Athens
Madeleine
In her element planning active, outdoor-heavy itineraries. Also the one to call for group travel — reunions, milestones, friends going together.
Five countries, two entirely different trips — and the one you want depends on the month.
Winter here is northern lights, husky sledding, glass igloos, and Christmas markets in the dark. Summer is the midnight sun, island-hopping, and hiking at ten at night because it’s still light. Same countries, almost nothing in common. Deciding which one you’re after is the first real question, and it changes everything downstream.
The under-appreciated answer is often spring or fall: fewer people, better availability, good hiking weather, and some of the best aurora odds of the year.
Where to go
Three places worth building a trip around
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. These three are where most trips start.
Norway
The fjords, and the way in
Record-breaking fjords, coastal ferries that double as transport, and scenic rail through the mountains. Bergen and the western fjords are the classic route; the Lofoten Islands are the one people come back talking about.
Iceland
Volcanoes, glaciers, hot springs
Close enough for a long weekend, wild enough for two weeks. Geothermal pools, whale watching, and glacier hikes — with the aurora overhead from roughly September to March.
Finnish Lapland
Winter, properly done
Glass igloos, reindeer, husky sledding, and Rovaniemi — where Santa officially lives, which settles a certain argument for anyone traveling with children.
Endless ways to experience it
What kind of Nordic trip are you after?
Northern lights
Best odds from September to March, well above the Arctic Circle, on a clear night. We’ll build in enough nights to give you real chances.
Midnight sun
Sunset and sunrise at once, for weeks. Summer here means hiking, kayaking, and dinner outdoors at an hour that feels wrong.
New Nordic food
Forage-and-cook in Sweden, pick your own oysters in Iceland, bake bread in an active geyser. Genuinely unlike eating anywhere else.
Unusual places to stay
Arctic igloos, treehouses, converted cranes, glass domes in open country. The accommodation is often the reason people remember the trip.
Cruising the coast
Norwegian coastal voyages and Baltic sailings — a practical way to reach fjords and islands that are hard to link by road.
Design and cities
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Reykjavík. Walkable, cyclable, and quietly among the best-designed cities in the world.
Who you’ll work with
Pick the office nearest you.
All four of our advisors plan Nordic travel. Which one you work with is usually just a question of which office you’d rather walk into.
Dunwoody
Leslie
Planning European travel since 1990. Ask her about the history nobody told you to look for.
Dunwoody
Steve
Left a career as a chiropractor for a year-long trip around the world, and came back to help other people take theirs.
Tuscaloosa
Stella
A year living in France taught her to travel slowly. She builds trips around local life — markets, long meals, the streets past the checklist.
Go deeper
More on the Nordics
Country guides, hotels, and current offers — kept up to date through our relationships with colleagues around the world.
Ready when you are.
Tell us roughly what you have in mind and we’ll take it from there.
