Reine is a fishing village of about 300 people on Moskenesoya, near the south western end of the LOFOTEN archipelago, inside the Arctic Circle. It is routinely called one of the most beautiful villages in Norway and it has the photographs to support the claim: red and ochre cabins on islets under granite spires rising straight out of the water.
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Three Lofoten guides and how they divide. The Lofoten packing list covers the archipelago, the E10 and the logistics; the Henningsvaer packing list covers the climbing village and its football pitch halfway along; this one is the far south western end, where the road runs out and the ferry to the mainland leaves.
What Is Here
The village is the subject and it is small. RORBUER, the red-painted fishermen's cabins built on stilts over the water, are now largely let to visitors, and the working harbour still dries cod on racks from February to May. You can walk the whole of Reine in half an hour.
REINEBRINGEN IS THE VIEW AND IT IS NOW A STAIRCASE. The 448 metre ridge above the village gives the photograph that sells Lofoten, and the path to it was for years an eroded mud scramble with a genuine accident record. SHERPA-BUILT STONE STEPS, around 1,500 of them, were completed to make it safer. It is still a steep hour's climb, it is still a mountain, and THE ROUTE CLOSES IN WINTER AND AFTER HEAVY RAIN because of rockfall and avalanche risk. Check before setting out.
The villages around it are the day. HAMNOY is the cluster of cabins photographed from the bridge and is arguably the Lofoten image; SAKRISOY is ochre rather than red and sits between them; A, pronounced like "oar" and spelled with a single letter, is the literal end of the E10 and has a working fishing museum and a stockfish museum.
The sea is how you see this coast properly. Boat trips run into the REINEFJORDEN and to BUNES and KJERKFJORDEN beaches, which are reachable only by water or a long walk, and to the MOSKSTRAUMEN, the maelstrom between Moskenesoya and Vaeroy that Poe and Verne both wrote about and that is one of the strongest tidal currents in the world.
The light is the other reason: midnight sun from late May to mid July, polar night with aurora from early December to early January.
When to Go
June and July give the midnight sun, open roads and the Reinebringen steps at their most reliable, with the most visitors.
February to April is the stockfish and aurora season, cold and dramatic, with far fewer people and the Reinebringen route usually closed.
September and October give autumn colour, aurora from late September and much lower prices.
Accommodation here is limited and books out far ahead in summer, which is the practical constraint on a village of 300 that receives a great many visitors.
Getting There
By air, Leknes is the nearest airport at about an hour and a half, with Bodo and Evenes the larger gateways.
By ferry, Bodo to MOSKENES takes three to four hours and lands you a few minutes from Reine. It is weather-dependent and cancels.
By car, the E10 the length of Lofoten, which ends just beyond Reine at A.
By bus, services run the E10 but infrequently, and reaching the beaches and viewpoints without a car is genuinely hard.
Norway's driving rules include one limit framed in a way that makes it immediately clear and two that catch visitors by surprise. ON ALCOHOL, the FCDO says that if you are found to have A QUARTER OF ENGLAND'S LEGAL LIMIT of alcohol in your system you may get a fine and possible imprisonment, and that THERE ARE FREQUENT ROADSIDE CHECKS. In practice that is one drink too many, so the working rule is none. ON TYRES, winter tyres with a MINIMUM 3MM TREAD are required if there is snow or ice on the roads, and studded tyres or chains may also be needed. And the two a visitor simply would not know: KEEP YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON, DIPPED, DURING THE DAYTIME ALL YEAR ROUND IN ALL PLACES, and ON ROADS NOT MARKED WITH A PRIORITY SIGN, THE YELLOW DIAMOND, YOU MUST GIVE WAY TO TRAFFIC COMING FROM THE RIGHT. That second one is the genuine hazard, because a car emerging from a side road on your right has priority and will take it. Driving offences carry on-the-spot fines of up to 10,000 Norwegian krone.
One sentence in Norway's advisory changes the planning for a large part of the country. NEARLY HALF OF NORWAY IS IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, INCLUDING SOME VERY REMOTE AREAS OF LAND AND SEA, and in those areas EMERGENCY MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AND SEARCH AND RESCUE ARE LIMITED. That is not a warning about danger so much as a statement about response time, and the honest consequence is that self-sufficiency does the work an ambulance does elsewhere: tell someone your route and your expected return, carry more warmth than the forecast justifies, carry a way to signal that does not depend on mobile coverage, and treat a plan that works only if nothing goes wrong as no plan at all.
Is Reine Safe for Women?
