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Nordnorge

For more than 115 years Hurtigruten has been a part of the coastal areas of Norway. With experience in polar areas the company has become an international travel industry company with a unique product.

When a seasoned Norwegian sea captain named Richard With proposed a regular steam ship service to link northern and southern Norway many saw it as unrealistic folly. Originally intended as a weekly daylight service from Trondheim to Hammerfest, delivering mail, cargo and passengers, this audacious mariner then proposed to extend the service to travel both day and night, winter and summer. His intention was to sail through waters that at this juncture had still not been mapped, through a landscape that for centuries had only been accessible from the sea.

For 90 years, the Coastal Express became the most important communication link between the north and south and it is from these pioneering voyages that the Hurtigruten tradition stems. Translating as "fast route", it was the quickest and most reliable passage into the remote lands of northern Norway, regardless of weather conditions. Indeed it was not until 1983 that the mail delivery was finally entrusted to road and air routes.

It is this heritage and experience that marks out Hurtigruten as one of the most professional and proficient expedition voyage operations on the earth.

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Some content provided courtesy of CLIA (Cruise Line International Association)