What To Do in Tromsø in Winter – Arctic Activities
The Norwegian city of Tromsø, located on Tromsøya island around 350km north of the Arctic Circle at 69 degrees north, is a lovely cosmopolitan town with plenty of attractions. As well as museums, art galleries and stunning cathedrals, there is beautiful countryside to explore in the local area. There are also lots of excursions to experience Arctic culture and exciting activities, especially in the wintertime. The area is widely considered to be a great location for viewing the Northern Lights although, as with all natural phenomena, sightings aren’t guaranteed. Here’s our guide for what to do in Tromsø in winter.
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How To Get To Tromsø
Most people fly into Tromsø which has its own airport, just 5km from the city centre. The Norwegian railway network does not yet reach Tromsø. The city has a port and is a popular location for northern cruise ships.
There are many ways to get into the city from the airport. Public buses are the cheapest option, and there is also an airport express bus. Plentiful taxis are available too.
It’s also a good place from which to travel even further north as regular flights are available to take you to Svalbard.
Where To Stay in Tromsø
It won’t be the first time that we say this but, for non-Scandinavian travellers, Norway is an expensive place to visit. We stayed in the SmartHotel whose tagline is ‘small room, great bed’. They are absolutely right about the small room, it’s teeny with stark concrete walls. But, for a couple, the bed wasn’t that amazing because it was located against the end wall of the room, so one of us had to clamber over the other to get out. But it was adequate, had a great location and was the cheapest option for us. And, we always say, we’re there to explore the area, not spend all our time in a hotel. Tromsø has a variety of accommodation options for those who are less agile or have bigger budgets.
Notes About Visiting Tromsø in Winter
It’s cold! The average winter temperatures hover around 0◦C to -5 ◦C. These certainly are not the coldest – it gets super-cold further east in Sweden and Finland – but we recommend bringing warm clothing and waterproofs. Layers work well, especially if you enter heated buildings because you warm up pretty quickly when indoors.
It’s snowy and icy! Tromsø experiences snow in winter and this can compact and turn to ice. You may find that many of the pavements are slippery on foot. In fact, Colin slipped over on a roadside as a bus was approaching. Not only did the driver stop in time, he got out of his cab to pick Colin up! This truly reflects the friendliness and helpfulness of local people. If you are nervous walking on ice, you can pick up spikes that you can place over your shoes. We recommend taking good waterproof walking shoes or boots – winter in Tromsø isn’t the place for fashionable footwear!
It’s dark! Because Tromsø is so far north, the daylight hours will be significantly reduced in the winter. The shortest day will be on the winter solstice (around 21st December). It usually isn’t dark all day though – but you may experience the dusky blue twilight of the polar winter.
What To Do in Tromsø In Winter
There are lots of activities both in the city and the wider countryside. Winter is a great time to visit Tromsø, especially if you want to experience life in the snowy Arctic.
Polar Museum
This excellent museum has a number of exhibits about the region with an emphasis on various expeditions to reach the North Pole over the years.
The museum is well curated and shows a variety of objects connected with Arctic exploration. The Nansen’s Fram exhibit is particularly interesting. It tells the story about the theory that an icebreaker ship frozen into the pack ice could drift across the North Pole, simply using the east-west current of the Arctic Ocean. It’s a fascinating story of endeavour and endurance in incredibly harsh conditions.
The musuem is free to visit, but donations are welcome.
Troll Museum
Tromsø’s troll museum is the first of its kind in Norway. Dedicated to the local legends of trolls and Norwegian fairy-tales it is highly interactive and features a lot of augmented reality. Fun for children and adults alike.
Tromsø Cathedral
Tromsø Cathedral is a charming church and the northernmost cathedral in the world. A delightful church built in 1861, it is the only Protestant wooden church in Norway.
It hosts daily midnight concerts which offer a combination of traditional Norwegian music, indigenous Sami music and folk tunes.
Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art – Tromsø Kunstforening
This delightful gallery is the oldest art institution in Northern Norway. It’s a housed in a sizeable building. From a purely budgetary perspective, this is a great place to visit because the Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art is free. You not only receive a friendly welcome you can have a free cup of coffee, a lovely warm drink on a cold winter’s day, while you enjoy your art.
