Vacations

Along with a myriad of paid holidays, Norwegians get five weeks of paid vacation each year.  The government requires that three of those weeks must be taken consecutively.  Most people take them in the month of July, which pretty much shuts down the entire country while everyone is off recharging their batteries.

It’s very expensive to get around in Norway, with the price of gas around $15 a gallon and tolls on tunnels and bridges. Camping spots can cost over a hundred dollars a night, and hotels are at least $300, so most natives just leave their homeland.  All things are cheaper across the border in Sweden, but cheaper yet is to fly to places like Spain, Thailand, Greece and Turkey – Norwegian’s favorite vacation spots.

We went to Turkey last year with some cousins and we noticed there are entire communities there that cater heavily to the Norwegian tourists.  Menu boards outside restaurants are written in Norwegian, waiters have learned to speak their language, and native Norwegians run entire vacation condo complexes.  Many Norwegians purchase their second homes in Turkey or Spain because the prices are so darn cheap, compared to the cost of owning a cabin in Norway.

Some of our relatives use their vacations to get dental work done because the Norwegian government doesn’t subsidize adult dental care.  It’s a fraction of the cost in Turkey.  They also get their hair cut there for a mere six dollars a clip, versus the hundred dollars they’d pay at home.  And an entire industry of pirated name-brand clothes and shoes has popped up in Turkey just to feed the Norwegian’s love for top quality goods. Vacation time is used more and more as a way to subside the otherwise expensive Norwegian lifestyle.

For every hour a Norwegian works, a percentage of their wage is set aside by their employer to be used as vacation pay the following year.  When the employee then goes on vacation, they use up that money, but they don’t pay any additional taxes on it, since they’ve already paid taxes when they earned it. So, when they are on vacation, their paychecks are much larger than normal.  It’s actually a wonderful government regulation that makes their vacation time all the sweeter.  For a country that taxes everything so heavily, it says a lot about just how much Norwegians value their vacations.

The Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, is another hot spot Norwegians like to go.  One of our relatives takes her son there.  She is a young, single mom on welfare.  Norway pays their welfare recipients well enough that they too, can take a nice vacation to recharge their batteries, because, after all, life in Norway is pretty rough.