Reine is a tiny, safe Norwegian village and every risk here is weather, water or rock. Norway's advisory describes the conditions a packing list has to answer, and it is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing. THE WEATHER CAN CHANGE QUICKLY, PRODUCING ARCTIC CONDITIONS EVEN IN SUMMER ON EXPOSED MOUNTAIN TOPS. THE WINTER IS LONG AND CAN LAST WELL INTO APRIL. TEMPERATURES CAN DROP TO MINUS 25C AND BELOW. THERE IS ALSO A HIGH WIND CHILL FACTOR, PARTICULARLY IN UNSHELTERED AREAS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES. Three things follow from that and they are not the same thing as owning a warm coat. A long winter means the shoulder seasons are winter, so an April trip is a winter trip. Wind chill rather than air temperature is what you dress against, which makes a windproof outer layer worth more than a thicker insulating one. And conditions changing quickly on a mountain in summer means carrying the layer you do not currently need, which is the entire argument for base layers that pack to nothing and do not hold damp.
REINEBRINGEN HAS A REAL ACCIDENT RECORD AND THE STAIRS DID NOT ABOLISH IT. The steps are a vast improvement on the old mud path, and the route is still 448 metres of steep ascent on stone that is slick when wet, with drops beside it near the top. IT CLOSES in winter and after heavy rain for rockfall and avalanche, the closures are posted and they are not advisory. People have died here.
The MOSKSTRAUMEN is a genuine maelstrom. Boat trips to it are run by operators who know the tide tables; it is not something to approach in a hired kayak.
The harbour edges are unfenced and the water is cold. That is normal for a working Norwegian fishing village and it is the most likely way to be hurt here in winter.
The E10 is exposed and its bridges close in severe wind, which can isolate the far end of the chain briefly.
Two Norwegian rules exist that a visitor is likely to break by accident and neither is about driving. POLICE ENFORCE BANS ON CAMPFIRES IN MANY HIKING AREAS DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS, which sits oddly beside Norway's famous right to roam: you may legally camp in a great deal of open country and still not be allowed to light anything. And DRONES require registration as an operator in Norway or an EU or EFTA country plus LIABILITY INSURANCE, with no-fly zones in force, so a drone packed for the fjords is a licensing question before it is a photography one.
The Reine Packing List
The Arctic at sea level, wet and windy, with a 448 metre staircase above it.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is not a preference in Lofoten, it is the local answer to the local problem. You will be damp much of the time, from rain, spray or the sweat of climbing 1,500 steps in a windproof, and wool is the only common fibre that keeps insulating wet. A heavyweight merino base layer from September through May and worth having in July for the boats.
Over it, an insulated mid layer and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket with a hood that cinches tight, which in Lofoten wind is the difference between a hood and a sail. Waterproof overtrousers earn their place.
Merrell Moab 3 waterproof hiking boots with Darn Tough merino socks, and on Reinebringen this is not negotiable. Fifteen hundred wet stone steps in trainers is how the accidents on that route happen.
Kahtoola MICROspikes from October to April for the village and harbour paths, where ice sits beside deep cold water with no barrier.
Not linked and worth packing: a HAT AND GLOVES IN EVERY MONTH; a NECK GAITER, where the only entry in our range has a contested product identity and which is the most useful thing you can own in this wind; a DRY BAG for the camera on boat trips; an EYE MASK for the midnight sun, which is what actually defeats visitors in June; and a HEADTORCH for the dark months. Norway is CARD-BASED so cash is unnecessary.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Reine
Emergency numbers: Norway uses three direct numbers and the distinction matters more here than elsewhere, because 112 IS THE POLICE NUMBER rather than a general router: 112 for police, 113 FOR AN AMBULANCE and 110 for the fire service. For a medical emergency, 113 is the faster call. All three work from any phone including a locked mobile and operators speak English. For a non-urgent medical problem, 116117 reaches the out-of-hours doctor service. And the one specific to this country: in the mountains and at sea, remember that the FCDO states EMERGENCY MEDICAL ASSISTANCE AND SEARCH AND RESCUE ARE LIMITED across the half of Norway inside the Arctic Circle, so the call connects quickly and the help may still be a long way off.
REINEBRINGEN IS 448 METRES OF STEEP ASCENT ON ABOUT 1,500 SHERPA-BUILT STONE STEPS, it has a genuine accident record including deaths, and the steps improved it rather than making it safe. The stone is slick when wet and there are drops near the top. THE ROUTE CLOSES IN WINTER AND AFTER HEAVY RAIN for rockfall and avalanche and the closures are not advisory. The MOSKSTRAUMEN is one of the world's strongest tidal currents and is seen with operators who read the tide tables. Harbour edges are unfenced beside cold water. The E10 and its bridges close in severe wind. Accommodation in a village of 300 books out far ahead.
