Hei!

We are Benjamin (35) and Karin (35). Together with our 2 daughters Liv (5) & Mia (3) we took over Rondane Gjestegård in October 2019 and moved to the Norwegian mountains.

Before we lived in Belgium close to the city of Antwerp. It’s a nice town but often crowded and we missed the nature and mountains around us. When still living in Belgium, we spent most of our free time travelling to the mountains. This has been all over the world but most of the time we travelled up north, to Scandinavia… During winter we go skiing and in summer we like hiking a lot. Our oldest daughter Liv is a good skiier and completed her first multiday trekking on the age of 4. She likes being active in the mountains while our youngest Mia still enjoys the scenery comfortably seated in a backpack. Benjamin loves to care about his garden and Karin spends most of her time in the kitchen.

We kind of turned our biggest passion into our profession. During the past 10 years we have been leading our own travel agency NORTH & AWAY – Travel Expert for the Nordic Countries. Together with our Belgian colleagues we organize the perfect Scandinavian holiday for our customers. We focus on the whole Nordic region including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroese Islands, Greenland and Svalbard. We visited all destinations ourselves and many of our clients started loving Scandinavia as much as we do. Since we overtook Rondane Gjestegård, we have been active more behind the scenes for NORTH & AWAY but it will continue to exist also in the future.

We have been sending a lot of guests to Christoph & Cecilie, the previous owners of Rondane Gjestegård, since we started our travel agency in 2009. Most of our customers traveling to Norway stayed actually in Rondane Gjestegård. Often as the first stop when coming from Oslo and on the way to the fjords. The central location close to several national parks, the nearby mountains, the typical Norwegian accommodation, the charming ambience and not to forget the excellent local food match perfectly their expectations of a dream holiday in Norway. Maybe the famous fjords are lacking in this part of Norway but nature is equally dramatic and being off the beaten track, there is still good potential for future tourism development. After Cecilie and Christoph let us know the property was for sale, we didn’t have to think long to make the decision.

Soon after the decision to take over Rondane Gjestegård we started considering whether or not changing the name. There is a lot of history about Rondane Gjestegård but at the same time we mainly want to focus on the future development of this beautiful spot. Because over 50% of the guests come from abroad and ‘Gjestegård’ is difficult to translate (let alone pronouncing in other languages) we decided to change the name into Rondane River Lodge. This refers obviously to the many rivers and lakes that surround the lodge. One of them, the crystal clear Vulua, is actually streaming right through our backyard…

Our aim is to run Rondane River Lodge with the same passion as Christoph and Cecilie always did. Benjamin will focus on the accommodation and activities, while Karin will expand her kitchen skills. During our first year in Norway we want to experience the daily business of running a hotel, getting to know the locals and adapt to the Norwegian way of living. And most importantly: we have to learn the language which we started already in Belgium. Don’t expect too many changes in the short term but please let us know if you have ideas on how to make Rondane River Lodge an even more unique place in the world!

One of the things we did introduce recently is the brand new website for Rondane River Lodge. We hope it inspires you to come and visit this beautiful part of Norway and stay of course in one of the hotel rooms or cabins at our lodge. We will definitely face some challenges but we are keen to learn and look really much forward to this new chapter in our lives. And of course we hope to meet you soon at the Rondane River Lodge!

Hjertelig velkommen!

Benjamin, Karin, Liv & Mia.

Click here to read more about us.