total disappointment. Visby, on the other hand, was fantastic! But, I think this may have been a stroke of luck! Our guide’s name was Ronny Larsson, a retired Swedish Army Colonel, who commanded the last regiment on Gotland Island, before it was disbanded in 2005. We couldn’t have asked for a better guide. Not only was Ronny "au currant" on foreign affairs and Sweden’s current role in NATO, he also was a fountain of information about the historic role of the Hanseatic League during the medieval period, when Gotland’s many churches were being constructed. We had a great time with Ronny during the two days we spent together touring Visby as well as the surrounding north island vicinity.

However, the reason I say Ronny was a “stroke of luck” is I don’t think Kimkim had anything to do with assigning him to us. The reason I say this is according to Kimkim’s trip plan and tour documentation, Gunilla Laustrøm was assigned as our guide for both tours. Ronny Larsson was a last-minute substitution. We just lucked out!

While overall, we had a wonderful experience touring Scandinavia, I can’t really say that our experience with Kimkim measured up. At the beginning of my review, I said that I disagreed with your business philosophy, namely, having a person other than the trip planner with whom you were used to working, book our tours. The booking person, in our case Jacob, had no idea as to our likes, dislikes and travel interests. He simply dumped our tour requests over to a Destination Management Company, Nord DMC, and let a third party do the heavy lifting. Then Nord DMC selected various tour operators located in each city visited to assign our guides. (i.e. Oslo - Fjord Tours, Oslo Walking tours; Balestrand – Glacier Tours; Bergen – I Love Bergen Walking Tours; Visby – Gotland Guide Service; Stockholm – Tours of Stockholm)

I was under the impression that Kimkim would book our guides directly, based on the information I previously had given to Julia. Obviously, this was not the case. For this reason, I cannot give Kimkim a five-star review. Aside from the information Julia provided while we were planning our trip, I don’t see any added benefit to using Kimkim as a travel agent. I also suspect that Julia Mattos is actually an employee of Nord DMC, and not Kimkim. Julia lives in Kristiansand, a city in southern Norway where Nord DMC has their home office. However, this could just be a coincidence.

Kimkim is also not the first time Abby, and I have used an online travel agent. Last year we booked a 4-week safari vacation, visiting three countries in Africa: Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. The agency we used was “go2africa”, one of Africa’s leading safari destination companies. Our travel arrangements were extremely complex, involving multiple countries, hotels, plus internal flights between six different safari camps using scheduled plus non-scheduled private airlines where we were the only passengers. Our entire vacation was booked electronically, and all services were personally handled by “go2africa” employees. Nothing was subcontracted as is the case with Kimkim. Similar to our Scandinavian trip, this also was an unescorted private tour. I think Kimkim could learn a lot from them.

Sincerely,

Jim Brown and Abby Everson

Activity Reviews
Stockholm Archipelago Tour with Guide
Stockholm Archipelago Tour with Guide
Stockholm

The scenery was gorgeous. I was under the impression that lunch was included when we booked this tour. Other passengers had lunch. We didn't. Big disappointment! I thought we paid for lunch.

Quality of Experience
Transport
We booked this because it was a luncheon cruise. Somehow Kimkim dropped the ball regarding this. That's a problem when you have someone other than a travel planner book your itinerary.
Walking Tour Stockholm
Walking Tour Stockholm
Stockholm

Our tour guide was not very knowledgeable regarding the sites we visited.

Quality of Experience
Provide headsets to all participants
Welcome to Visby
Welcome to Visby
Visby

Excellent transfer. Our driver was a retired Olympic athlete.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Day Tour of Gotland
Day Tour of Gotland
Visby

Ronny Larsson was our guide.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Walking Tour of Visby
Walking Tour of Visby
Visby

Ronny Larsson was one of the best guides we have ever had.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Past & Present City Walk
Past & Present City Walk
Bergen

Excellent tour guide but too many people were booked on the tour. Future tours should be limited to 15 passengers, maximum. As a tour guide we had in Amsterdam once said, "any tour over 15 people is not a tour; it's a parade. Headsets should also be provided, so you can enjoy the experience without being immediately next to the guide.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
The tour guides knowledge, what I could hear of it.
Fjærlandsfjord Cruise & Bøyabreen Glacier Visit
Fjærlandsfjord Cruise & Bøyabreen Glacier Visit
Balestrand

This was an excellent tour but should be expanded to a full-day program. We didn't have enough time to thoroughly explore the Glacier Museum and also see the film.

