Best Apps for hiking in Norway - safety, weather forecasts, maps and more
hiking in Trollheimen, here on top of Riaren
what are useful apps when hiking in Norway?
The best apps for hiking in Norway, for emergencies, weather forecasting, public transport, maps, the Norwegian Trekking Association and some just for fun.
Smartphones and apps are now very much part of our daily life, but given that you might be trekking in remote areas in Norway, do they make sense? Will mobile apps work when hiking in the mountains, through the valleys of Norway and along its fjords? Which apps should I have on my phone when on the trail in Norway?
These are fair questions to ask, even though hikers have visited the Norwegian mountains for over a century and for the most part did so without any of these gadgets. If you prefer to be ‘offline’ while you are hiking or trekking, go for it. In fact, no mobile app should replace navigation with map and compass or seeking advice from locals.
There is never a guarantee for mobile coverage in Norway’s remote areas, and you should not rely on it. Still, many places do have reception, and even in remote areas the mountain tops seem to have reception quite often. Personally, I have found mobile coverage on many tops in Trollheimen and Dovrefjell, and around the Lysefjord. In the national parks of Jotunheimen and Rondane mobile reception is even more prevalent.
With this said, which mobile phone apps are useful for the hiker on a trip to Norway?
Not unsurprising, quite a few! Some I recommend to anyone hiking in Norway. No matter whether you are out on a great day’s hike up or a longer more adventurous multi-day trek. Regardless of your destination, be it a favourite top or the heart of a fabulous national park - here are apps that will make your hike potentially safer, more comfortable, provide interesting information about your surroundings or are just plain fun.
(Full disclosure: I do not receive any benefit from mentioning these specific apps, in money or in kind – I just think they may enhance your hiking experience; prices for in app purchases were current as of July 2023)
jump to the apps
hjelp 113
this app saves lives in Norway
Whether you are planning to hike in Norway or even just here on a visit, this free app is surely a must-have. If you find yourself in an emergency you can access any of the emergency services through this app. It could save your life.
In an emergency, when you phone through the app , it will send your location to the relevant emergency centres in Norway. This could be the fire brigade, medical or police services. It can be difficult to explain where you are especially when travelling or hiking in a foreign country and while in distress. When using this app your exact GPS coordinates will be sent while you are calling, provided you have activated the app for it.
In an emergency concerning mountain rescue the emergency services will automatically deploy the best response based on the automatic location information provided during the call. Even if you have had to hike to a higher ground for mobile reception, and you are not at the site of the actual emergency this should give you the best chances for recovery. The rescue team would be able to know where to start looking and get help to you and your party as soon as possible.
The app needs access to your location, your phone status and identity to work optimally; you can manage these permissions as always in the settings of your phone. My advice would be to download before departure. Set yourself up in the safest way possible, for your next adventure. At the same time, remember to take out adequate insurance when travelling to Norway. Mountain rescue is free, but follow-up costs and health care could be expensive.
Update March, 2023: When downloading the app without having a Norwegian mobile number, you will only be able to upload your foreign mobile number, once you are in Norway.
(Related content: when disaster strikes, the nine rules of the Norwegian Mountain code)
This incredibly useful and free app offers weather forecasts in English as well as Norwegian for around one million places in Norway. It is easily the most detailed weather forecast app for Norway that you could have on your phone, and the forecast is generally of excellent quality and reliability. The short-term forecast is updated every 3 hours for all of Scandinavia. The longer-term forecasts are updated twice daily.
The app is very user friendly and offers different viewing options. The forecast displays as image, table or graph, and you can edit a list of your own favourite locations through the search function. A neat feature is that the app also displays a ‘feels like’ temperature to give you an idea of the wind chill factor.
In case of bad weather warnings issued by the MET (Norwegian Meteorological Institute) or NVE (Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate), these appear on the app and are colour-coded to signify the danger (not surprisingly yellow, orange and red for moderate, serious, and extreme weather respectively).
The app is provided by yr.no the joint online weather service of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (met.no) and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). In addition to Norway it provides forecasts for another 10 million places around the world, so there is bound to be one near you too. Why not download it to test and become familiar with its features.
