Overnight Stays

On a trip lasting several days you need somewhere to spend the night. Whether you sleep indoors in a cabin or out under the stars, the choice is worth planning — it is no fun to find the cabin full while you stand outside in the rain, or that the “perfect tent pitch” has no trees for your hammock.

Norwegian conditions give you an unusual number of options. Allemannsretten lets you pitch a tent in utmark without asking permission — as long as you are at least 150 metres from an inhabited house, stay one night and clear up afterwards. The DNT system gives you over 500 cabins you can reserve or use self-service. Natural shelters such as rock overhangs and large root-plates have given Norwegians a roof over their heads for thousands of years.

The main forms of overnight stay

Indoors

• Cabins — DNT, staffed and unstaffed — the simplest, warm all-in-one solution

Outdoors, summer

• Tent and lavvo — the most common trip overnighting
• Tarp — light, open, takes a little practice
• Hammock and tree tent — off the ground, needs trees with flat straps
• Other types of overnight stay outdoors — under open sky, rock overhangs, lean-to

Outdoors, winter

• Sleeping in the snow — snow cave, quinzee, igloo
• Winter tent — more robust than a summer tent, more room for kit inside

For anyone starting out outdoors: a 3-season tent on a patch of grass is safe, robust and forgiving. The rest can come in time.

Choose your campsite wisely

What you are looking for:

• Shelter from the wind — behind a ridge, in the woods, down in a hollow
• Dry ground — grass or bilberry shrub, not bog
• Water nearby — stream, lake, tarn
• Not under threatening vegetation — dead branches, loose rock, traces of slush avalanches
• Distance from the path — for peace and minimal disturbance to others
• Sun exposure — a summer morning in the sun gives a warm start; a winter morning in the sun should be prioritised for drying out

Avoid:

• Low points — cold air collects, water runs in
• Summits — the wind takes everything
• Just below the tree line in extreme years — falling objects

For larger groups: existing campsites first. Worn grass is better than yet another new scar of trampling across the heath.

Sleeping well outdoors — three things

1. A sleeping bag warm enough for the conditions. On Norwegian mountain trips in the summer half-year, 3-season (comfort -5 to +5 °C) is standard — even in July it can drop below zero at 1500 m above sea level.

2. A sleeping mat that insulates from the ground. An R-value of 3-4 covers a summer trip. Winter requires 4+ or doubled layers.

3. Eat hot food before you turn in. A cold body in a cold sleeping bag stays cold all night. A cup of cocoa and a piece of dried fruit 30 minutes before you crawl in rescues many a night.

Tips for winter overnighting → · Routines in camp →

Keep camp tidy

Leave-no-trace travel (sporløs ferdsel) is not optional:

• Pack away food when you are not using it — in a dry bag hung up or in your pack (mice and birds will help themselves overnight if you leave food out)
• A latrine pit for larger groups, well away from water sources (50+ m)
• A clean and a dirty zone — cooking in one, dirty things (boots outside the tent, the toilet-paper store) in the other
• Burnable rubbish can be burned in the fire, everything else home with you
• Never dig or cut — all natural material should be left as it was

Sustainability and leave-no-trace travel →

Keep warm

On a summer trip in the lowlands, cold is not a problem. On a mountain trip, especially in winter, it is the difference between a good night and a bad one:

• Change into dry base layers before you turn in — damp wool or synthetic loses its insulating ability
• A hat on in the sleeping bag — you lose most heat through your head
• Extra wool in the sleeping bag in cold conditions — socks, long johns, a jumper
• Keep active right before you crawl in — a warm body warms the sleeping bag faster
• A pee bottle for a winter trip so you do not have to go out in the night — holding it in is energy-draining

Cabin overnighting

DNT has over 550 cabins across the country, from staffed to unstaffed. Three levels:

• Staffed — a host, food, a bed. Reserve in advance, pay directly
• Self-service — the DNT key, food from a stock you pay for, you do everything yourself. The DNT key →
• Unstaffed — just the cabin, you bring all the food yourself

Plus a sleeping-bag liner is compulsory at all DNT cabins — you put it on top of the cabin bed and inside your sleeping bag.

Available cabins in Norway →

Next steps

• Tent and lavvo — the classic form of overnight stay in the mountains
• Tarp — light and flexible alternative
• Hammock and tree tent — overnighting where there are trees
• Available cabins in Norway — the cabin network across the whole country
• Tips for winter overnighting — cold-specific choices

Learn more

• Tent and lavvo
• Tarp
• Hammock and tree tent
• Sleeping in the snow
• Other types of overnight stay outdoors
• Tips for winter overnighting
• Routines in camp
• Available cabins in Norway
• Tasks — overnight stays

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Text: Gina Wigestrand, Snuitide (2021), revised 2026.

Key resources: DNT — finn hytte · Allemannsretten — Miljødirektoratet