Quality of Experience
You don't get to see a glacier in most parts of the world. However, you need a full day to really make this tour worthwhile.
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Our guide was more of an escort than a knowledgeable guide.
Transport
The boat to the glacier could have more amenities.
Grand Tour and Fjord Cruise
Grand Tour and Fjord Cruise
Oslo

Our tour guide was excellent. We especially enjoyed our stops at both the Fram museum as well as the Norsk Folk Museum. However, the downside was traveling on a bus with a large group of cruise passengers having so many people on the bus, not only slowed things down, it made it impossible to hear the tour guide where we did stop unless we stood right next to her which was not always possible. Vigeland Park is a perfect example. Our guide had lots of interesting information to convey, but because of the size of the group, most of the time we couldn't hear her. Knowing our interests, Kimkim should have recommended we take a private tour instead of booking us on a bus tour where the majority of passengers were part of a cruise shore excursion. We also lost half an hour picking up passengers at the port of Oslo. The fjord cruise portion of the tour was a complete waste of time. A recorded explanation of all the sites we passed was not what we expected. This was a big disappointment compared to the Archipelago Cruise we took in Stockholm.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Knowledgeable and interesting guide. With a group this large, headsets should have been provided.
Transport
Get rid of the cruise passengers. Charge more and use a small van. Delete the fjord cruise and spend more time at the Folk Museum as well as the Fram museum.
Essential Oslo Walking Tour
Essential Oslo Walking Tour
Oslo

Ana Maria, our so-called private tour guide which we never requested was the most unknowledgeable guide I have ever experienced. (see my general write up for more detailed information.

Quality of Experience
Our Walking Tour Guide was a complete waste of time.
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Ana Maria, our guide, added absolutely nothing to our experience in Oslo.
Local specialist: Julia Mattos

We contacted the “local in Norway” KimKim age...
Norway | Jun 2 - Jun 3, 2025

R
Robert M.
Jacksonville, FL | Reviewed on Jun 04, 2025
We contacted the “local in Norway” KimKim agent to try to change our departure from Flam to Bergen by bus and by train. While responsive, he was not useful. He initially proposed buying new tickets for our party of four (approx total $200). We did it ourselves for free and arrived 2 1/2 hours ahead of initial schedule into Bergen. Five hours at the Viking Village makes no sense unless we were traveling with young children. Read more

We contacted the “local in Norway” KimKim agent to try to change our departure from Flam to Bergen by bus and by train. While responsive, he was not useful. He initially proposed buying new tickets for our party of four (approx total $200). We did it ourselves for free and arrived 2 1/2 hours ahead of initial schedule into Bergen.

Five hours at the Viking Village makes no sense unless we were traveling with young children.

Hotel Review
Fretheim Hotel
Flåm

Room needed modernizing!!!

Authenticity & Character
Location
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
Update the room and the bathroom!
Activity Reviews
Viking Day in Gudvangen
Viking Day in Gudvangen
Gudvangen

KimKim had us scheduled for about 5 hours here. Ridiculously long. 90 minutes was sufficient. Also. There are two different parking lots; we did not know which lot to go to get our bus to Voss.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Fjord RIB Safari & Undredal Cheese Tasting
Fjord RIB Safari & Undredal Cheese Tasting
Norway

Extremely windy and cold. Guide/driver was very good.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Norway in a Nutshell Tour
Norway in a Nutshell Tour
Norway

Train from Oslo was very good with assigned seating. Flam train did not have assigned seats. It was chaos at the station trying to get on with heavy luggage while people were trying to get off the train.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Local specialist: Julia Mattos

Alex's Norway Trip
Norway | Sep 1 - Sep 11, 2024

Alex
Alex M.
Denver, CO | Reviewed on Sep 25, 2024
I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed in Norway. My experience was fantastic, all of the activities were insightful and fun, and I was able to see so much of the culture & nature within this beautiful country. I'm thrilled to return eventually, and am so grateful to everyone involved that helped coordinate this trip for me. Read more

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed in Norway. My experience was fantastic, all of the activities were insightful and fun, and I was able to see so much of the culture & nature within this beautiful country. I'm thrilled to return eventually, and am so grateful to everyone involved that helped coordinate this trip for me.