US State Department travel advisory: the Norway advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/norway, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: there is no hospital at Reine. The Nordlandssykehuset at Gravdal near Leknes is roughly an hour and a half away, with the regional hospital at Bodo reached by air ambulance, which is the normal arrangement for anything serious at this end of Lofoten. Norway is in the EEA rather than the EU, and that distinction does not cost you anything here: a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident, which in Norway means paying the same patient contribution a Norwegian pays rather than nothing. Travel insurance sits on top of it, and in Norway it should specifically cover SEARCH AND RESCUE AND AIR AMBULANCE, because the terrain rather than the medicine is what makes a Norwegian incident expensive. A pharmacy is an APOTEK, they handle minor problems without an appointment, and the larger towns have one open late. TAP WATER IS AMONG THE BEST IN THE WORLD and buying bottled water here is purely a waste of money. There are no required vaccinations and no endemic tropical disease. TICKS occur along the southern coast and in the south east, carrying Lyme and, in a narrow coastal band, tick-borne encephalitis, which is a reason to check after walking in long grass. The real medical risk in Norway is environmental rather than infectious: cold, wet and exposure, which is what the clothing on this page is for.
Official health authority: Helsenorge, the Norwegian public health service portal. covers the Nordland hospital network
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Oslo.
Official tourism authority: Visit Norway, the official travel guide. publishes the Reinebringen route status and closures, the Moskenes ferry timetable and the E10 road conditions
Takeaways
Check whether Reinebringen is open. It closes, the closures are real, and people have died on that ridge.
Book early. Three hundred residents, a great many visitors, very few beds.
Boots on the steps. Fifteen hundred wet stones is not a trainers walk.
Take a boat. Bunes, Kjerkfjorden and the maelstrom are only reachable from the water.
Solo women safety assessment: Reine is an extremely safe village and everything that can hurt you here is environmental. Norway has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world, the village has 300 residents, English is universal, and a woman travelling Lofoten alone is completely ordinary. NORWAY'S EMERGENCY NUMBERS ARE SPLIT RATHER THAN POOLED, which matters at this latitude: 112 IS THE POLICE, 113 the ambulance and 110 fire, so dialling 112 for a medical emergency reaches the wrong service. The FCDO warns that conditions change quickly and can produce ARCTIC CONDITIONS EVEN IN SUMMER. THE FIRST AND MOST SERIOUS HAZARD IS REINEBRINGEN. The ridge gives the photograph that sells Lofoten and the route to it has a real accident record including fatalities; roughly 1,500 Sherpa-built stone steps replaced an eroded mud scramble and made it much safer without making it safe, because it remains 448 metres of steep ascent on stone that is slick in rain with drops near the top. IT CLOSES IN WINTER AND AFTER HEAVY RAIN FOR ROCKFALL AND AVALANCHE and those closures are instructions rather than suggestions. Proper boots are the single most important item for it. THE SECOND IS THE WATER. Harbour edges are unfenced beside cold water in a working fishing village, and the MOSKSTRAUMEN offshore is one of the strongest tidal currents in the world, seen from boats run by people who read tide tables rather than from anything you hire yourself. THE THIRD IS EXPOSURE AND ISOLATION: the E10 and its bridges close in severe wind, the ferry from Bodo cancels for weather, SEARCH AND RESCUE AT THIS LATITUDE TAKES TIME, and air ambulance to Bodo is the normal arrangement. Tell someone your route before any walk here.
Reading On
Reine is the far end of Lofoten and the archipelago has two other guides here. The Lofoten packing list covers the islands as a whole and the Henningsvaer packing list the climbing village halfway along, with the Svolvaer packing list for the main town. On the mainland the Narvik packing list, Senja packing list and Tromso packing list cover the Arctic coast, with the Nordkapp packing list at the top of Europe and the Longyearbyen packing list on Svalbard. South, the Trondheim packing list, Alesund packing list and Bergen packing list cover the coast, with the Flam packing list, Aurland packing list and Trolltunga packing list in the fjords and the Oslo packing list for the capital. For the country the Norway travel guide for women and the Norway packing list carry the transport, the weather and the practical material in full. For why wool is the only fibre that works wet in Lofoten, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
