Working Guest Norway

Read up on what you could experience as a working guest in Norway:

The best thing I could have done…

“I was in southern Norway in Drolsum, near Vikersund. My host family took me along cross-country skiing and orienteering, and they showed me several tourist attractions in the surrounding area. Once a week I went to a language course, and at the weekends I gained an impression of other parts of Norway, for example, Bergen, the east coast, Dombås, and Oslo.

My work began each day at 8 a.m. I harvested spring onions until 10 a.m., chopped wood, planted crops, or did repair work. After that, the eggs had to be collected and sorted out. After lunsj (lunch), I continued with planting, field work, cleaning, etc. Depending on how much work needed to be done at the time, I sometimes worked in the late evenings, although evenings and weekends were usually free.

It is really worth it to go through Norway by train or car. There are so many various regions in Norway, you can see a lot during a drive. Norway just has everything: Mountains, trees, snow and sunshine, lakes and waterfalls – on the way to Bergen alone, I went through three different seasons of the year, and from plains to coast I saw every possible type of landscape.

It was the best thing I could have done. I felt like a member of the family, rather than an employee. Norway is a country that I would be happy to visit again as a student, vacationer, and/or worker.”
Svenja Kämper

One of the best times of my life…

The hotel where I worked was west of Jotunheim. In this national park there are 24 mountains higher than 2,000 metres. Even though I didn’t climb to the top of the highest mountain, my workplace was the perfect location for wonderful hikes in the nature of Norway, which was my main activity on my free days. The best thing about my time in Norway was definitely the people I lived and worked with. It was great to meet new friends, go to parties together, sit around the campfire, go hiking, play card games, or just to watch a film together. This was why the relatively bad weather this summer couldn’t ruin my experience in Norway.

My job in the hotel was to clean rooms. Even if cleaning rooms may not sound like a dream job, it definitely wasn’t as bad as you may imagine. It is exhausting and somewhat repetitive work, but with a bit of training, it goes well and is really no trouble. My work began between 7 and 9 a.m. First, the lobby had to be cleaned, and next the hotel rooms. After the hotel rooms, we had smaller tasks, such as washing the waiters’ aprons or the mop heads. We were usually done around 3 p.m. All in all, I would not want to have missed my stay in Norway. It was definitely one of the best times of my life.
Hagen Eckert