Hotel Reviews
Thon Hotel Tromsø
Tromsø

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Thon Hotel Tromsø. The staff were friendly and helpful with providing plenty of suggestions for local pubs or restaurants to try during my free time. The room was comfortable but it felt cramped with minimal ports for chargers because a desk was in my room with "ports" for charging but none of those ports worked, and there wasn't enough room to move the desk to access the outlet that desk was plugged into. Shower was very tight but worked. With each night, you get a ticket for "Evening Fare" in the dining room on the lobby floor - the light fare is a great little appetizer selection of bread, cold cuts, soup, little snacks, etc that you can enjoy before going out to dinner for a real meal. The hotel has no views in any direction of any room, so you will see other buildings in the city nearby only.

Authenticity & Character
Thon is a very common hotel chain in Norway - comfortable but not boutique.
Location
Located in the heart of Tromsø, extremely convenient to get around to any popular activity or food destination.
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
Bergen Børs Hotel
Bergen

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Bergen Børs Hotel. This place had the greatest breakfast buffet I've ever seen in my life. This is one of the nicest hotels in all of Bergen, and for great reason. This hotel was my favorite by far - the room was very modern and the shower was actually big enough for someone my size, thankfully! It sits right by the ports in the heart of Bergen and was absolutely amazing. 12/10

Authenticity & Character
Location
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
Zander K Hotel
Bergen

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Zander K Hotel. This is a pretty hotel but all of Bergen is cobblestone! You either pay for a $30-40 taxi, or do what I did and walk over a mile completely uphill. The breakfast was delicious, the staff were personable and helped as needed. The rooms are extremely spacious but not well-ventilated.

Authenticity & Character
Location
From the port where most travelers come in from, the hotel is a little over a mile away. All of Bergen is cobblestone, and taxi's are expensive. You either have to pay quite a lot for a
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
Kviknes Hotel
Balestrand

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Kviknes Hotel. One of the greatest hotels I’ve ever been to in my life around the world - this would be 6 or 7 Stars if I could make it so. Even in the Modern-Section of the hotel, the rooms felt rustic but very high quality, and my fjord-view was breathtaking. Extremely kind staff that were insightful about the area and provided great recommendations for hikes, meals, and history of the area. A historical and modern side of the hotel (I would love to go back and stay in the historical side).

Authenticity & Character
Location
Incredible. It is nestled by the port, at the base of mountains, surrounded by several fjord entrances.
Staff
12/10
Cleanliness & Comfort
15/10
Heimly Pensjonat
Flåm

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Heimly Pensjonat. This is a fairly older building, the rooms are very small which is tough for a bigger person like me, and it is far from the rest of town with a decent incline to drag your luggage up for about a quarter mile. I would suggest this place for backpackers and light travelers who would prefer some solitude from the small town. It’s surrounded by an orchard and the top-floor rooms have a great view of the fjord - there is no form of A/C though, so you can expect some bugs in your room from the orchard if you open your window to try to get some air during the day/night.

Authenticity & Character
Location
You have a great fjord view but it's the furthest lodging from the center of Flåm. About a 10-15 minute walk at a quick pace; this trek made it a little more difficult to time out when I could come & go from my hotel between activities because all activities start in the center of Flåm or the far side opposite of where this lodging is located.
Staff
Incredibly kind staff.
Cleanliness & Comfort
Furniture in the room and throughout the hotel is fairly outdated but it was all clean.
Flåmsbrygga Hotel
Flåm

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Flåmsbrygga Hotel. This is 1 of 4 hotels right in Flåm - not the most luxurious as it is a smaller building with 41 total rooms but that was absolutely unnecessary because it was by far the best that I visited in all of Flåm, it sits closest to the water and is cabin-like with a cozy vibe, right next to the local brewery/pub that is extremely popular but not rowdy (can't hear any noise from the pub if your balcony door is closed. This hotel was top notch and my balcony view overlooking the fjord was unreal (until the next morning when a gigantic cruise ship came into town and took up my view).

