Consumer Maps

Map from our car rental company.  It covered the entire country, and the folding made it very convenient to open on your lap.  Note the blue grid, which is (1) very tall and skinny, and (2) rotated with respect to the edge of the paper map.  The grid is latitude/longitude, with equal spacing in degrees in both directions, but the convergence of the merdians at such high latitudes make the grid very rectangular.  The map is on a UTM projection, used for all the map data in Norway, and we are far from the central meridian of the UTM zone--or maybe not so far, but the differences are magnified at such high laititudes.  Overall this was probably by far the best map I've ever gotten with a rental comparny.

The rental car came with a GPS navigation system, which we mostly ignored in favor of systems on our cell phones.  We use Maps-Me and Google Maps, both of which allow downloading the data on wifi and then work without an internet connection which we didn't pay for and which does not extend everywhere in the wilds of Norway.  I find the car systems too hard to initialize and set up, when I will only be in the car a few days.  On this one, however, I did notice that the roads have two colors (cyan and darker blue), which shows the tunnels where you will lose GPS (lights are on everywhere in Norway, so you don't have to worry about turning them on, and there are a lot of tunnels).

Free tourist hking maps use a subdued topographic base (I will bet from the national mapping agency), and colored overprints with with hiking trails.  This one is from Balestrand.  North is to the right.

Another map for the same hike, in color, from a pamphlet with 25 choices.

With the maps and the well maintained hiking trails (this picture shows paving stones crossing a boggy region), it was hard to get lost, even without using the maps in a GPS app on the phone.

Road junctions had signs in all directions, and often tables or benches to sit and admire nature.  Probably no one in Norway needed a break to catch their breath, but maybe a few tourists took advantage for that.