Jonas Holm had planned the expedition of a lifetime: a 5,500km circle of Norway using nothing but his own muscle power and the help of his dog. The 27-year-old took a year off from his construction job and launched from Svinesund on the Swedish border in late April, aiming to paddle roughly 3,000km up Norway's jagged coastline all the way to Grense Jakobselv, a tiny outpost near the Russian border. From there, he'd walk home via Finland and Sweden.

The sea had other ideas. Constant wind and rain wore him down, and a little over halfway up, south of Bodø in northern Norway, he called time on the paddling leg. Rather than grind on with deadlines hanging over him, Holm decided the remaining fiords would still be there next spring. It's a refreshingly honest take on modern adventuring: he's explicitly said he doesn't want pressure to hit specific places on specific dates, and would rather actually experience the country he's moving through.

But he hasn't quit. Within days he'd stashed the kayak, dried out his gear at home, and driven north to Grense Jakobselv to start the next chapter anyway — a 2,500km trek south with a backpack and Rago, his Alaskan malamute, who carries some of the equipment himself. As winter snow arrives, Holm plans to swap his pack for skis and a pulk, the traditional Scandinavian way of hauling kit behind skis. His exact route is still fluid, but he'll roughly follow Norway's eastern frontier, possibly cutting through chunks of Finland and Sweden on the way back to his starting point in the south.

Why should a traveller care? Holm's route is essentially a slow-motion highlight reel of Scandinavia's wild edges: the sheltered paddling waters of the Norwegian coast, the emptiness of the far northeast near the Russian border, and the high plateau country that turns into ski terrain by winter. His decision to flip the itinerary — hiking south in autumn instead of waiting out the weather — is also a good reminder that Norway's outdoors don't shut down in the cold months; they just demand different gear. If you've ever fancied a self-propelled trip along the Norwegian coast or border country, following his live tracker on his expedition website doubles as free route research, showing where weather stalls, where resupply is realistic, and how far a fit human and a strong dog actually get in a day.