Authenticity & Character
Location
If you face the East, you may wake up to a cruise ship blocking your view of the fjord, but otherwise, rooms on both sides of the hotel have balconies and fjord-views.
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
The "Double-Bed" that I was provided in my room was two Single mattresses pushed together. I'm a very large person, this wasn't the most comfortable but it really was not uncomfortable at all - I would have just preferred to have known what to expect prior to entering my room.
Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel
Oslo

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel. The hotel was flawless. My room & shower were exceptionally clean and new; the building itself is the tallest building in all of Oslo. The rooftop bar had a magnificent view, and the nearby pubs that a local I stopped to speak with recommended, Pier 42 and Papa Borracho; both were fantastic for beautifully crafted cocktails and wide varieties of snacks.

Authenticity & Character
Location
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
Hotell Bondeheimen
Oslo

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I stayed at the Hotell Bondeheimen. The hotel checked me in extremely early, the concierge GiGi was very kind - all staff was friendly and responsive. I slide my room key into a port by the front door to turn all the lights on in the room between the shower and bedroom - something that I was not accustomed to but encountered in every hotel throughout Norway. The full bed was very comfortable; great sheets, fluffy pillows, lovely little view of the street from my 5th floor room (out of 6 floors).

Authenticity & Character
Location
Staff
Cleanliness & Comfort
Activity Reviews
Fjellheisen Cable Car Ticket
Fjellheisen Cable Car Ticket
Tromsø

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Tromsø Cable Car. The cable car is off the island, across the bridge, on the mainland. I caught a Tromsø Taxi which was very easy - the walk would’ve been over 45 minutes while the taxi ride was 10-minutes. The cable car made it to the top in about 5 minutes overlooking all of Tromsø and the surrounding areas of mountains, sea, fjord, and outskirt towns! A cafe called the Fjellstua Café sits at the top where the cable car deposits you. The open-faced roast beef sandwich was great, especially sitting out on the open viewpoint tables. There are dozens of trails all on top of the mountain that you can traverse to go get different perspectives miles away from the cable car. I explored little bits of a few different directions of trails and got some fantastic views. The cable car ride down was just as easy, along with the Tromsø Taxi ride back to Tromsø Island!

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Husky Puppy Training Visit
Husky Puppy Training Visit
Tromsø

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Husky Hike & Puppy Visit. This is a 100/10, 10-star experience. I was exhausted from the Northern Lights trip and minimal sleep but a few minutes after arriving at the Puppy Farm, everything changed and I was beyond revitalized. This is something every single traveler to Tromsø should experience if they aren’t afraid of dogs, and those that are but might be open to overcoming their fear absolutely will at this Husky Home. We started off by putting on rainboots and heading down to a marsh where a dozen puppies were released and came sprinting down to us. 9 travelers total, we split into teams of 3 and spread far apart with a bunch of treats in each group. We spent 30-minutes calling the 2 month old puppies to each of us to teach them to respond as a group! After they were put back, 8 older puppies came sprinting towards us and we all walked over to creek where each group spread out again and we proceeded to call them back and forth across the water to get them to practice being comfortable traversing water like they would have to during dogsledding. When training was done, 3 people (I was one) were allowed to put on harnesses and our group took 3 sled dogs on a 2 miles hike through the area! It was so fun - the other 2 people were dragged and stumbled a few times but the biggest dog which was pulling me was having a blast trying to yank me around but I was big enough that he couldn’t pull me around. We were given a traditional Norwegian/Portugese lunch and told about the history of Norwegian fish being shared with Catholic countries, how the relationships developed, and why the Portugese made a meal that is now famous in Norway. For the last hour, we were walked into a gigantic enclosed area outside where there are over 100 huskies housed, all of them were extremely friendly and loving, I was able to go play with all of them at least 4 times before the bus had us leave!

