Stavanger Travel Tips: Money, Rain and Hikes
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Get the money and the weather right, and the rest is easy
Stavanger doesn’t have complicated etiquette or a real crime risk to plan around, Norway is one of the safest countries to visit. What actually trips up first-time visitors is money and weather, so start there.
Money: NOK, cards, and Sunday alcohol rules
The currency is the Norwegian krone (NOK), Norway is not in the EU and does not use the euro, don’t expect anywhere to take one. Norway is consistently ranked among the world’s most expensive countries: a casual restaurant meal runs roughly 200-300 NOK, a 0.5L beer 100-140 NOK, a coffee 45-60 NOK (all verify on the day). The country is near-cashless, cards and Apple Pay work almost everywhere, and Vipps, the dominant local payment app, requires a Norwegian bank account, so it’s not an option for visitors. Tipping is not expected, rounding up is plenty. Beer and cider in ordinary shops cut off around 8pm on weekdays and 6pm Saturdays, with no alcohol sales on Sundays at all; wine and spirits are sold only at Vinmonopolet, the state-run monopoly, also closed Sundays. Plan any wine or spirits purchase around those hours.
Weather: pack for rain, even in summer
Stavanger is genuinely one of Norway’s wettest cities, rain is possible in any month, so don’t build the trip around guaranteed sunshine. It’s also mild for its latitude thanks to the Gulf Stream, so layers matter more than heavy winter gear most of the year. If Preikestolen or Kjerag are on the itinerary, check the forecast the morning of, conditions on exposed tops can turn Arctic even in summer.
Hiking prep: the real risk here is nature, not crime
Preikestolen and Kjerag both have unfenced cliff edges. Preikestolen is a free, moderate roughly 3.8km-each-way trail, 3-4 hours round trip; Kjerag is meaningfully harder, a 5-6 hour-plus hike with chain-assisted sections to a boulder over a 241m drop. Both are seasonal, best late May-September, and snow or ice makes either markedly harder or impassable outside that window, don’t attempt them under ice without a guide. Go with real boots, layers, and a checked forecast; fatalities are rare given the huge visitor numbers, but the exposure at both summits is genuinely real.
Getting there and around
Stavanger Airport, Sola (SVG) is about 11km from the centre; the Flybussen coach covers it in roughly 20-30 minutes. The Ryfast subsea tunnel, the world’s longest and deepest when it opened in 2019/20, now links Stavanger to the Preikestolen side of the fjord by road, roughly 40 minutes to the trailhead. The city core itself is entirely walkable, and Kolumbus runs the local buses and fjord ferries. The Sørlandsbanen railway to Oslo is a genuinely scenic 7.5-8 hours, treat it as a slow-travel option, not a fast route.
Language and culture
Norwegian is the official language, but English is near-universal, expect to get by entirely in English. Norwegians are generally relaxed, understated, and outdoorsy, friluftsliv (a cultural love of the outdoors) and allemannsretten (the right to roam) underpin the popularity of the hikes above. Leave-no-trace on the busy trails, punctuality is valued, and a simple “takk” goes a long way.
For the fuller day-to-day cost breakdown, see the main guide , and for trailhead-specific detail on Preikestolen versus Kjerag, see the hiking areas guide .