The word ‘yr’ is a very Norwegian word, difficult to translate. Meteorologically, it refers to an overcast featureless grey sky with a light continuous drizzle. At the same time, as an adjective, it means giddy (with joy), unbridled, wild. I find it hard to marry the two meanings, but when a language has a special word for a special weather condition, I take note! It is always good to take your rain gear along on any hike, regardless of how accurate the forecast seems.
yr
best weather forecast for Norway from yr.no
DNT Apps
membership card and payment apps by the DNT
When hiking hut to hut in the Norwegian Mountains, membership of the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT) is truly beneficial. Rates for members are much lower on all services and food in the cabins. In about four days you will have already earned back the cost of membership. The DNT offers two useful and free apps, one for your membership card, and one for payments. Both come in handy while hiking or trekking and when making use of their extensive network of mountain cabins and lodges. Both apps are personal to you, and you will be guided through a registration process after installation.
The DNT membership app is simple and straightforward. Once you are a member, this app will store your membership card, so you don’t have to carry it around with. Cabin staff will generally ask for proof of membership, so just knowing the number by heart is usually not sufficient – not all cabins have the option of quickly verifying your membership online. Once downloaded, mobile cover is not required anymore. It assumes of course that you will be able to keep your phone charged. For information on how to do this while on a hiking trip into the mountains, keep your eyes open for an upcoming blog.
The second app is “DNT – hyttebetaling”. This is a payment processing app for all your DNT-associated costs. The DNT is moving away from the paper forms that you fill in when staying at their mountain cabins and lodges. With the app you will eventually be able to pay for your stays, food and other services in any of the more than 550 cabins owned by the DNT. This could be fully serviced lodges, their self-service cabins, where you can than pay for the items you take out of the pantries, and the services of the un-staffed and non-serviced cabins.
Not all cabins have gone digital yet, but the DNT is gradually introducing all their network’s cabins to digital options for payment as well as reservation for stays. Once cabins are ‘live’ for payment through the app, you will be charged an administration fee if you choose to pay through their paper-based system in the cabins themselves. This is to encourage you to move away from the labour-intensive paper-based system of the past, but without forcing you to own a smartphone.
The app works in cabins without mobile cover as it lets you add items such as visits, stays and provision withdrawals offline as well. Once you have mobile cover again the app will alert you to this, so you can make your payment. Payments by Mastercard and Visa cards are supported by the app. The local Norwegian payment system Vipps is only available to residents.
The DNT cabins are a fantastic resource for all hikers venturing out into the Norwegian mountains and fjords. They are all in marvellous settings and taken care of and maintained by mostly volunteer efforts. The system is trust based and you can maintain this by paying your dues promptly, so that it stays viable for future generations of hikers and explorers, young and old.
The free Entur Journey Planner app aggregates public transport services from all providers across counties and municipalities. Norway is a large country with a small population and many local public transport providers. Finding your way around is one of the challenges for visitors and even locals that do not live in an area. The Entur Journey Planner provides information for train, metro, tram, bus, boat, airport shuttles, airport shuttle trains and even some flight information. You can apply filters for your preferred mode of transport. You can adjust transfer walking speed, to make sure you can make it to your next connection without getting flustered and stressed.
The Entur app gives you an excellent overview of
travel suggestions from door to door by a variety of modes of transport
your departure and arrival times on each mode of transport
your total travel time for this journey
the line number and operator for every leg of your journey
the names and times of arrival for all stops along your journey
stops close to you if you provide location information
your previous searches (if you don’t delete them) and will show connections that might be particularly relevant to you
location dependent, traffic delays are available in real time
The Norwegian government wants to encourage travel by public transport and supports information technology developments that are having a great impact on this goal. Entur aims at providing a one stop shop for all your public transport needs from information to ticket purchase and real-time traffic information across the country. This is a lofty goal, and – in fairness – they are not there yet, but the functionality is continuously increased. Downloading it to your phone and using it as a planning tool is highly recommended, at the same time it would be a good idea to double-check information with either other apps or websites dedicated to the transport provider you use. If you need a guaranteed connection between one leg of transport and the next, you might want to get in touch with the customer service of the relevant provider.