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Aurora Safari Minibus
Aurora Safari Minibus
Tromsø

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Aurora Safari Minibus. This was a very nice experience that everyone needs to do. It was led by a young Austrian woman named Sonya, she was very informative about Tromsø facts and science related to the Northern Lights. The sun sets incredibly late this far North above the Arctic Circle in early September, so we started our tour by going Northwest, off the island and through an underground bridge over to the Kaldfjord - a beautiful view of the only fjord near Tromsø (all other bodies of water actually belong to the Norwegian Sea, and are not fjords). We were able to pick some wild blueberries, they were delicious. After hanging out by the fjord, we hopped back in the van and were driven 2 hours practically directly South (back in the underground bridge, through Tromsø, over a different bridge to the mainland, and down to an area called Solligården. Our guides know a man who owns much of the land, has a beautiful house atop a hill, and a small cabin with benches outside by the water that the guides are aloud to bring tourists to try viewing the Northern Lights. Our guides set up a bonfire after about 30 minutes of hanging out and telling us about the area. From about 10:15pm to 12:30am, we sat by the fire chatting and eating stew/drinking hot cocoa. At that point, we hadn’t seen much but had a perfectly clear sky filled with stars which was beautiful. The guides decided that they would slowly start to pack up and we would leave to head back. Almost as soon as they were done packing, another traveler and I noticed some weird movement in the sky that looked like off-colored clouds swaying. The guides identified those as the Lights starting to form - on camera, it looked bright green. 5-minutes later for the next 30ish-minutes, the sky started filling with all sorts of green wispy cloud-like forms filling up every area we looked, and the shots on our cameras were like gigantic rainbows everywhere! We were driven back at about 1:45am. The company will drop off certain travelers at the Tromsø campground on the way back and everyone else in Tromsø at different hotels will be returned to the Radison Blu where we were picked up originally.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Fjord Cruise to Rosendal
Fjord Cruise to Rosendal
Bergen

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Fjord Cruise to Rosendal. I sat on top of the cruise ship to enjoy the views for the 2-hour ride, it was beauty in every direction. Plenty of comfortable seating in the ship as well if desired and a helpful cafe with an assortment of snacks and drinks. Roseldal is a cute town with an absurdly cool backdrop as you pull in with the ship. It is basically directly between two conjoining mountains and there is a large, steep waterfall cascading down between the mountains. The hike to the waterfall viewing area is extremely easy. It goes past the town, through a few miles of countryside, and you end up at a gigantic roaring waterfall! I knew I was going to hike to the waterfall, so I packed extra clothes, just in case… the locals I asked all said swimming in it was totally acceptable but chilly; If you’re as adventurous as me, that’s just motivation! I made my way through 30ish yards of extremely difficult brush and tore off my shoes to jump into the waterfall and pools beneath it - NO REGRETS, IT WAS AMAZING! The handfuls of people walking the trail up & over the falls cheered me on and applauded me while in the water. I dried off with the towel I brought and changed into fresh clothes to hike back to the town for lunch. Ate a chicken quesadilla which was super random but honestly one of the most packed and delicious quesadilla’s I’ve ever eaten. Sat inside the ship and relaxed on the Fjordcruise back to Bergen - it was very comfortable even with my dead phone.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Cider Tasting with Food Pairing
Cider Tasting with Food Pairing
Balestrand

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Cider Tasting & Lunch. This was a 12/10 experience - 6 Stars without a doubt. This was an incredible experience. You walk 15-minutes from the town center. There are over 1,000 genes of apples sitting on the orchard, and we were taught plenty. 7,500 different kinds of apples in the world. In Norway, the term difference between alcoholic and non-alcoholic cider is simply saying cider or juice, unlike the U.S. The ciders produced onsite had 4.7-16% alcohol. I was able to sample ciders on each end of that spectrum. Fun fact; heavy rain seasons may produce great amounts of product that year but they are actually not good, they cause water weight to hurt the trees and generally exhaust them, so the following 2 seasons after a heavy rain will only provide minimal amounts of product. The food pairings for lunch with each cider were perfectly crafted.

Quality of Experience
Food
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Stegastein Viewpoint by Bus
Stegastein Viewpoint by Bus
Norway

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced Visiting the Stegastein Viewpoint with a Bus. The 3 buses that were set to take us were severely overcrowded, as was the viewpoint as a whole. As a solo traveler, I had the perk of getting the last seat on one bus, sitting next to the sweetest driver - she admitted that every single day, the buses get overbooked by the company and they just give out refunds like it’s nothing because it’s so common. Essentially, you have to fight for entrance to the bus (a lot of folks were very aggressive, shoving their tickets at the drivers to get their group entry to the ride up the mountain). These buses obviously don’t have A/C, so the bus is very hot. The view was nice but a hike to a different peak would be just as good, and would not have hundreds of people within the space of a couple hundred feet just for an oversold view.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Fjord RIB Safari & Undredal Cheese Tasting
Fjord RIB Safari & Undredal Cheese Tasting
Norway

