# scandinavian tour



## GRANDAVE (Jan 15, 2011)

Hi All
Soon to depart for about 4 months. Loose plan through tunnel turn left see where we get to. Thinking belgium, holland, scandinavia. Anyone got any handy do's and don'ts.
Also the age old gas thing.
Currently on UK as changed to autotrail recently. Looking later in year to go south also so many different countries involved. Any thoughts on different adaptors/bottles against refillerbles or fitted lpg tank.
We spent several months in Spain and France last year and struggled a bit fitting adaptors to our rig.
Any thoughts/experiences would be gratefully received.

Thanks Guys


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## Grizzly (May 9, 2005)

*Re: scandanavian tour*



GRANDAVE said:


> Also the age old gas thing.
> . Any thoughts on different adaptors/bottles against refillerbles or fitted lpg tank.


Given your plans for long trips all over Europe, I'd go for a refillable without a second thought. No worries about running out, much cheaper gas, no lugging round gas bottles and hefting them into lockers, no exchanging half-full gas bottles so that you can start a trip with full ones...

We fitted a Gaslow system a few years ago and it has never given us a moment's worry.

Enjoy your trip !

G


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## Nethernut (Jun 4, 2008)

Another vote for a gas low system, no hassle whichever country you are in and refilling is much cheaper so you can,sort f, justify the cost! We have 2 cylinders with auto changeover so when one cylinder s Mott we just top up at the first garage we see with LPG.


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## andyandsue (Sep 7, 2008)

*help for a day*

hiya . were Sue and Andrew we wrote the Scandanavian section of Vicarious books guide to Scandanavia. If you have a copy and need any particular questions answered pls ask away. we are only going to be online till tuesday lunch time as we off to Ladakh till Sept. Another couple called sophia and ....i forget wrote a holiday blog about a recent holiday they had in the area...its a bit short on detail but was written in the right spirit. HNghly rec pushing east past Nordcap and on to Finland and the Russian border


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## Addie (Aug 5, 2008)

*Re: help for a day*



andyandsue said:


> hiya . were Sue and Andrew we wrote the Scandanavian section of Vicarious books guide to Scandanavia. If you have a copy and need any particular questions answered pls ask away. we are only going to be online till tuesday lunch time as we off to Ladakh till Sept. Another couple called sophia and ....i forget wrote a holiday blog about a recent holiday they had in the area...its a bit short on detail but was written in the right spirit. HNghly rec pushing east past Nordcap and on to Finland and the Russian border


I think we might be Adam and Sophie!

Read in more detail about Scandinavia on our blog - here are the short cuts to: Denmark, Norway, Sweden & Finland. (Don't forget to click "older posts" at the bottom!)

Also check out the GPS locations of everywhere we stayed, usually for free. You might also enjoy Norway on a Budget.

I'm afraid I couldn't recommend the Vicarious book as found it to be fairly out of date in 2011, we sent in 10 or so amends on closed / now charging locations just for Denmark. Such a shame as I'm sure the book took a lot of effort to research - perhaps an excuse for a re-visit guys? 

For Sweden just pick up any of the free "Rastplatskartan" maps from any of the tourist information offices. These are all free and often have water / waste facilities for motorhomes - we stayed on several.

With regards to Gas - there is NO LPG in Finland at all. There is a handful of LPG stations in Sweden (notably at Gothenburg and Helsingor) the rest are just gas bottle plants that can do LPG. We ended up reversing down a farm track to gas up at one point!

Norway is easy for LPG at many Shell stations, but Finland has NO LPG at all and you will have to last until you get to (hopefully, we'd recommend it!) Tallinn where there is one at 59.41771 N, 24.75442 E.

Refillable gas tank be it Gaslow (our preference) or any of the others with a filler that is NOT mounted on the bottle itself will be the order of the day. Then you can forget about Gas, I've seen so many accounts of peoples trips ruined by gas bottles


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## organplayer (Jan 1, 2012)

*organplayer*

For what it"s worth, we did the Nordcap trip up thru Finland and return thru Norway, in June/July. With two refillable 13kg gas bottles, two 110watt solar panels and Webasto dsl heating (it did get cold up there) we wild camped most of the time. Never had to buy gas on the trip was memorable. Only problem was trying to shut out the daylight at midnight, if you see what I mean, to get a little shuteye. Aren"t our second homes so very enjoyable.


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## Lesleykh (Apr 13, 2009)

Hiya,

We turned left after leaving the ferry on our big trip round Europe. Our blog (link at bottom of post) covers our travels and our search for gas.

