Stavanger is Norway's fourth city and the centre of its oil industry, which arrived in 1969 when Phillips Petroleum found the Ekofisk field and changed the country permanently. Before that it was a herring and canning town; there were once around seventy canneries here, and the museum in one of them is better than that sounds. The oil money is why a city of 145,000 has the restaurants, the concert hall and the international population that it does.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Roman Trail earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Most visitors come for one thing, which is Preikestolen: a flat rock platform of about 25 by 25 metres standing 604 metres directly above the Lysefjord, with no railing of any kind. Around 300,000 people walk up to it each year, which is a remarkable number for a four hour mountain hike, and a good proportion of them arrive in the wrong footwear. The city also has Gamle Stavanger, 173 restored white wooden houses on cobbled lanes, and a twelfth century cathedral that is the oldest in Norway still in use.
What Makes Stavanger Different to Pack For
Wet, mild and windy
The south west coast gets around 1,200mm of rain a year and Stavanger has a reputation within Norway for rain. Summer runs 13°C to 20°C, winter hovers between 0°C and 5°C with more rain than snow thanks to the Gulf Stream. The wind off the North Sea is constant.
A merino wool base layer for women is the first layer of the Norwegian system and it is what keeps you warm on Preikestolen when you are damp from four hours of effort and standing still at the top in wind.
Preikestolen is a proper hike
Eight kilometres round trip, about 350 metres of ascent, three to four hours, over boulder fields, wet slabs, board-walked bog and stone staircases built by Nepalese sherpas. It is not a viewpoint you drive to, and the mountain rescue service is called out to it regularly.
The old town is cobbles and slopes
Gamle Stavanger's lanes are steep cobble and slick when wet, which is most of the time.
Expensive, even for Norway
Oil money has pushed prices up. Self catering, the supermarket bakery and tap water are the sensible adjustments.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Stavanger Packing List
Footwear
This is the most consequential line on the page. Proper waterproof hiking boots with ankle support and aggressive tread for Preikestolen. The route is wet granite slab, loose boulder and stone stair, and the descent is where people fall. Trainers and trail runners account for a large share of the injuries there, and the rescue teams say so publicly every summer.
Waterproof hiking shoes at minimum if boots are not an option, plus wool socks and a spare pair. A separate dry pair of flat shoes for the city, where the cobbles are slippery but undemanding.
Clothing
Wool base, wool or fleece mid, waterproof and windproof shell with a hood. On the mountain add a warm hat and gloves in any month, because the top is exposed and 10 degrees colder than the car park.
A packable rain jacket if it is genuinely waterproof; on this coast a water-resistant softshell is not enough for a four hour hike. Waterproof trousers are worth carrying.
Nothing formal is needed, though Stavanger's restaurants are good and the city dresses smartly for dinner. Swimwear for a hotel sauna or for the fjord if you are brave.
For sun
A wide brim sun hat or a cap with a strap, sunscreen and sunglasses. On a clear June day the hike is seven hours of exposure with sun coming off rock and water, and people burn badly at 16°C because they do not feel hot.
Practical
At least a litre and a half of water and food for the hike, because there is nothing on the route. A card, since Norway is effectively cashless. A head torch if you are starting early or finishing late, which people underestimate in the shoulder season when light goes at four. A power bank. A dry bag for the fjord cruise. Trekking poles help on the descent. And a paper or offline map, because signal drops on parts of the route.
What to Wear at Key Sites
Preikestolen
The Pulpit Rock, a sheared flat platform 604 metres above the Lysefjord, formed when ice wedged into the granite joints.
Practically: start before nine or after three in summer to avoid the worst of the crowds, and check the forecast and the trail status first. Boots, layers, water, food, hat and gloves. The path is well marked and busy, which makes it feel safer than it is: the hazards are the wet slabs, the boulder sections and the descent, plus the platform itself, which has no barrier, slopes slightly, and is often crowded with people backing up for photographs. Stay well away from the edge, do not sit with your legs over it, and do not go in high wind, ice or fog. The season is roughly April to October; winter ascents need crampons and a guide, and the service turns people back. Parking is paid and fills early; buses run from Stavanger in season.
Gamle Stavanger
173 restored white wooden houses from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on cobbled lanes above the harbour, saved from demolition in the 1950s.
Practically: steep wet cobbles, so grippy flat shoes. It is small and quiet, people live there, so keep noise down and do not photograph into windows. Fifteen minutes from the harbour on foot.
The Lysefjord and Kjerag
A 42 kilometre fjord with walls rising over 1,000 metres, the Kjeragbolten boulder wedged in a crevice, and the Flor og Fjaere gardens.
Practically: the fjord cruise from Stavanger is three hours on an open or partly open deck, so full layers, a hat that stays on and a dry bag. Kjerag is a harder, longer and considerably more dangerous hike than Preikestolen, with three steep ascents and chains, and the boulder itself sits over a 1,000 metre drop; it needs experience, a good forecast and a season that runs only from about June to September.
The cathedral and the city centre
Stavanger Domkirke, begun around 1125 and the oldest Norwegian cathedral in continuous use, with a Romanesque nave and a Gothic east end. Around it, the harbour, the Ovre Holmegate painted street and the Sunday-quiet centre.