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Summer RIB boat Safari & Local Taste of Undredal. This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve ridden plenty of RIB-boats while my dad was in the military and I’ve seen some cool places on the water in the past but this experience was like none-other. First & foremost, being a solo traveler has its perks - everyone else on 1 of the 2 boats was either from a giant group or a family. Although the captain asked the tallest people to sit in the back (eyeballed me jokingly), others filled the back first, and only the very front was left - he said it was ok for me to sit up front, so I sat alone up front! When we were going 30kmph most of the time, it felt like I was completely alone on the boat seeing the most incredibly mountain views and waterfalls in EVERY SINGLE DIRECTION THAT I LOOKED!!!!!!!! (Counted 58 but I think I missed a few, definitely at least 60+ in the 1.5 hours we went outward from Flåm). Our boat captain, Robby, was hilarious when he would stop and tell stories about the different areas of history we were viewing - he even drove us up under a waterfall to get the edge of the boat wet and splash a little water on me, after asking if I was okay with it, which was great. We finished the tour by stopping in Undredal which was incredible - it’s a tiny town founded in 1127 which hadn’t gotten a road until 1992 and WiFi until 2014 - it’s famous for the brown cheese you find all around Norway! They have 50 people and 400 goats in the tiny town surrounded by mountains - we were given a cheese tour of how the cheese is made and sampled plenty; the story is basically that a road was built in the early 1900’s between Oslo to Bergen, and branches were built to lead to Flåm and a couple other cities - Undredal was only accessible by boat and wanted to give the state of Norway a region to blow a few miles of holes into the mountain to make a road for Undredal, so they took great care of the goats and developed a technique for making a mildly sweet cheese that could be stored without refrigeration for up to 75 days, it is now a globally-known award winning cheese!

Quality of Experience
11/10 - 6-star experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Summer Kayaking Excursion
Summer Kayaking Excursion
Norway

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Summer Kayaking Excursion. My guide, Patryk, was a fantastic German exchange traveler who actually lived about 10-minutes from where I spent some time living in Stuttgart! He was a great guide who helped everyone tremendously, gave informative knowledge about the fjord, the waterfalls we passed, Flåm, the city of Aurland we passed, and a sunken WWII battleship that could be dove to if you’re certified! Patryk and I talked for a bit after, he suggested a couple waterfalls that I could hike to from Flåm, and we plan to connect when he visits Colorado at the end of next summer for a kayaking trip.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Ægir Viking Meal Experience
Ægir Viking Meal Experience
Flåm

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Ægir Pub: Viking Dinner Experience. This is the most popular spot in all of Flåm (extremely small town with only a few hundred people, during peak season), a reservation is paramount. The dinner experience was phenomenal - I was overjoyed from the moment it hit my table; the 5-beer samples were all beautifully colored with perfect pairings for the flavors of the incredible little meals assigned to each plate in front of each mug. It was colorful, delicious, unique, and full of some items I had never tried but can’t wait to eat again. My dessert was an apple compote with a strawberry & rhubarb creme that I’ll never forget, along with a great espresso martini.

Quality of Experience
Food
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Private Floating Sauna Experience
Private Floating Sauna Experience
Norway

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Private Floating Sauna Experience. This was incorrectly scheduled; I did not have a private experience, I was crammed into the sauna with 2 other couples and a family of 6. They were all friendly but none of us were terribly comfortable. Aside from the lack of space in a sweaty environment, the sauna felt great and jumping into the fjord a dozen times was insanely fun, especially being able to climb a ladder on top on the saune to jump/dive/canonball into the water.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
The Saunamaster is just a normal staff member of the company who gives you a 2-minute explanation of how to use the sauna and that you can jump off the roof if you want. They sit outside on their phone the rest of the time unless called upon.
Transport
Full-Day Private City Excursion
Full-Day Private City Excursion
Oslo

