Our columnist, Sebastian Modak, is visiting each destination on our 52 Places to Go in 2019 list. The Scandinavian portion of his trip started in Aalborg, Denmark and continues this week in Vestlandet, Norway.

Here’s something I learned quickly while roaming the fjords and mountains of southwestern Norway, also known as Vestlandet, by car: Take your navigation app’s estimated time and add at least two hours. There are too many distractions around every hairpin bend. A single-lane road branches off the winding highway into farmland; a clearly marked trailhead and the sound of raging water signal the possibility of a waterfall nearby; an algae bloom has turned the cold, blue water of a fjord into a swirl of hypnotic, psychedelic greens. Norway is a solo traveler’s playground: With no one to appease, I made decisions on the fly and savored the revelatory moments.

Vestlandet, the 18th stop on my yearlong journey, posed the same challenges as other places covering large areas on the 52 Places list, like Uzbekistan, Wyoming and Panama. The region, which covers 22,592 square miles, is impossible to cover fully in just five days, especially because the rugged terrain makes travel slow. I had to compromise, balancing some of its major hubs with scenic drives, leaving enough space for serendipity. I decided to start in Bergen, a popular cruise ship port that is Norway’s second largest city. Then I’d drive to Voss, a hub for extreme sports, before moving south to Stavanger and looping back to Bergen. It provided a nice balance of city and country, but while the destinations themselves were lovely, it was the in-between moments I will remember most.