Practically: shoulders and knees for the cathedral, which is a working church. The centre is compact and walkable in an hour. Ovre Holmegate, painted in deliberate clashing colours in the early 2000s to revive the street, is the town's most photographed lane.
The Norwegian Petroleum Museum and the canning museum
The oil museum on the harbour, built to look like a platform, and the Norwegian Canning Museum in an original factory in the old town.
Practically: both indoor and both genuinely good, which makes them the answer to a wet day. The oil museum is honest about the industry's economics and its climate position rather than purely celebratory. The canning museum smokes sardines on certain days and lets you taste them.
Sola beach and the Jaeren coast
Long sand beaches south of the city, used for surfing and kiting in North Sea conditions.
Practically: windy, cold water at 8°C to 16°C, and no lifeguards. A windproof layer even in August. The dunes are protected, so stay on the paths.
What Not to Bring
Leave trainers for Preikestolen, which is the single most repeated mistake on that mountain. Leave an umbrella.
Leave cotton next to your skin. Leave the assumption that a busy trail is an easy one. Leave the idea of a photograph at the platform edge. Leave a tight schedule, since fjord cruises and hikes are weather dependent. And leave the expectation of cheap anything.
Essential Resources for Women in Stavanger
Emergency numbers in Norway: 112 for police, 113 for ambulance, 110 for fire, 120 for sea rescue. English is universally spoken including by operators. On Preikestolen, 113 is the number and the response is often a helicopter, so know roughly where you are on the route.
Tourist support: Norway has no tourist police. The Stavanger tourist information office near the harbour handles practicalities and is the place to ask about trail conditions. A theft is reported at the Stavanger politistasjon for insurance purposes.
US Embassy: the US Embassy in Oslo at no.usembassy.gov covers Norway, with no consulate in Stavanger, though the city has a large international community and Oslo is under an hour by air. Enrol in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov before you travel.
Main hospital or clinic: Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger universitetssjukehus, is a large modern hospital with a 24 hour emergency department and is the regional trauma centre for Rogaland, which makes this one of the better places in Norway to be injured. The legevakt covers out of hours non-emergency care. EU and UK visitors should carry the European Health Insurance Card or the UK Global Health Insurance Card; everyone else needs travel insurance that explicitly covers hiking.
Official health authority: the Norwegian Institute of Public Health at fhi.no, with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute at yr.no for the weather and the Preikestolen trail status published by the local tourist board and the Preikestolen BaseCamp, which is what to check on the morning of the hike rather than a general forecast.
US State Department travel advisory for Norway: current advisory level and detail. Norway sits at the lowest level. Read it directly rather than relying on this page.
UK FCDO travel advice for Norway: entry requirements, safety and health guidance, including the outdoor and hiking safety sections, which are the substantive part of the Norway advice and which name the popular cliff hikes specifically.
Official tourism authority: Visit Norway at visitnorway.com, with Region Stavanger and Fjord Norway for the Preikestolen bus times, the Lysefjord cruise operators and the Kjerag season dates. Note that visitnorway.com sometimes blocks automated requests, which is a bot filter rather than a broken site.
Solo women safety assessment: Stavanger is very safe and easy for a woman travelling alone. Norway has low violent crime, near universal English, excellent public transport and a culture where solo women hiking and travelling is completely normal; the city is prosperous, compact, well lit and international because of the oil industry. Crime against visitors is minimal and opportunistic: occasional pickpocketing in the summer cruise crowds at the harbour and bicycle theft. Walking alone in the centre and in Gamle Stavanger at any hour is unremarkable. The one social caution is the weekend: Norwegian drinking is heavy, alcohol is expensive so people pre-drink at home, and the harbour bar area late on a Friday and Saturday is loud and drunk in a way that is more tiresome than threatening. Buy your own drinks and keep an eye on them as anywhere. Street harassment is rare. The real danger here is Preikestolen, and it is worth being blunt because the crowd on that trail creates a false sense of security. Around 300,000 people a year walk it, the mountain rescue service and air ambulance attend it repeatedly through the season, and the common factors are inadequate footwear, no waterproofs, no water, starting too late, and weather that changed. The rock is polished granite that becomes genuinely treacherous when wet, most injuries happen on the descent when people are tired, and the platform has no railing, slopes slightly toward a 604 metre drop and is often crowded with people stepping backwards for photographs. Several people have died there. Treat it as a mountain: boots, layers, food, water, an early start, a checked forecast, and a willingness to turn around. Tell your accommodation your plan, and note that phone signal is unreliable on parts of the route. Kjerag is significantly more serious again and should not be a first Norwegian hike. Beyond the mountains, cold water at 8°C to 16°C with no lifeguards, wet cobbles in the old town, and a 0.2 drink drive limit that is effectively zero.
Reading On
Stavanger has an international airport, a ferry to Denmark and the best known day hike in Norway on its doorstep. The Norway travel guide for women is the parent for the country and the Norway packing list for women covers a trip across it, with what to wear in Norway in October for the shoulder season. North up the coast, the Alesund packing list for women covers the Art Nouveau town and the Geiranger packing list for women the UNESCO fjord beyond it. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for all destinations. For why wool is the layer that still works when you are damp four hours into a climb, the best merino wool base layers for women explains the fibre, and the Roman Trail collection is where the tops themselves live.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
