You have finally done it, decided to visit Norway. Now the fun of planning for your trip begins. Today’s traveler has access to a wide array of websites to help with that planning. No matter what you are looking for you are sure to find it on one of these sites.

Visit Norway is the official travel website of Norway. It is a very straightforward site that has a lot of good information in a user friendly format. The home page has current news about things that are going on in Norway right now, like in late winter the Northern Lights. It has an interactive map that will take you to a wide variety of popular tourist destinations. Clicking on any of these dots will take you to a new page and lots of additional information about that particular location. It also has stunning photos that will confirm in your mind that you have made a very good decision by deciding to visit Norway.

You can find out more information about things to do, where to stay, culture and travel to and in that city. You may also find a link to a website for that particular city. If you plan to visit cities, this is a very valuable site and can help you plan just about every aspect of your visit.
On the home page there is a section called shortcuts where you can go directly to the pages to find out how to get to Norway and how to travel around the country. You can find out the latest news and weather and a lot of other practical information.

This website is very comprehensive and it covers just about anything that you might want to know about travel to Norway. You could plan your entire trip from this one website but why would you want to? Just for the fun of it, visit some of these other websites as well, you never know what great ideas you will find.

Planetware is a site that is much more in depth about the smaller more remote locations. It isn’t comprehensive and only has a small overview of many of the smaller cities but it is easy to use and the information is valuable. If you are planning a driving or walking tour of Norway, they offer a wide variety of options. They tell you where to start and end and sites worth a visit along the way. The website also has some maps that you can download to familiarize yourself with Norway.

Nation Tourist Routes in Norway is a wonderful website for planning a trip. If offers 18 tourist routes that are designed to allow tourists to see some of Norway’s remote and fascinating landscape. Clicking on 18 Tourists Routes brings up a map with points marked on it. Picking one of the marked spots, Andoya, it brings up a small write up, click a second time and you get a new page with History, Experiences and Attractions. You can then add it to your personal trip planner.

Norwegian American is a different type of website, it is the only Norwegian American Magazine available and can be a valuable resource when you what to actually know what is going on. Read about Norwegian Heritage, A Taste of Norway and Travel among many other pages. This is a fun website but it is also filled with very good information. It is the perfect place to get into the spirit of Norway before you actually take your trip

Go Scandinavia is the official site of the Scandinavia tourist boards in the US and it is a good website to bookmark especially if you plan to visit more than one country in Scandinavia. On the home page you can choose your country and of course Norway is one of them. If you click the link it will take you to visitnorway.com so don’t click it. You can use the homepage to find tour operators who specialize in Scandinavia and to easily download or order brochures.

If you are a fan of bed and breakfast, B&B Norway specializes in Bed and Breakfasts in Norway. You will be able to find a B&B in almost any section of the country you are interested in. B&B allows you to get a closer feel for the country and her very friendly people. By clicking on the B&B Catalogue link you will find a map of the country divided into districts and you can choose the one or ones that fit your itinerary.

Fjord Norway is the perfect site to plan your vacation home rental in Norway. You simply put in your dates, the number of people in your party, the type of accommodation you are looking for and then the region. The available choices with their prices will pop up for you to peruse and you then you can add it to “My Planner”.

The Internet has changed the way that vacations are planned. We can now do the research ourselves and even personally arrange the bookings. Using the best websites of Norway travel will make that planning easy and informed. What are you waiting for? The fjords are calling

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund should encourage companies within its portfolio to be more transparent about their tax affairs, according to the country’s Parliament.

In a report by the Storting’s cross-party finance committee, its 18 members unanimously backed a call for Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) to publish details of how it expects companies to conduct their tax affairs.

In a chapter of the report examining the existence of tax havens, the committee said it believed improving reporting and tax transparency requirements for companies in which the NOK7.1trn (€763bn) Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) invested would “counteract” the secrecy prevalent in some jurisdictions.

It added that increased transparency would result in better-functioning financial markets and therefore urged the Norwegian government to have NBIM draft an expectation document on tax affairs.

