There are currently five airlines operating at Oslo Sandefjord Torp Airport (TRF) 120 km south of Oslo with Norwegian Air, RyanAir, WizzAir, Widerøe (SAS) and KLM. Oslo Sandefjord Torp Airport low cost flights provided a great alternative for cheap and quick transportation to Bergen, Norway (BGO).
Oslo Sandefjord Torp Airport (TRF) is one of two secondary airports for Oslo, Norway along with Moss Airport Rygge (RYG) about 70 km south. Sandefjord Torp is on the west side of Oslofjord and Moss Rygge is on the east side of the fjord. Oslo Gardermoen (OSL), the primary international airport for Oslo with all the major international carriers is north of Oslo city center, about 30 minutes by train.
My initial hotel stay outside of Oslo on this trip to Norway took me to Farris Bad Hotel, a member of Choice Hotels Ascend Collection in Larvik, Norway 22km south of Torp Airport. I traveled to Larvik on the train at a cost of 249 NOK ($41 USD) with a NSB minipris discount ticket. The full price ticket to Torp Airport is 252 NOK. The advantage of a full price train ticket is you can travel at any time on the date of your ticket and a passenger is allowed to get on and off the train on the day of travel if you want to stop somewhere along the way. On the 249 NOK minipris ticket to Larvik, my ticket was only valid for a specific train time and no on-off privileges.
I was surprised to see the train stop for Torp Airport is basically a stop in the countryside with no town or facilities at the station platform. There is a small parking lot and an NSB bus meets the train for complimentary transportation from the train stop to Torp Airport a few kilometers away.
I did not even have time to snap a photo of the Sandefjord Torp train stop as the airport bus was waiting for me and took off as soon as I boarded.
The price to fly Norwegian Air Torp-Bergen was $33 USD and I paid $17 for the online price to check one bag. The price to fly from Oslo Gardermoen (OSL) to Bergen (BGO) was $97 on Norwegian Air.
For train travel from Larvik to Bergen, Norway the journey is about 8.5 hours and the full ticket price is 913 NOK ($152 USD). Minipris tickets reduce the fare to as low as 249 NOK, however the fare rises as minipris tickets are sold and the minipris ticket was 459 NOK ($76.50 USD) when I wanted to travel.
I had also seen flights as low as $69 to Malaga, Spain on Norwegian or $24 to Gdansk, Poland on WizzAir as I looked for next day flights out of Torp when I thought about leaving Norway during my 3-day hotel stay at a spa resort over a persistently rainy weekend.
Torp Airport offers free Wifi while you wait for your flight.
The Norwegian Air flight was not crowded on a large 737-800 aircraft where I had the 3-seat section to myself.
I even had the opportunity to snap some photos.
The quick flight tool me from Norway’s farmlands near Oslofjord in the east to the glaciated landscape of mountainous western Norway.
The clouds cleared as we flew over the west coast of Norway with views of large ocean salmon farms and hundreds of islands off the mountainous coastline. Unfortunately, the call had already been announced to turn off electronics as we flew over the west coast into Bergen BGO.
The irony is I initially booked my trip to visit sunny southeast Norway before venturing to rainy Bergen. September is traditionally one of the rainiest months in Norway with Bergen averaging 9 inches of rain and southeast Norway about 3 inches. During my four days in Larvik and Sandefjord there was about one inch of rain while this week in Bergen has not had any rainfall with temperatures near 70F.
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Ric Garrido of Monterey, California is writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler.
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