It’s search function is still a bit limited. To start with not all routes into the mountains seem to be part of the app database yet. This is particularly relevant for the so called ‘summer routes’ into the Norwegian mountains and national parks. At the time of writing, I could not find the twice weekly bus from Oppdal to Gjevilvasshytta in Trollheimen, despite having confirmation from the regional carrier that it will operate in the summer of 2020. Furthermore, you need to know where you want to go. Some of the easily accessible and well-loved Norwegian mountain huts can be found by name, such as Gjendesheim or Leirvassbu in Jotunheimen National Park. Other smaller ones are not searchable, so you need to find out what the name of the nearest bus stop is (e.g. through Google Maps) so you can feed this into the app. Still, all things considered, this is an excellent resource to have.
As an added feature, for getting around in cities there are the city bike sharing and scooter schemes that are also becoming available for search. Entur clearly aims to provide you with all public transport information at your fingertips.
entur
public transport information at your fingertips
norgeskart
commercial app uses free Kartverket data
While hiking in the Norwegian mountains you will need a physical map and compass and the knowledge of how to use both. Relying on your phone for navigation and way finding in the mountains is not recommended and could in fact be dangerous. The phone might go out of battery or become otherwise unusable. Nevertheless, navigation apps are useful as an additional resource for planning and preparing, and while on the trail. I intend to review some of the best-known and best-rated navigational apps such as Komoot, Outdoorlife, Viewranger, Alltrails and others to see in how far they add value when hiking in Norway, particularly Southern Norway. That review is planned for a later date – keep your eyes open.
At this point, I will only mention an app that focuses on providing maps for Norway. The Norwegian Mapping Authority, Kartverket, offers all Norwegian maps as open source. Online, you can view, customise, download and print all maps for free at norgeskart. Some developers are using this open source map data to offer a paid service on mobiles. The Norgeskart app (free while online) is one of them and aims to provide:
Comprehensive, accurate maps of Norway, delivered by Kartverket
GPS navigation with auto-rotating map and compass (when your smartphone has a compass)
Detailed trails for hiking, biking, and walking
Search for places and addresses
Accurate sea maps along the Norwegian coast
Ad-free experience
You can view all maps online, but to download them for offline use, you pay a fee. Naturally, when hiking in remote areas, these maps would only be useful to the hiker as downloads. Currently the fee structure is either a monthly subscription (€1.99) or yearly fee (€9.99).
There are of course many apps that an interested hiker could have on their phone, so the choice for these is a personal one. Here are two apps that, each in their own way, help me find my place in the world.
PeakFinder (by Fabio Soldati) helps finding out the names of the mountains around you when hiking through valleys or after having scaled a peak. It offers 360 degrees panoramic views of more than 650 000 peaks worldwide. Most importantly it works offline, provided you have downloaded the local area database. You can visit peaks around the world from your armchair and inspect the expected panorama. Or you can use it in augmented reality mode on location using your phone’s GPS locator, compass (when available) and camera.
The app has a ‘telescope’ function to identify less prominent or far away peaks and provides more information on any of the featured mountain tops by simple touching on the name displayed. It is not free, but at about €5,99 well worth it.
Stargazing. When hiking in Norway in the height of summer, it doesn’t really get dark enough for proper stargazing. In the early days of autumn if you happen to be out in the small hours of the morning you could be greeted by an incredible night sky though, because there is no light pollution around when you are hiking in a remote part of the country. You could be forgiven to trade the comfort of your tent or sleeping quarters for the chance of some mesmerising stargazing. If you do want to use a smartphone app to identify some of the planets, stars, and constellations above your head, both SkyView Lite (Terminal Eleven LLC) and Star Walk 2 (Vito Technology), are good choices that I like. Both are free, but I recommend upgrading to the ads-free version of the latter, since bright ad pop-ups in the middle of a dark, quiet night will be jarring.
peak finder app
AR view from Fannaråki, Jotunheimen with PeakFinder
stargazing apps
a planetarium in your phone
Summary of best apps while hiking in Norway
Taken together this collection of apps could well make your next hiking trip in Norway more interesting and fun, as well as increase your safety and comfort on the trail. Most importantly many come for free! Consider doing some ‘dry runs’ at home, so you know how to use and calibrate them if needed. Just don’t use the Hjelp 113 emergency app unless you need it and only in Norway.
(Related Content: 7 things you can do to prepare for your next hiking adventure)
Of course, this list is not set in stone. If you have suggestions on apps that should be included for hiking or trekking in Norway, please leave a comment below.
Photo credit: on route trekking through Trollheimen, here from Gjevilvasshytta to Trollheimshytta over Riaren