Welcome back to another monthly update from Root of Good! Happy belated Independence Day to all the American readers! We made it back from our last vacation just in time to celebrate the Fourth of July in Raleigh with family.
After chilling (literally) in Norway and Iceland for a couple of weeks in June, it was a shock to come back to 100F+ temperatures at home. It’s cooled off a bit, but I was rudely reminded why I like to vacation somewhere else during the summertime months.
Now that we are back home, we’re relaxing and enjoying some down time in between trips. We aren’t going anywhere at all in July.
In August, we’re headed to the west coast for some outdoor adventures in Northern California with the whole family. It’ll be a short trip as far as our usual vacations go. Although the itinerary will be pretty packed while we’re out there.
Let’s jump into the recap of last month!
Financial Update
On the income side, June was a big month for dividends. Our index funds typically pay quarterly dividends so March, June, September, and December are the biggest months for investment income.
On the spending side, June was a pretty normal month. We were gone more than half the month.
The spending on our cruise was somewhat low. Out of pocket expenses included about $450 for cable car tickets, bus tickets, gas for the rental car, and parking fees. Norway and Iceland aren’t cheap. However we spent a lot of time walking around the ports on our own (which was free!).
On the net worth side, we are still above $4 million at the end of June. The net worth continues to hold steady. The trendline for 2026 is definitely upwards so far.
June Recap
We flew to London and hopped aboard the Majestic Princess for a 14 night cruise around the Norway Fjords and Iceland.
14 night cruise around Norway and Iceland
Similar to our trip the previous month, we took the nonstop flight to London. Then we hopped on a bus to Southampton the morning of our cruise departure.
Our daily cruise itinerary:
- Southampton, UK (departure)
- Haugesund, Norway
- Skjolden, Norway
- Olden, Norway
- Alesund, Norway
- Reykjavic, Iceland
- Isafjordur, Iceland
- Akureyri, Iceland
- Southampton, UK
I’m covering the four ports in Norway in this blog post and saving the Iceland segment of the cruise for next month’s blog post to avoid photo overload.
Haugesund, Norway
Our first port of call was Haugesund, Norway. This is the southernmost port of call in Norway on our itinerary. After Haugesund, we sailed northward along the western coast of Norway to the other three Norwegian ports of call.
Haugesund is one of the larger cities in the western region of Norway. But it’s still on the smaller side, with a population of about 40,000 people. The city looked nice overall, with a well-developed waterfront area and lots of maritime businesses.
We initially planned to borrow a rowboat for free from the Maritime museum, but they notified us several days before our arrival that the boat wasn’t available yet. Since their tourist season just started a few days before we arrived in June, I assume they had to complete some last minute repairs or maintenance on the boat before loaning it out.
Instead of rowing around the bay toward a secluded island for some hiking and exploration, we switched course and decided to walk through the city.
It was a pretty enjoyable walk through a quiet town. We made our way to a public “beach” which served as our turnaround point. The clouds started to darken and we knew heavy rain would likely arrive soon, so we headed back toward the ship.
On the walk back, we stopped at the Rema 1000 grocery store to do some grocery-reconnaissance for a potential future trip to Norway (more on that later in this post!). I read online that the grocery market in Norway is basically an oligopoly with only three companies controlling virtually all of the various grocery store chains in the country.
As a result, there isn’t much competition so prices are high. Or more exactly, lack of competition plus high transportation costs, protectionist tariffs, and heavy taxes all stack up to make groceries roughly double or triple the price of Aldi or Lidl back home in the USA.
The upside is the grocery store looks like it has a decent selection of meats and fresh produce, so while it’s expensive, at least it looks good!
Skjolden, Norway
The next day after Haugesund, we stopped at the port of Skjolden, Norway. Our ship entered the Sognefjord around midnight and sailed for about seven hours before arriving at Skjolden. Since we were so far north, it never got fully dark, so we were able to see most of the scenery as we sailed through the sheltered waters in the fjord.
We spent the day in Skjolden strolling around the town, lake, and rivers. The town itself is tiny with a permanent population of just 238.
It’s really beautiful all along the water with the mountains rising through the clouds in the background. Surreal.
We arrived at the turnaround spot in our walk. We found a picnic table only slightly damp from the light rain, and took a break there. An older English couple from the cruise sat down with us to rest as well. We swapped travel stories, such as our recent visit to Chester, England the previous month.
Fully rested, we continued back toward the ship but took a long detour along the lakefront to see some waterfalls (mission accomplished) and highland cows (failure).
While sailing out of Skjolden along the Sognefjord, the gloomy clouds cleared up, leaving a mostly sunny afternoon in its wake. We enjoyed watching the green, rolling mountains along the fjord glide past our balcony. While sailing out, we saw several more waterfalls.
Olden, Norway
Olden was our third port of call in Norway. After sailing for four hours up the Nordfjord, we arrived at the small town of Olden where we had a busy day planned.
