Profile information
Host rating
100 %
Last replied
9 Jun 2025
Reply rate
100.0 %
Usually responds within 13 days
Feedback
47
Facebook verified
Email verified
Badges (4)
Details
Description
Hi!
We are Sidsel (mum) and Signe (17), a warm, creative and active little family living in Bergen, Norway – in the peaceful Minde area, about 30 minutes by light rail and foot from the city centre.
We enjoy music, hiking, meaningful conversations, and discovering new perspectives. Right now, we’re both busy with exams, so our company may be a bit limited – but we’ll welcome you warmly as part of our household.
What We Offer:
A place to stay (private/shared, depending on timing)
All meals included – we eat varied food and are happy to cook vegetarian
A calm and friendly home
Our cat 🐱
Possibility to borrow our VW van for local trips – once it’s rebuilt
What We Need Most: .
The main task is help with converting the interior of our short Volkswagen Transporter.
It’s partly set up as a camper van by my 21 year old daughter. But the current layout is not functional for more than one person.
We need someone who is handy and good at organizing to help us rearrange it so two can live in the camper instead of one, and build extra storage for longer items like skiing or surf board, so it’s better suited for weekend trips.
We’re looking for someone who is a carpenter, furniture maker, or a very skilled handyman/woman.
Some light housework or tidying or charity work in the church is appreciated, but the van is the real priority.
Other Notes:
We live on a budget, so please cover your own extras (snacks, drinks etc.)
Non-smoking only (due to landlord’s policy)
We speak English, Norwegian and Danish, and we try to learn Spanish and Portuguese
No parties – we value peace and simplicity
Looking forward to meeting you!
Warm regards from Bergen,
Sidsel & Signe
Types of help and learning opportunities
Charity Work
Language practice
DIY and building projects
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
We are a funny, warm and engaged family.
We live close to the nature, to Bergen city and to public transports, so you will be able to go out and see a lot of things easily.
We can help you finding good tours.
We are adventurous and would love to learn about your culture, and teach you about ours, if you like. Through my job in the church you can volunteer if you like and meet the Norwegian culture. Being a Christian is NOT necessary to stay with our family - we are a pastor's family, but we love diversity and the cultural exchange.
Help
Housework like cleaning and tidying up, sewing curtains, helping us being well installed in our new house. This could include some DIY. Help in other house holds than ours will only happen after appointment with you.
Teaching Math, Physics and Science and French on high public school level and high school level.
Languages
Languages spoken
Danish: Fluent
English: Fluent
German: Intermediate
Faroese: Intermediate
Norwegian bokmål: Intermediate
Spanish: Beginner
Portuguese: BeginnerThis host offers a language exchange
Karen Marie is studying French and Mandarin. Help with the home work would be highly appreciated. We are Danes, even we live in Norway. So if you study Danish, we would love to help you.
Accommodation
A sleeping couch in the living room or a private 1 bed room with piano
We live in an apartment with a terrace. We have two bath rooms, two bed rooms (usually one for each of us living there) and a big combined kitchen and living room. We live 6 min. walk from the centre train, and it's easy to access our home from the airport or train station by train, There are many nice places to hike in our area and easy access to beautiful Bergen
We eat breakfast together at 7, before my youngest daughter go to school. I would be very happy, if you can get up and help me preparing the breakfast, so we all start our day together. We eat dinner when we come home from school and work around 5-6 pm. We like to make healthy and green food, mainly vegetarian. We are very flexible about your needs. If you want expensive foods, please help with buying foods sometimes, since we live on a low budget.
My youngest daughter comes home from school about 3 pm. I come home from work around 4 pm. We are both studying while we come home, since we have examins in May/June.
What else ...
Find out about the transport options before you contact us. We live in a remote area, and the tickets up here are expensive.
There is a bus 150 from Kirkenes once or twice a day (snelandia.no), and there are daily plane connections (Wideroe airline) from Kirkenes. It is also possible to go with the ferry Hurtigruten.no to Vadsø.
From Finland there are some bus connections, but they are difficult: See the homepage or app: entur.no
When you go home, you can take Hurtigruten.no from Vadsø to Kirkenes - There is no boat from Kirkenes to Vadsø.
We have a big parking place, so you can always get here by car.
