Bodø – Lofoten – Tromsø

The Atlantic Coast (Eurovelo 1)

Cycle through Lofoten’s world of archipelagos with tropical-looking water, white sandy beaches, and jagged mountains carved to perfection by the last ice age.

Route Download GPX

When

May – September

Written by

Matthew Tolley

Distance

643 km

Days

4-10

High point

278m

Difficulty

4/10

Unpaved

Total Ascent

5058m

Ferries

Tunnels

The Jewel of the Arctic

This stretch of coastline is about as classic as Norway gets. The 650-kilometre ride across these Arctic island chains is, in my view, the best high-latitude cycling route in the world. The ferry from Bodø to Lofoten takes around four hours, and on a clear day you’ll see both the jagged mainland and the islands rising ahead of you like a separate world.

The entire route is paved and surprisingly gentle given the surrounding mountains. The trade-off is traffic: you’ll be sharing the road with camper vans and summer tourists, especially in Lofoten. But once you move on to the other island groups, the crowds thin out and the scenery often matches, or quietly surpasses, what you saw earlier.

This is a clean, remote region sitting far above the Arctic Circle, and it’s made for travelling at bike speed. Renting a car here misses the point. These islands reward those who move slowly enough to actually see them.