Become a tour guide
in Oslo

Oslo is expensive and makes no apology for it. The Bjørvika waterfront has been rebuilt in the last decade — the Opera House, the Munch Museum, and the new public library are all within walking distance. Grünerløkka is the former working-class neighborhood that now has the best coffee in Scandinavia and vintage shops on every corner. Tøyen has the Botanical Garden and the Munch Museum and is where the younger crowd is moving to.

Oslo gets around 3 million international visitors a year, and most of them land at the Opera House, walk the Bjørvika waterfront, visit the Munch Museum or the Viking Ship Museum, and leave having spent a fortune on mediocre tourist-zone food. They never walk up to Grünerløkka, which has the best coffee roasters in Scandinavia and a vintage shop culture on Markveien that rivals anything in Berlin or Copenhagen. They never make it to Mathallen at Vulkan, the food hall built into a former industrial site where you can eat fresh fjord shrimp, artisan brunost, and Ethiopian food in the same building. To become a tour guide in Oslo means understanding the friluftsliv — open-air living — that defines this city. Locals ski to work in winter. They swim in the fjord from the new harbour baths in summer. The Marka forest is a fifteen-minute metro ride from the city centre and it goes on for miles. To become a tour guide in Oslo is to explain a city where nature is not an escape from urban life but a part of it. The Akerselva river walk from Grünerløkka to the fjord passes through converted factories, street art, and parkland. Become a tour guide in Oslo and you show visitors that the most expensive city in Scandinavia is also one of the most livable — the trick is knowing where the locals actually eat, swim, and ski.