While the publication of an expectation document is not a foregone conclusion, the government has previously heeded unanimous recommendations by the finance committee.

The committee previously called for NBIM to publish an expectation document on human rights, which it released in February.

NBIM is not averse to examining tax affairs and last year analysed the corporate governance risk associated with a number of its holdings, including their tax affairs, according to the fund’s 2015 responsible investment report.

The committee further called on the government to examine the holding structures used by NBIM to invest in real estate and report on the manager’s approach as part of the 2016 year-end annual report on the management of the sovereign fund, due to be published in the spring of 2017.

MPs said it was important the “advantages and disadvantages” of different organisational structures be properly explored, noting the NBIM’s previous commitment to look at grouping its real estate holdings into regional Norwegian-owned holding companies.

In a letter to the Ministry of Finance in November last year, NBIM chief executive Yngve Slyngstad and central bank governor Øystein Olsen explained the use of subsidiaries to manage its real estate exposure.

Their letter states: “Investing through subsidiaries is the most common way of organising unlisted real estate investments and serves to make the investments more marketable.

“The Bank is currently exploring the possibility of grouping its subsidiaries into regional holding structures for Europe, the US and Asia.

“In this context, we are considering whether it would be appropriate to use Norwegian rather than foreign holding companies.”

The letter also calls for the GPFG’s real estate allocation to be raised to 10% – a request unheeded by the government, which instead opted for a 7% upper limit.

(ipe)

Foreign workers are leaving Norway like never before, new figures from Statistic Norway (SSB) show.

Norway’s economic recession has led to high unemployment rates among foreign workers and according to SSB a record number of them opted to leave the country last year.

Some 3,500 Poles left Norway while emigration was also high among migrant workers from Sweden, Lithuania and Germany. The overall number of foreign workers who packed up and left Norway is higher than ever recorded by SSB.

“Within the construction indusry, a large proportion of the employees come from abroad. It is hard for them to find new jobs because the market is very difficult,” Torben Sneve, the CEO of staffing company Adecco, said.

At the beginning of the year, 45 percent of Adecco’s employees were foreigners. Today that figure is down to 27 percent.

Sneve said that Hordaland, Rogaland and Southern Norway have been hit the hardest. In Hordaland alone, the market shrunk by 17 percent last year, he said.

(NTB)

Ryanair has come under attack for deciding to close its base near Oslo – a move that is expected to result in the loss of 1,000 jobs – after Norway introduced a new tax on air passengers.

The Norwegian prime minister has accused the Irish budget airline of attempting to “dictate” policy, after the carrier announced it will scrap its base at Oslo Rygge airport – 66 kilometres from the Norwegian capital – in October and axe 16 routes, meaning its traffic in the country will fall by 50pc.

Ryanair is scaling back its operations in protest against an 80 kroner (£6.70) levy on passengers leaving the Scandinavian country that was imposed today. Rygge has warned that because Ryanair is such a major customer, the departure of the airline will force the airport to close, costing 1,000 jobs.

The stance of the no-frills carrier has provoked a stinging response from Erna Solberg, the Norwegian prime minster, who has reportedly said: “We can’t let decisions be dictated to us by a company that has already put pressure on a number of countries concerning taxes and costs.”

Ryanair, which is led by pugnacious chief executive Michael O’Leary, often takes firm public stances against policies it opposes and regularly criticises governments and other companies.

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It has waged a campaign against online travel agent eDreams because it claimed it was “deceiving” consumers with a “copycat website”. The carrier has also repeatedly called on the European Commission to make it harder for air traffic controllers to bring chaos to the skies with regular strikes.

David O’Brien, the carrier’s chief commercial officer, said: “The Italian Government, which hiked passenger taxes in January, has already said it will review its decision, given the impact its tax will have on its airports.

“Sadly, the Norwegian Government have chosen to sacrifice 1,000 jobs at Oslo Rygge for reasons which defy explanation. This is a black day for Oslo Rygge, for Norway and for Norwegian tourism.”

(telegraph)