WARNING: I do NOT recommend to hitch hike to our place between October and April. The temperature can be minus 30 degrees celcius in the inland, and you risk to end somewhere without any phone connections and with hours between the cars. So take care of yourself - hitchhiking is only worth it in the summer.
There is a bus and a plane in our town, so you can get around. It is also possible to rent a car. I have a car myself, so I will be glad to drive you on tours, when I don't have too much work. I can help you finding activities and good places to walk in the area.
You can also tjek the facebook page oppslagstavla Vadsø or the home page visitgreaterarctic.com/vadso-info/
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
As long as you are participating in the house hold and do your duties, you can spend your free time as you want.
Can possibly accept pets
Smaller animals, preferably in a cage, are welcome. Animals, like dogs, who can scare our cat are not.
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Feedback (21)
About practical tasks Jente asks helpfully and does every task you ask of her. She has helped us with tidying up and cleaning. And yesterday she impressed us with showeling snow that had turned into ice for hours. Jente took… read more
At this point of my travel, after having trekked a lot, I was somewhat more in need of a place to rest and chill than an adventure : having a good personal space in… read more
Photos
Feedback
These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.
Accuracy of profile:
(5.0)
Cultural exchange:
(5.0)
Communication:
(4.9)
About practical tasks Jente asks helpfully and does every task you ask of her. She has helped us with tidying up and cleaning. And yesterday she impressed us with showeling snow that had turned into ice for hours. Jente took… read more
At this point of my travel, after having trekked a lot, I was somewhat more in need of a place to rest and chill than an adventure : having a good personal space in… read more
She welcomed us so warmly in that freezing part of the world !
We had a lot of interesting conversations, and really good times at her place :) we shared a lot of joyfull and unique moments !
We had to organize the house which was a lil' bit messy, because they moved in two months… read more
Sidsel and Signe treated me very well and it was great fun to teach… read more
He is helpful and an excellent Math teacher. He is really good with children, very patient and nice.
Aman should have spent two weeks at our place, but due to a sudden death in the closest family, we had to leave and find him another host family for the first week. Aman took this… read more
Shu Wen (Zhou) is very nice, polite, bright and has a good sense of humor. She cooked, cleaned, washed, tidied up and organised, taught Chinese, helped my daughter with her scooter and set up our… read more
It was their first workaway experience. At the beginning they were a bit shy and offering to help, but not trying independently. During the stay they became much more independent, and found out what needed to be done. And they did an excellent… read more
It was their first workaway experience. At the beginning they were a bit shy and offering to help, but not trying independently. During the stay they became much more independent, and found out what needed to be done. And they did an excellent… read more
They are very warm people, with many stories to tell, and without a doubt they are great hosts.
The work itself was very scarce, they gave us a lot of time to study and sightsee, and they also took us to beautiful places!
They made us feel at home, and… read more
Their task was only to housesit by taking care of the animals. But when I came home, the house was shining, the drawers are organised, the rabbits and cat are taken… read more
the house is located beautifully and the cat and rabits are too… read more
Mio was very positive and helpful, and everything we asked her to do, she did with a positive mind. She was also very kind to the children, and my girls still talk about, how much they miss her. We hope to see Mio again… read more
Despite the fact that she has just moved in and has been busy, she has given me a lot of experience. Riding horses, visiting museums, taking me to beautiful cities, teaching Danish.I learned the culture of Danmark and Faroe Island from her. Her old big house was also very nice. I… read more
Acomodation was perfect, i had my own room and the Food was great. I… read more
Your work as a workawayer is how she describes it but honestly, you have so… read more
Juntas, realizamos pequeños cambios en la… read more
I highly recommend cooking. Probably the best Cantonese food, we ever had (and it… read more
I found… read more
Besides being a wonderful person, Uta is also structured and hardworking and artistic. Our apartment is… read more
We also visited the beautiful Faroe Islands by bus, boat, car (thanks to Sidsel's father-in-law),… read more
Sidsel is warm, open-hearted, generous, fun, and super bright. She’s as good with conversation as she is with cooking (both excellent),… read more
We were curious, since it's our first workaway experience. We met a nice, polite, helpful, intelligent, empathetic, humble and fun young man.
Luca painted our ceilings and created a very nice, creative exercise cage for the rabbits. He helped my father in… read more