We have a panel van conversion with a ridiculously small gas cupboard. Gaslow's bottles would not fit in there. We looked into other ways of fitting a refillable tank, but the options all seemed to boil down to an underslung tank and we were a bit nervous about getting this knowing that we have a tendency to take very unbeaten tracks!

We took bottled gas with us - 2 campingaz 907 bottles, which we thought was our most flexible option, if the most expensive, being widely available in much of western Europe (not Norway or Finland though). They started off filled with 2.7kg of Butane. After refills in various countries with different mixes of propane and butane we have no idea what they ended up being filled with.

In Norway we bought a 5KG bottle of gas from Statoil because we were assured this could be exchanged in Finland - totally untrue! Somehow we managed gas on the trip by getting the Norwegian bottle and the 907s refilled at various places, see the blog for details.

In retrospect we could have taken the two 4.7kg propane bottles that we use in the UK, as we would have been able to refill these on the way. We are still using the Norwegian bottle in the UK, and found a chap in Solihull who refills it for us (I'm sure there would be other places).

If you have a large capacity for gas bottles, or a refillable system, you should be fine with refilling. If we managed on our tiny bottles anyone with anything larger will do well - they might even be able to use their heating!

Have fun on your trip. I'm not really jealous - no, not me (stares morosely at the rain).

Lesley


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## andyandsue (Sep 7, 2008)

*hello adam and sophie*

Sorry about the forgetful name thing as i was on my fiddlly phone thingg jib and coulndt get past blogs/ posts up and could only remember the glamorous name

im sure we would both tell anyone to head north and dont worry

a few pointers from us would be

1 Denmark is OK but not really Scandinavia ( danish readers note im sorry but its kinda true isnt it!)
2 Sweden is a great way to sneak into Norway, toll free roads, Moose everywhere, endless forests
3 Norway is the real gem. its really a country in 2 half's for motorhome purposes a, Fjordland with glaciers,expensive campsites.expensive tolls and ferries very nice and scenic b Northern Norway,toll free arctic tundra ,vast landscapes and endless sunlight

the main tourist route for holiday makers in motorhomes is only as far as Nordkapp ,a few hop over to the worthwhile Lofoten Islands.its worth taking the ferry oneway from Bodo and crossing back to the mainland by the new bridge

Give Nordkapp a miss (ITS NOT EVEN IN THE ARCTIC CLIMATIC ZONE) and head east to the Varde peninsula and Kirkeness and down into Finland along the Russian border

Back clockwise around the Baltic after a visit to southern Finland or the expensive booze cruise ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm

After 4 months at 5300m on the Chinese Indian border the idea of rewriting the guide is gonna seem a great idea.

In the absence of any other quality English guide to Scandinavia covering lpg stations , aires, campsites etc for northern Norway and Finland i can still rec Vic Books guide with the usual sensible advise not to assume anything is still there in such a remote area of Europe. ( check updates page online )

and finally " over -nighting" in your van is not illegal in northern Norway as its never night ( think that's a legal defense m'lord)


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## GRANDAVE (Jan 15, 2011)

Hi All
Thanks so much much for all your help. I think as far as Gas is concerned I will be getting a Gaslow system fitted as it was always a concern in Spain/France.
we will now be able to make some informed decissions on our route to get the best from it.

Again thank you all and enjoy your travels


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## Christine600 (Jan 20, 2011)

LPG in Norway and Sweden:

http://www.gjelstenli.no/lpg/FyllestasjonerNorge-filer/Engelsk.htm


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## SteveandSue (Aug 25, 2008)

Hi - re lpg in Finland
We have had one month and not used one x 11 kg yet and this was not by trying to save gas - and the few nights on site were without electric.
If travelling by Finnlines to Helsinki you can fill up fridge and freezer as they have electric hook up on board and no charge.
LPG is available in Helsinki - only one main campiste close to ferry terminal - there is a supplier right next door that has various German and Finnish bottles- we enquired and they can sort out adaptors for their bottles.
We wouldn't recommend Vicarous Books for Finland -
Get the Finnish road atlas - only one available - about 30 euros - it has all th picnic stops, national parks, nature trails - visitors centres etcand is excellent for finding places to stop over.
You can get guides for all national parks and where the parking places are - some have dedicated motorhome/caravn stops
Steve


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## Addie (Aug 5, 2008)

barney2 said:


> LPG is available in Helsinki - only one main campiste close to ferry terminal - there is a supplier right next door that has various German and Finnish bottles- we enquired and they can sort out adaptors for their bottles.


Hi Steve,

There is no "LPG" in Finland with regards to filling up a refillable bottle / tank although as you say gas bottles are available in Helsinki for those with removable tanks.

There is LPG (refillable gas station) available in Tallinn though if you make the crossing


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