Being a contemporary art gallery there is a changing programme of exhibitions. Our visit was centred on short films on a variety of subjects, you could use the remote control to pick what you wanted to view. English subtitles were available. The Norwegian film Koftepolitiet (2021) told the story of three Sámi men, one in traditional gákti, on an excursion in Oslo. Upstairs there were more exhibits, including Erik Løchen’s Motforestilling (Remonstrance, 1972) – a new wave film whose five reels can be shown in any order and perspective, here enhanced by five screens of the reels that you could sit, watch and rotate according to how you wanted to view.
We absolutely recommend the Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art as it is engaging, enlightening, unexpected and welcoming.
Perspective Museum
The aim of this museum is to showcase stories from the city and other places with exhibitions offering a distinctly northern perspective – hence the title. The entrance fee is 80NOK.
Polaria
This Arctic experience centre, set in a dramatic building which resembles ice floes, offers various experiences. The most popular is meeting their seals for a greet and feed session. There is a small aquarium showing sea creatures from the local area.
Across To The Mainland
Cross over the dramatic Tromsø Bridge which connects Tromsøya island with the mainland and is just over one kilometre in length. Pedestrians can walk along the right hand side of the bridge (leaving the city). It’s about half an hour’s walk from the city centre. The bridge is beautifully lit up at night.
Arctic Cathedral
The Arctic Cathedral is a beautiful building constructed in 1965.
It’s a local landmark visible from Tromsø city centre and from the air as you fly into the airport. Its architecture is reminiscent of shards of ice and you can see the beautiful stained glass windows from the interior, even in the winter light.
There is a fee to visit – 80 NOK.
Fjellheisen Cable Car
The Fjellheisen cable car brings you from Solliveien in Tromsdalen up to Storsteinen so that you can get a view of the city from across the straits.
It only runs every half hour and is super-expensive, so it’s worth making sure that when you visit you’ll get a great view. The fee is a whopping 415 NOK (about $40) for a return ticket, so if it’s a cloudy day, we suggest waiting for better weather.
Tromsø Winter Excursions
Tromsø has a large range of excursions to enjoy. Many will take you out into the lovely snowy countryside where you can enjoy a variety of winter activities.
Northern Lights
Tromsø is an excellent location for viewing the Northern Lights, the delightful Aurora Borealis that dances across the night sky. However, you are dependent on nature co-operating – the sun needs to be active and the skies clear of clouds. There are a number of excursions offered from Tromsø – these generally involve a hotel pickup and a drive into the countryside, away from the lights of the city. Some may offer snowmobiling or dog-sledding activities as well.
We didn’t see the lights when we visited Tromsø but were lucky the following year when we visited Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. If seeing the lights is a priority, we recommend planning to spend a few days in the same area because it gives cloudy weather a chance to clear. (Although you still need the sun to be co-operative.) The tour operators will be monitoring sun activity, which has been at its peak in 2025. The next couple of years should see a fairly active sun but then activity is likely to decline to its new minimum in 2031. So, book that trip sooner rather than later!
Sámi Culture Excursion
An enjoyable excursion involved an introduction to the culture of the Sámi, Norway’s indigenous community. This is a meet, greet and eat scenario whereby you are picked up from the city and taken to the local Sami village. You meet the reindeer and get a chance to feed them. You’ll discover that find these charming beasties have no compunction in seeking munchy dominance when they hear the maraca-style rattling food pellets in the bucket and will gently butt your butt with their horns if they are seeking a sneaky snack. They’ll return the favour by giving you a short sleigh ride around the grounds to take in the views and the landscape.
Then you go inside and enjoy a three-course meal, the main course of which is a nice healthy stew made from one of the reindeers’ ex-buddies. (It’s important to note that the Sami look after their reindeer beautifully but, when elderly reindeer lose their teeth they can’t eat, so are slaughtered before they starve. All parts of the reindeer are used – for food or clothing or even tools.)
After dessert, the group will head to a separate tent and sit around the fire, to learn about Sámi culture, maybe even with a joik – a traditional song.
