In the spirit of the recent 'Weekend only birding trips abroad' thread, I set out this weekend on a brief foreign birding jaunt of my own this weekend. I didn't travel all that far - just three hundred miles to the other side of the North Sea in southwestern Norway. The prospects were good with a fine array of wintering and resident birds in a variety of habitats and above all the prospect of catching up with perhaps my most sought after European bird.
A trip of any kind to Norway isn't really ever going to be a budget one, particularly when I only booked the flights a couple of weeks ago. The breakdown of costs was as follows:
Flight: Return from Aberdeen to Stavanger with Wideroe - £213.
Car Hire: Two days with Hertz via Expedia - £83.
Hotel: Smarthotel Forus in Sandnes. Possibly the most boring hotel in the world, but I quite like a boring hotel on a birding trip. Clean, quiet, free parking and easy access to the main roads. Also relatively cheap for two nights - £90.
Fuel: Most of a tank - £33
Food: Probably the area where Norway is most expensive. Prices for most things seemed 50-100% higher than in the UK. Even just eating takeaway pizzas and snacks from supermarkets probably about £50 in two days.
Although the costs are a bit high, it might easily cost fairly close to this for me to do a weekend in southern England, particularly if booked just two weeks ahead. Costs could obviously be reduced by having others along and booking further in advance. However, as you'll see, it was totally worth it.
Before forging ahead, I couldn't have seen half as much as I did without using the excellent Artsobservasjoner website. Don't go birding in Norway without it:
http://www.artsobservasjoner.no/
A trip of any kind to Norway isn't really ever going to be a budget one, particularly when I only booked the flights a couple of weeks ago. The breakdown of costs was as follows:
Flight: Return from Aberdeen to Stavanger with Wideroe - £213.
Car Hire: Two days with Hertz via Expedia - £83.
Hotel: Smarthotel Forus in Sandnes. Possibly the most boring hotel in the world, but I quite like a boring hotel on a birding trip. Clean, quiet, free parking and easy access to the main roads. Also relatively cheap for two nights - £90.
Fuel: Most of a tank - £33
Food: Probably the area where Norway is most expensive. Prices for most things seemed 50-100% higher than in the UK. Even just eating takeaway pizzas and snacks from supermarkets probably about £50 in two days.
Although the costs are a bit high, it might easily cost fairly close to this for me to do a weekend in southern England, particularly if booked just two weeks ahead. Costs could obviously be reduced by having others along and booking further in advance. However, as you'll see, it was totally worth it.
Before forging ahead, I couldn't have seen half as much as I did without using the excellent Artsobservasjoner website. Don't go birding in Norway without it:
http://www.artsobservasjoner.no/