In the morning, we took an excursion to the Loen Skylift. It’s a cable car that zipped us up a 3,000 foot mountain in about five minutes. At the top we enjoyed great views while braving the strong winds and chilly weather.
After the mountaintop adventure, we headed back to the ship for lunch. The weather worsened so we considered abandoning our afternoon plans to venture into the town of Olden and walk along the river. Eventually the rain dissipated so we hopped up, grabbed our gear, and headed off the ship for some more adventuring!
The walk along the fjord into town was short but scenic. We saw the church, probably the most interesting thing in the town proper, but kept walking toward the river since we knew the rain might return later in the day.
Eventually the rain intensified so we wrapped up our riverwalk and reversed course. We took a pitstop in the church in town for a brief break from the rain before making our way back to the ship. Back onboard, we enjoyed another beautiful four hour sail through the Nordfjord as we made our way toward our last port in Norway.
Alesund, Norway
Our last port of call in Norway was Alesund. This was the biggest city we visited in Norway at a population of 60,000.
It was another overcast and drizzly day in Norway, but we made the most of it with a stroll through town to the top of the hill in the Storhaugen city park.
As we sailed out of Alesund, we saw the giant wooden structure purpose-built to burn later that evening to commemorate the Midsummer’s Day celebration. Unfortunately our ship had to set sail for Iceland just a few hours before they lit up the giant wooden tower.
Thoughts on the western Fjords region of Norway, and future plans
My two favorite parts of the Norway port visits were the incredible scenery and the amazingly cool summertime weather. Daytime temps were in the 50’s or low 60’s the whole time we were in Norway which was amazing. Plenty of drops of rain but zero drops of sweat.
The scenery exceeded my expectations, which were already very high. When researching our ports of call in Norway, I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome it is there.
Which made me think “hey this might be a nice place for an extended summer trip some day”. And that day might be coming up pretty soon, in the summer of 2027. We’d primarily stay in the western fjord region I think, which offers tons of mountains-meeting-water scenery. There are at least a dozen different scenic drives in that section of Norway so we shouldn’t run out of things to do.
From my preliminary research, it looks like summertime lodging isn’t that expensive, with a baseline of around $100/day for weekly airbnb rentals. Rental cars are about $1,000 for a month and almost all are electric vehicles. Throw in another $500 for electric charging, tolls, parking, ferries and entry fees. And electric chargers are all over the place, even in rural areas.
Food is the only expensive part of our trip. “Just eat hotdogs” ha ha ha. Turns out the Norwegians eat about 100 hotdogs per year so we’ll be eating like the locals I guess. In truth, it seems the Norwegians don’t dine out all that much. Which makes sense given most restaurant meals cost $20-30 per person for the most basic fare.
So how much did I love Norway? Obviously a lot, since I’m already plotting a path toward visiting again for a month or more!
Get free travel like us
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Capital One Venture X card
Another favorite travel card in my wallet is the Capital One Venture X card. The Venture X card is a “keeper” for me. First off, it comes with a $750 sign up bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months. The bonus is paid in the form of 75,000 bonus points that you can redeem against any travel purchases from anywhere. Then you earn a solid 2 points per dollar spent forever! The other big perk is airport lounge access. You get free entry for yourself into Priority Pass and Capital One airport lounges (guests cost extra since February 1, 2026). Add to this primary rental car insurance coverage and a bunch of other perks.
The Capital One Venture X card does have one catch – a $395 annual fee. But they reward you every year with an easy to use $300 travel discount plus $100 worth of points. Together, that makes $400 they give you annually which completely offsets the annual fee. Since the annual fee is offset in full by travel credits each year, I personally plan on keeping the Venture X card forever since the card benefits are so great.
Closing thoughts
We had a busy month during June as we traveled around Norway and Iceland. I’ll be back next month with an update on the Iceland part of our cruise.
Now that we are home, we’re fully embracing the lazy pace of summer. Which basically means trying to avoid the heat as much as possible by spending time inside in the air conditioning. I’m working my way through my ever-growing Apple TV queue (a free benefit from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card). I also started playing a video game that’s been on my to-do list for many many months (procrastination gets all of us!). Fallout New Vegas for the classic gaming afficionados out there 🙂
Right now we are about six months into our “not tracking spending” experiment that started at the beginning of the year. I think we’re probably spending about the same as in the recent past, but it’s hard to say since we aren’t tracking our spending. Which is fine – we can afford to spend much more than we have been spending.
I would say the “not tracking spending” experiment is going well so far. It doesn’t really matter whether we spend $40,000 or $43,000 or $47,000 or $57,000 annually, when our portfolio could support double or triple that amount. As a result, the experiment continues on!