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced the Private Tour of Oslo's Highlights. Lisa was my tour guide and she was absolutely phenomenal! We started out our tour by going up above the city to a lovely viewpoint where you could see a panoramic view of Oslo, she described the various sections of the city from the far edges of wealth to the bustling city center mostly full of businesses vs residents, and the areas of homes and apartments just below us from our view that was filled with the majority of everyday contributors in the city and the nieghborhoods filled with a younger crowd of citizens who recently graduated from university and move back to Oslo. Next, we went to the Oslo City Hall where she shared the history of the Norwegian murals all along the inside of the City Hall auditorium. Some depicted the religious transition from Catholic to Lutheran while others showcased the start from farming and fishing up to the noble expansion of the land surrounding Oslo. She also shared information about Alfred Nobel and how the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony take place December 10th every year in Oslo. After City Hall, we tried to visit the Kvikness Art Museum but it is closed on Mondays, there is a special seat within the museum you can reserve to sit in that was once sat upon by the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm. We instead headed to the Fram museum which was incredible! We passed by the Royals’ away home by the beach, and pulled up to the museum which is located in the wealthiest district of Oslo. The Fram museum is dedicated to Norwegian polar expedition and has several subsections in the museum dedicated to Viking sailing and Maritime revolutions from Norway. It holds 2 gigantic ships that you can go on and explore inside, as well as a fantastic 5-minute film, with headphones to translate the commentary into 10-different languages, that tells the story of how dog-sledding was invented and the 3 different Fram-ship expeditions that led to the northernmost exploration of the Arctic. After the Fram museum, Lisa brought me to the Olympic Ski Jump Centre which was enormous, truly a wonder of engineering - followed by a fantastic little Norwegian-Germanic hotel-like restaurant atop one of the nearby mountains. Our final activity before finishing the tour was exploring the The Vigeland Park, a city-sponsored park filled with work exclusively from the famous Gustav Vigeland - it was a cloudy day with sprinkling rain, the park is composed of a dark color palette, and it was practically empty of other visitors; the aesthetic provided a perfect experience for what Gustav would have wanted his visitors to see. Afterwards, Lisa dropped me off at the Munch museum to finish my day before dinner and sleep. I bought my ticket and entered - it was a beautiful museum filled with art from a very distressed man who expressed tremendous emotion in the most subtle ways. I made it upstairs just in time to see the Scream be revealed (it is unveiled for 3-minutes every hour). A must-do aside from seeing the Scream painting is to go to the top floor of the Munch museum - there is a rooftop restaurant and bar that overlooks the harbor and downtown Oslo.

Quality of Experience
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Oslofjord Evening Cruise with Prawn Buffet
Oslofjord Evening Cruise with Prawn Buffet
Oslo

I'm a kimkim staff member and I was on a work trip when I experienced A Norwegian Evening on the Fjord. The cruise really started boarding just before 6:30pm, so when I got there at 6:30pm, there was already a large line that had already started taking most of the seats along the sides of the boat (highly recommend claiming one of those side-seats, especially along the stern or a seat up top along the bow because they are all side-of-the-ship-seats). The boat workers were very funny and informative throughout the cruise about local island names and some history of the fjord. The Prawn dinner wasn’t bad, definitely gotta recommend travelers take advantage of the dill and lemon that come with it as they make the prawns delicious but it is fairly bland without the seasonings, you also literally pick apart a full shrimp/prawn from head to tail, so some travelers may be a little grossed out like a few people around me. Sunset was insanely beautiful along the fjord, the cruise had blankets and heat lamps all across the boat, and they played a lot of fun American tunes from the 80’s that had many passengers dancing.

Quality of Experience
Incredible sunset and the views of the fjord were spectacular, along with the views of the neighborhoods nestled on all of the islands we saw.
Food
Picking apart full prawns was not an appetizing experience, a few travelers around me didn't eat at all because of that, they just had bread and butter instead for the 3-hour trip.
Guides, Drivers and Staff
Transport
Local specialist: Julia Mattos

Norway road trip
Norway | Aug 3 - Aug 7, 2024

T
Tera W.
Los Angeles, CA | Reviewed on Aug 08, 2024

Everything was perfect and always quickly responded when there was an issue! Thank you for all your help for a lovely trip to Norway!

Local specialist: Julia Mattos
Julia
Julia Mattos
Local specialist in Kristiansand | Replied on Aug 08, 2024

Hello Tera,
Thank you for the review and it's great to hear you had an amazing time in your time in Norway! :)

Best,
Julia