Tourism helps support feeding the reindeer. It has become increasingly difficult for them to follow their natural feeding patterns due to climate change. Traditionally, Sami follow their reindeer herds from Norway into Sweden and back, according to the season.
Other fun winter activities include dog sledding, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing.
Tromsø For Foodies
Dining out in Tromsø is expensive. We were shocked by some of the prices in restaurants, especially considering the portion size. However, we did find a solution where we could find reasonably priced local fish. The Dragøy fish market was excellent value and offered smoked fish platters that were tasty and filling.
The platter included salmon, Arctic char, cod and halibut, served with fresh bread, pickles and lots of dill. They also offered a sashimi plate with a serious amount of salmon on offer.
If you are on a very tight budget, Tromsø has plenty of supermarkets where you can fuel up. Many of these have buffet bars where you can fill up a bowl and pay by the weight, and pastries sections with lots of options.
For drinks, the microbrewery Mack Mikrobryggeri claims to be the world’s northemnost brewery, but they seem to have forgotten the excellent brewery at Svalbard. The Ølhallen bar offers an amazing selection of beers from their extensive taproom. Just look at the 72 options available!
You can enjoy a tasting board curated by the bartender, or you can pick your own selection. The beers are really interesting because many of them use local ingredients. The cloudberry gose was particularly good. Some of the beer names are delightfully quirky as well: kittens, puppies and hops, smoke stouts, lemon meringue and and nitro DIPA were some of the eclectic range we enjoyed.
Just close your eyes and worry about the bill later.
Top Tipple Tip: If you enjoy drinking alcohol, you can buy booze on arrival at the airport duty-free shop before you enter Tromsø. This means that you will get much cheaper beer, wine or spirits than in the bars and shops in the city because you won’t have to pay Norway’s high tax on alcohol. That said, while it is cheaper it’s still not cheap!
Resources To Help You Plan Your Trip to Tromsø
Find accommodation in Tromsø.
Rent a car to get out in to the countryside.
Final Thoughts
Tromsø is a delightful town with friendly locals and plenty to see and do. If you plan to travel within the next few years, you may also be able to see the remarkable spectacle of the Northern Lights. But, even if you don’t get lucky with nature, Tromsø is an excellent location to experience the Arctic winter and to try all sorts of activities.
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I’ve always wanted to visit Norway, as the cultures in that part of the world have always fascinated me!
The Sami Culture Excursion in particular sounds amazing. I love learning everything I can about the world’s cultures!
I love a good winter destination and Tromsø seems like it fills the bill for me. I’ve always wanted to visit Norway, and would like to really experience many areas of the country. While winter might not be the only time I’d want to visit, Tromsø certainly looks unique. To see the northern lights again would be amazing, and I love the unique Arctic Cathedral. I’d be interested in the Polar and Troll museums too – and making friends with reindeer, obviously
I have always wanted to visit Norway, but I have to admit I have never considered going in the winter. You highlighted why this is a short-sighted view. I would really enjoy spending time learning about the Sami people and feeding the reindeer. I’ve been blessed with viewing the Aurora multiple times in Canada, so timing my visit for high solar activity wouldn’t be a priority but if the conditions were right, I’d be thrilled. The lights are spectacular and never fail to inspire awe.
I have spent time in Iceland and was quite shocked at the costs, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that Norway experiences the same. Great tip on visiting the fish market and grocery to cut some costs, yet still enjoy local food.
I hate to imagine the cold chewing through my boots at 3 p.m. while daylight disappears in Tromsø during winter. But when you think about the northern lights that will soon grace the sky and put on their spectacle, it’s enough to warm up my frozen toenails and bum2x. It’s nice to read about your Sami excursion and experience. No excuse for Santa to be late this year delivering presents after tending to a few of his reindeer! #flyingbaguette
I have never visited Norway but Tromso sounds an appealing place to go! The polar museum looks like a fascinating visit to learn about the expeditions to the North Pole. Love the design of the cathedral clearly some thought was put into it;s design when constructed to represent shards of ice. Sad to hear that the climate change has affected the reindeers feeding patterns.