Europe heatwave: “We are lucky to be here!”

While a heatwave sweeps through European capitals, tourists find refuge in Northern Norway.

“The temperature is great here today,” Dutch tourist Zweer tells the Barents Observer, standing next to his camper van in Kirkenes harbour. While Kirkenes, a Norwegian border town far inside the Arctic Circle, welcomes visitors with a refreshing breeze of 9°C, the thermometer back home in the Netherlands rises to 36°C. This summer, the world’s media reported on a “historic heatwave” hitting Europe. Temperatures in southern Spain reached a deadly 46°C. “June 2025 has become the second hottest June since records began in 1900, behind June 2003,” French Ecology Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher is quoted by the Deutsche Welle.

But here in the Arctic, Zweer and his wife Betty plan to spend three more days in the border town before heading to Sweden. “We are happy to be here! This summer in Holland, we have had to use the air conditioning a lot,” Zweer exclaims. “36°C is not normal for us.” “All the camper van tourists from Europe that we met on the way here told us that they chose Scandinavia as their travel destination because it’s cooler here,” Betty tells. “Our friends back in the Netherlands are jealous of us now,” says Zweer, laughing.

“But we do miss the sunshine here, though.” In the same car park, we meet Edith, a French tourist who has just arrived in her camper van from the Finnish town of Inari. She had driven all the way from her home near the French city of Lyon to Scandinavia. “It’s 36 degrees back home today,” she said. ‘When it’s more than 28 degrees, I don’t feel well. I prefer colder temperatures.” Edith said that she really enjoys her time in Norway, not only because it is cool, but also because there are hardly any people around.

“In France, there are a lot of people everywhere. I like it that there are very few here.” After spending a couple of days in Kirkenes, she and her partner will drive to North Cape and then head back south to Lofoten and Trondheim. They will then take a boat to Denmark, from where they will drive to Germany and then return to the tropical heat of France. So far, summer 2025 has been quite cool in northern Norway, with temperatures fluctuating around 10°C. Meanwhile, in July last year, an unusual heatwave also hit the Arctic region, with locals flocking to the beaches of the Barents Sea.