Eleven thousand kilometers. Norway to Greece and back. Through Germany, the Austrian Alps, down through Italy, and the Balkans. Just to see if we could actually do this. Just to see if Eleni and I could spend six weeks in close quarters, moving every day, living out of a Jeep.

It was also Eleni's first time ever sleeping outside.

We drove south through spring and into early summer. The plan was simple: follow the warmth, reach Greece, eat good food. But somewhere around Italy, the heat arrived like a wall. Not the kind of hot you deal with for an afternoon — the kind that doesn't leave. Temperatures staying well above 30°C and 90% humidity during the night.

The rooftop tent became an oven. We'd lie there in the darkness, sweating, barely moving. Eleni had never done this before — never slept outside, never dealt with nature like that, never been confined to a small space with someone for weeks on end. But she kept going. Six weeks in those conditions, and she never once said "I'm done."

That's when I knew. Whatever we were doing — overlanding, traveling, building this life together — she was the person I wanted doing it with. I'd found my co-pilot for life.

By the time we reached Greece, exhausted and drenched in the experience of it, we'd learned something deeper than I expected: the best trips aren't about ideal conditions. They're about showing up when conditions are hard and figuring it out anyway.

That lesson stayed with us both.

After six weeks of that intensity, we knew we needed something different for the next adventure. We needed somewhere cooler.

We picked Northern Norway. The midnight sun. The fjords. The mountains. And most importantly — the cooler weather.

We planned for summer 2025. Mid-year, when the temperatures should be around 20°C in the day and the daylight should be endless. We started planning routes through Trøndelag and up into Nordland, into the places I'd fallen in love with as a kid. I wanted to show Eleni where I came from.

Then, about three months out, Skaði started leaking.

Oil first. Then coolant. The kind of cascading problems that make you think “maybe it wasn’t supposed to be”. Skaði went back and forth to the workshop numerous times. Each leak led to another leak. Each fix revealed a new problem waiting underneath.

I started to wonder if we'd have to cancel. The date was creeping closer and the list wasn't shrinking — it was growing.

Five days before departure, we finally got her back. The leaks traced. The repairs done. And then it was like flipping a switch from crisis to chaos. New brakes. Fresh bumpers. New lights. The hard-shell rooftop tent finally mounted. The 270° awning bolted down. Tiegear Steadfast system installed and tested. Spare parts organized. Fuel lines checked. Everything.

But there was something almost meditative about it, looking back. Working on Skaði, knowing that every bolt meant something when we were parked on some exposed Norwegian coast. By the time we locked the garage at midnight on day five, covered in grease and running on fumes, I knew we'd done everything humanly possible to prepare. Whatever happened next, at least Skaði would be ready.

We left early in the morning and drove north. The further we got from the city, the lighter everything felt. By the time we turned off the main road into Trøndelag, I could feel something settling in me — the mountains, the forests, the air. Home territory.

Our first night, we found a river that sounded like it had been waiting for us. The first night of a real trip has this electric feeling — the weight of planning finally gone, just the present moment and the road ahead.

We set up camp. Built a fire under the awning while rain started to tick against it. Just a small fire, but the awning held the heat and the smoke, and we sat there with hot coffee, watching the flames bounce light off the tent fabric. It was the first moment I felt like we'd actually made it. Like the trip had started.

That peace lasted until around 3 AM.

That's when the sheep arrived.

I'll never forget waking to the sound of sheep bells dangling, right outside the tent. Eleni woke up at the same time, and for a second we just lay there in the darkness, listening to this flock of maybe twenty animals wandering around our setup like they were inspecting new neighbors.

We got up. What followed was this strange, ridiculous dance that lasted two hours. I'd politely herd them away from our gear, they'd politely come back, usually heading for our dishwater — which, apparently, was a delicacy. Every time I thought I'd moved them far enough away, they'd wander back like tourists on a sightseeing loop. At one point I was standing there in the wilderness, half-naked, half-asleep, trying to reason with the sheep about why they shouldn't knock over our water container and furniture.

By the time they finally left for good — maybe they got bored, maybe we just wore them out — Eleni and I were too exhausted and too amused to be anything but grateful it was happening. We called it the "Great Sheep Adventure" and fell asleep knowing the trip had already given us a story we'd never forget.

We pushed deeper into the mountains, following old roads that climbed and twisted through the landscape. The air was getting cooler as we gained elevation, and I thought we were finally getting away from the heat that had haunted us in Italy.

One night, on an old mountain road somewhere deep in Trøndelag, the temperature dropped to 6°C. We weren't expecting that even in the middle of summer, but that's Norwegian mountains for you. The silence up there was different — so heavy it felt like something physical you could touch. We sat there without talking, just watching the landscape and feeling small in the way that's actually peaceful.

The mountains I'd known my whole life suddenly felt new when I was seeing them through Eleni's eyes. Every valley had something different to show her.

We kept driving north, and the landscape opened up into something different again. The terrain shifted from mountains to coast, and we found ourselves heading toward Helgeland — that place where the sea and the mountains come together in this strange, mythic way.

