Why Norway? 10 reasons to live in Norway

Most of the time the answer for why Norway? question is simple ‘love’ or ‘work’. I am receiving a lot of questions about why I moved to Norway so I thought it is time to write about this topic in my blog. However before I tell my story I would like to write about why to move in Norway with 10 reasons

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A post shared by pekmen on the move (@abiteofmemories) on Oct 12, 2019 at 7:58am PDT

1- You don’t have to speak Norwegian -> but it is just nice to do😉

It is surprising that wherever you in Norway, you will find everyone(almost) speaking English here. This makes  the adjustment process a lot easier. You go to supermarket or treater or buying a ticket or renting a flat, you will not have any issue with communicating people in local language as long as you can speak English!

On the other hand, as you imagine there are a lot of benefits of speaking local language in Norway too; especially for socializing with Norwegians. Even though people will respect you, most people still prefers Norwegian when they meet up, who wouldn’t? yet, living in Norway for 4 years, I am still not speaking Norwegian and socializing thank to my international friends and work environment.

2- A Lot of Space

The population of Norway is just 5418 million ~14 people per square kilometer! Only ~681bin people are living in Oslo, the capital and most crowded city in Norway. There are A LOT of space for everybody. Think of Istanbul more than 15 million people (2,523 people per square kilometer!)… Yeah, I moved to Oslo from Istanbul! I still find it interesting not to see overcrowded streets, busses(well, I don’t really use bus), stores.. wherever you go downtown or a café you have your space.

3- Working conditions

Well, well, well… I think Scandinavia is known as its short working hours, and very human working conditions. Like most of countries, you need to work 7.5hr/day, but in Norway contrary to most of other countries you really only work 7.5hr a day! You can see most of Norwegians are not available at all during weekends, public and private holidays. They rarely do overtime. Government and local HR closely controls how much overtime an employee can do per week/month and if employees used 60% of earned holiday every year.

The summer I moved in Norway, it was 3pm when my boss suggested me to go out and enjoy the Sun! In Turkey, I would feel lucky if I could leave at 6pm. More, my manager told me not to be online and not to check my emails during my vacation, because holiday means you need to rest and stay away from work! This is the work mentality you cannot find in most of other countries.

4- Transportation

I can say a lot about transportation and commuting time!

First of all, there are busses, metro and trikk which connects suburbs to centrum in Oslo. They have a good frequency during day time and there are night busses as well. Except the mornings, I always found a seat available.

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Second and the most important commuting time. How much time do you want to spend time to go and come from work, or to meet up with your friends? Well, In Norway you don’t spend a lot of time! You go to your destination like in 30 mins! Traffic? Someone who is coming from a crazy city like Istanbul  can say there is no traffic in Norway! When people who lives in country side of Norway say  Oslo has crazy traffic and I am just smiling them 😊 I was spending at least 1 hr one way to go to office every day in Istanbul – most people spends at least 3hours per day!  In Norway you have your evenings to yourself.   I reach my office in 20 min walk = 5min cycle= 3 mins e-scooter 😊

5- Safety & low crime rate

Have you watched Micheal Moore’s film ‘where to invade next’? he was visiting and island prison in Norway where inmates who committed violent crimes staying in the houses with zero or a few guards doing fishing, sunbathing, biking. Prisoners are left to supervise themselves. The only punishment is to take away their freedom. Yet, Norway still has one of the world’s lowest murder rates.

It is just safe to sleep in a tent any time in anywhere, walk alone at night; no one will disturb you.   

You can also feel the safety in the streets. When you forget your belongings in a café or in park, you don’t need to panic in Norway, you will find it where you left.

6- Nature

Mountains, fjords, waterfalls, glaciers, green hillsides… only world can explain the scenery is ‘breath taking’. Take a train to Bergen, have a car trip to the North, just go to mountains, everywhere is painted with stunning  scenery.

7- Outdoor Activities

As we walked about the nature, I need to put it here: Nature is there for us to use! Yes welcome to Norway.  There are always something to do outdoor in Norway both in the cold or warmer weather (cannot always call it summer😊) Hiking is the most popular gate away during warmer weathers, a lot of mountains and forests with beautiful lake welcomes people from all ages. Country and downhill skies makes darker months more active.

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You can camp basically every where in Norway (of course there are some exceptions like private property or national parks). Don’t you have car, just take the T-bane go to Oslo marka you have a perfect spot for camping. If you can drive, you will find paradise to pitch your tent with a private beach or on top of a mountain. Even more, you can leave you tent in your camping spot, go to hiking or downtown and come back and find everything as left. Safety is not concern 😉 If you are not into hiking, camping or skiing, I am sure you will find a new you in Norway.

8- (Gender) Equality

This can be a very sensitive topic. I cannot say Norway is 100% gender equal country but Scandinavia can be champion when it comes to women’s right compare to rest of the world. Most of the companies focusing on capability rather than gender for hiring. Government provide support to working to working parents, have long parental leave, and legal, political and cultural support for the goal of gender equality. Yet, have to mention there is still long way to see same number of women as top managers and business owners

You can also see this culture in daily life. Parents are equally responsible of kids and house work. You can see fathers are running with baby stroller in the parks, taking kids to camping hiking to give some space and free time to mother.

9- High Education Level

Should I have called the title as high quality of life instead? In the end we cannot think those separately, right? Norway spends more than 6.6% of its GDP on education. How many countries do we have with this rate? Education is free in Norway, everyone is encourage to study and hence do what they really want to be.  High education which is reflected in high quality of life brings happiness to Norway and they live well. I think that is one of the reason why Norway comes out with a high score in OECD index on happiness and well-being.

10- Highest number of electrical cars in the world

Did you know that almost 60% of new cars sold in Norway during 2019 were entirely electric-powered? The motive of having electrical car instead of petrol car is not only environmental but also financially favorable.  Government supports using more electrical car by providing some incentive packages, reduced toll roads, parking costs (zero in most of the places), yearly tax of having an electrical car is much lower.  In addition, even though Norway has a good oil reserves, domestic energy comes from hydro-power. Thus, electricity is renewable here and much cheaper than oil. You can go green in Norway and enjoy driving electrical cars.

So, why I moved to Norway?

After listing 10 reasons of why to live in Norway, it comes to why I moved to Norway? Don’t want to disappoint you but none of the above reasons made me move in Norway. I was planning to move more central country in Europe in order make my travelling easier anytime. Norway was not on my list to move or honestly visit top 10 countries that time. I travelled to Norway for job  interview that the position supposed to be located in Belgium, and hiring manager recommended me to move to Norway because he thought Norway would be better for me when it comes to social and career reasons. Today, I am so thankful to him to make me moved to Norway because It is awesome to live in Norway and it is just 4hrs fly to Turkey!