We definitely loosened the purse strings a bit on this most recent cruise. Our cable car excursion was $100 each for just a couple of hours of fun. And our one day of Iceland rental car was almost $200 including gas and parking fees. But we can afford it, so it’s not a big deal. Our baseline spending at home hasn’t increased too much.
As we look toward the summer of 2027, we aren’t planning on skipping Norway just because some parts of the trip might be prohibitively expensive. We’ll just take the trip, economize where it doesn’t matter too much, and enjoy the view!
Okay, that’s it for me this month. See you next month!
Anyone been to Norway? Any suggestions for a land-based vacation there?
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I agree I think Norway is one of the most beautiful countries.
A few years ago we went to Bergen and some of the surrounding areas, then took a train from Bergen to Oslo.
Sounds amazing. We will probably just rent a car but hope to see some of that same scenery.
We stayed at the Grande Hotel, Geiranger for a few days and just loved it. We were there slightly before tourist season and practically had the place to ourselves which felt like VIP service. The bar, the pool, basically everything overlooks the fjord. Magical.
Also spent some time in Fjaerland, a book town on a fjord. The local hotel offers a dinner that comes with a story about the town, at least when we were there.
Bergen is great as well, although it’s definitely on the beaten tourist path.
Some of the best meals we had were in little shops near ferry access – not really traditional restaurants – fresh fish cooked in front of you at (relatively) reasonable prices. But we definitely decided to ignore the cost for the most part and just enjoy the good food! Have fun!
Sounds awesome! We are passing through Geiranger for sure. And I’ve bookmarked Fjaerland which we should pass through between Sogndal and Olden. Will be looking for the fresh fish places (unfortunately our son won’t eat fish but us adults might indulge).
We’re trying to ignore the price tags and just have fun while researching/booking places. I’m just happy when everything is only 2x as expensive as the USA. Mostly it’ll be the food I think that gets me.
Just curious—-it seems you and your wife do an awfully lot of travel and I just wonder if you ever get sick? My husband and I are older than you and your wife , and I love to travel, but every time we do one or both of us get sick. I am not talking serious illness but enough to make it miserable. Do you have tips or tricks for staying well?
I get food poisoning maybe 1-2x on our long summer trips. But I’m fairly adventurous with food. Otherwise, on cruises, I just religiously OCD style wash my hands a ton. Still get sick maybe every 1-1.5 months on a cruise (I’m assuming it’s from the cruise or from traveling on a plane; could be from family). My only advice is to do the normal stuff (good hygiene, don’t touch your face with your contaminated hands, avoid sketchy food vendors, get rest and plenty of fluids)
We visited relatives in Norway about 8 years ago. Drove inland from Bergen to Oslo. It was Spent close to 10 days. Scenery was stunning, especially from the middle of the country and west. And we were so impressed with the people (relatives) there and their commitment to outdoor activites. Definitely an active and healthy society!
Yeah it looks awesome. I am looking forward to that middle section of the country. Skipping Oslo completely and just headed for the Great Outdoors
Norway looks beautiful. I hope to visit one day. I just took my first cruise this year. Perhaps a silly question but Do you gain weight on these cruises?
Depends on the cruise! Usually a few pounds for the 2 week cruises but it drops off later. Might be a combo of muscle mass gain (tons of walking) and water weight (flying causes water retention and salty cruise food can too). Weight is trending downward since I started doing a ton of cruises a few years ago. Just have to put down the fork in the buffet and not get seconds or thirds 🙂
Do you ever buy trip insurance? Did you ever have a trip cancelled because of a sick relative?
I don’t buy trip insurance in general. I use Chase Sapphire Reserve or Capital One Venture X for rental car insurance and other travel-related coverage for plane tickets sometimes. Never had to cancel a trip because of a sick relative but eventually that’ll get me I am sure. We’ll just cancel and lose some funds I guess.
I am a long time reader of your blog (years and years) and was quite (joyfully) surprised to read that you came to my own small town of Haugesund! I guess it’s true what they say, the world really is small .
Very interesting to know! I thought it was a nice little town while walking through. Very scenic even though we stayed in town and didn’t get into the countryside.
Haugesund is my dad’s hometown! There is a fair amount of interesting history in the area – you can walk to ruins of German Bunkers from WW2 – about 15-20 minutes from downtown, and there are many more within driving distance. Two hours away from glaciers. The I’m not sure where you are seeing car rentals for $1000 per month, though. In our experience we were fortunate to rent at $1000 per week. Please share where you found these great deals!
Fun place – wish we had more time. I’m not sure about rental cars in Haugesund but probably more expensive. I am tentatively planning to fly into Oslo and drive the 3-5 hrs to the mountainous middle section of Norway heading toward the fjord regions. So I’m looking at Oslo rental car prices which are right at $1000 for a for a month in a basic compact car (probably what we get). From Sixt or Hertz. I saw Bergen prices are similarly low, but smaller markets have higher rental car prices. These are USD not NOK fyi.