There's an island off Helgeland where you can see the Seven Sisters rise out of the sea like something from mythology. We managed to find our own little bay there — mountains towering in front of us, with the sea in between, the awning creating this perfect small shelter with the view built in. We sat there for hours, cooking, talking, just watching the light change across the rock faces. It felt like the world had scaled itself down to exactly the size we needed it to be.

This was what I'd imagined showing Eleni. This was worth every kilometer from Italy.

As we pushed north from Helgeland, something in the light changed. The sun stopped setting.

At first it was subtle — the sun dipping toward the horizon around midnight, lingering in a pale amber glow that never quite became darkness. Mountains and fjords stayed lit in a perpetual golden hour, a dreamlike half-light that felt like time had stalled. We’d stop to watch it, expecting a sunset, but it never committed. It hovered for hours, then rose again. The midnight sun I’d wanted to share with Eleni — the sight I’d chased my whole life.

It was beautiful. But as we crossed 67° north, the beauty came with heat.

First 25°C. Then 28°C. Then over 30°C.

That’s when I realized the midnight sun wasn’t just light — it was a heat trap. In Italy, the heat had been brutal, but at least darkness eventually brought relief. Here, midnight was still 28°C. At 3 AM it was barely cooler. The sun circled us without ever leaving, and the heat circled with it. No cool night. No reprieve. No moment to breathe.

We’d come to the Arctic to escape the Mediterranean heat — to find cool nights, clear air, and endless light. Instead, the heatwave had followed us all the way north, now paired with daylight that refused to quit.

I remember sitting in the Jeep, checking the forecast: the same high temperatures for days, the 24-hour sun graphic with no dip. I looked at Eleni. She looked at me. We started laughing.

We’d driven thousands of kilometers, from Mediterranean to Arctic, and the heat was still right there with us.

Eleni shook her head. “We can’t outrun it, can we?”

She was right. But this time was different from Italy. This time we knew each other — knew what we could handle together — and we had proper kit. The awning providing shade. The Steadfast system keeping it down. Gear that actually worked. We weren’t just surviving anymore. We could sit under the awning in endless daylight, cook real meals, stay dry in the rare rain, and actually experience the Arctic instead of enduring it.

The midnight sun was still beautiful. We just had to learn how to sleep through it.

Here's the thing about Norwegian coastal weather: it doesn't give you much warning. And when you're dealing with unexpected weather, you need shelter that actually works.

We chose a 270° awning because the extra sheltered space changes how you live. When you're out of a vehicle for weeks, breakfast isn't something you do at a picnic table anymore — you've got a living room. Shade. A place to cook properly. A place to sit and work or just be dry while the weather does whatever it wants.

But we needed the Tiegear Steadfast system because we knew that the Arctic weather would test us.

We got tested on an exposed beach in Helgeland. The awning was fully extended, walls up for privacy, and the wind picked up so fast neither of us saw it coming. Real wind — the kind that makes you recalculate your decisions. The gusts tried to lift the edges, bent at the poles, and for a second I thought we might have to tear down everything and take shelter in the Jeep.

But the anchors held.

The tensioning system kept the frame from collapsing. The attachment points stayed solid. We ended up cooking dinner under the awning while rain hammered down outside, sitting completely dry on the tailgate, watching the storm pass. That's when I realized this wasn't about brand names or marketing. It was about real engineering solving real problems. About not having to panic when nature decides to throw something at you.

The awning stayed up. We stayed comfortable. We got to experience the weather instead of hiding from it.

The practical things matter — gear that works, setup that's fast, systems that don't fall apart when the wind picks up. We felt that every day.

But the deeper lesson was about surrender. About letting go of the route you planned the moment something unexpected happens.

Closed roads forced us to take detours that turned out to be better than the original route. A herd of nocturnal sheep turned into a memory we still laugh about.

All of those things could have felt like problems. Instead, they forced us to slow down. To actually see where we were instead of grinding through a checklist. To be present instead of just moving.

That, more than any piece of equipment, changed how I travel now. And it's changed how Eleni travels too.

Would we do this again? Absolutely. In a heartbeat.

Showing Eleni the places that shaped me — the mountains, the midnight sun, the silence — that's something I'll carry with me for a long time. But more than that, watching her find her own relationship with these landscapes, seeing her go from someone who'd never slept outside to someone who sits on a tailgate at 2 AM with pure daylight still in the sky and just... belongs there. That's the real journey.

Every fjord and every evening with daylight at 2 AM became part of a shared story we'll tell for years.

Skaði is parked in the driveway now. The rooftop tent is folded down. The awning is packed away. The garage is quiet.

But it doesn't feel finished. If anything, it feels like a pause.

There's a map on the workbench with new routes already marked. Across the European continent. Routes that would take us places we haven't been yet. And looking at them, knowing what we learned this summer — that good trips come from showing up and adapting, not from perfect planning — I can already feel the pull.

If you want to follow along with what we're doing next, we're @fuglstad_explores on Instagram and Fuglstad Explores on YouTube. Video from this summer is coming soon.

But for now, the road is quiet. The next adventure is forming in the corners of the garage, and the lines growing on that map.

And when it calls us back out, we'll be ready.