As a travel and lifestyle photographer, I always get the question – “What’s the most memorable destination you’ve ever traveled to?”.  Never an easy question to answer because I come away with such different experiences from each place I visit that no one place can really be compared to another. However, one of the trips that I will gladly talk about over and over again and revisit my images is The Lofoten Islands in Arctic Norway.

High up in the arctic, lies an archipelago on the west coast that takes you back in time to the days of fishing hamlets and the rural outdoors. On a trip to Norway to visit friends, my husband, myself with our 7 year old in tow, decided to embark on a 4 day trip to the Lofoten Islands. Getting there involved a tiring full day trip from taking a flight to Bodo from Oslo (where I was met by a very nasty curmudgeon of a flight attendant who REFUSED me milk and sugar with my coffee as he felt coffee would be ruined if it was drunk any other way other than black!), and a 5 hour incredibly bumpy ferry ride to Moskenes, one of the small towns in the southern part of the archipelago. From Moskenes, we rented a car and drove to our rorbu, or converted fishing hut. By the time we arrived it was nearly midnight but the sun was still bright and the scenery of ragged mountains and red fishing houses just woke us up and blew us away.

Driving through such incredibly rugged scenery was really the highlight of our trip.  And having been raised in the tropics with no real mountains to speak of, breathing in that fresh mountain air made us feel so alive. Another unusual sight were the hanging bacalao (dried cod) on every corner. They take their cod seriously up there. To this day, if I had to pick a place to return, the Lofoten Islands would be on the top of my list. Hope you enjoy these beautiful images from our trip.