No Such Thing as Bad Weather

Hello from a train midway between Oslo and Bergen, Norway. Traveling Guy and I left Oslo a couple hours ago, on our way to Flam, a small town on an inner fjord, where we’ll spend two days, then head to Voss, a short hop north, to join a Backroads tour for six days of hiking and biking and a little bit of kayaking.

As my friends know, I am active and love the outdoors, but I’m generally not so cheerful about bad weather or discomfort in general, which is why camping is not usually high on my list. As Coloradans, we have the luxury of simply waiting for good weather – with 300 + days of sunshine, you never have to wait terribly long for one.

The Norwegians, not so much.

If you plan a trip here and check the weather, you will see rain predicted nearly every day this time of year. It’s as if the weather people just sort of give up and figure it’s a good bet there will be at least SOME rain, so they just stick in in there in the long term forecast. For literally every single day.

Norwegians are a very active, nature loving group, and if they waited for a nice day, they’d never get out and do anything.

So they have a saying: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”

Once you accept that you’re likely to get rained on at some point in the day, and you just bring an umbrella and a rain jacket, it really does remove a whole level of stress from your trip. Stop obsessively checking your weather app (which of course I did at first), just bring an umbrella and a jacket. Everywhere you go. Every time.

We were treated to a mostly lovely day yesterday, with only a few sprinkles on our bike tour, which didn’t phase us in the least because… we had rain jackets.

I’m a fan of Stoic philosophy, and one the main tenets of that school of thought (and I know I’m oversimplifying here) is to be prepared. Not in a pessimistic, always-expecting-the-worst sort of way, but in a just-be-prepared-and-you-won’t-be-shocked-when-things-don’t-go-perfectly sort of way.

Don’t cancel the bike tour and stay in your hotel room because rain is forecasted.

Just bring a damn rain jacket.

I love picking up little bits of wisdom from other cultures, and I think we could all learn a little from the Norwegians.

Carry on traveling friends. Don’t stress about what the day will bring, just bring a good jacket. Be prepared. Some rain will fall and that’s ok.

Cheers!

TG