Norway has a reputation for being expensive, and it's fully earned — a casual lunch can run you the same as a nice dinner elsewhere in Europe. I planned around it rather than being surprised by it, and I'd tell anyone going to do the same: supermarkets for breakfast and lunch, save the splurges for dinner.
What you get in return is scenery that genuinely doesn't look real. The Nærøyfjord, combined with the Flåm Railway down from the mountain plateau, might be the single best day I've had traveling — sheer rock walls dropping straight into glassy water, tiny farms clinging to impossible slopes, waterfalls everywhere you look.
If fjords are the classic reason to go, Lofoten is the one that surprised me more. Dramatic peaks rising directly out of the sea, fishing villages painted the same deep red they've been for generations, and a stillness that's hard to describe until you're standing in it. Renting a car and just working slowly through Reine, Hamnøy and Å, stopping wherever the view demands it, is worth more than any single organized excursion.
We went in shoulder season, which I'd recommend if you have any flexibility — still-long days, noticeably thinner crowds, and better rates than peak summer. Winter is its own trip entirely, for anyone chasing the Northern Lights from Tromsø.
I put together everything — realistic prices for every region, which base suits which kind of trip, and my top five experiences — into my Norway guide, if you're planning your own.