Summer is prime vacation time, and though I was in Norway not too long ago, I’m already looking forward to our upcoming trip to Westport this August.

Growing up, my family rarely took vacations. We’d take trips to see my mom’s relatives in Wisconsin and my dad’s relatives in Germany, but while we often squeezed in vacation-type activities (Wisconsin Dells, museum visits, and sightseeing), and our trips took place during school breaks (my dad was a professor), it was never billed as “time off,” with the exception of a trip to Disneyworld one Christmas… during which Orlando was unseasonably cold and my mother suffered debilitating asthma attacks.

As a freelancer, I still have trouble with the concept of vacation, though I try to take them now. I’m sure I’m not the only one — work is so portable, job definitions have swelled, and you’re rarely in a place where it’s impossible to get in touch. It isn’t hard for me to refuse new work requests that come in when I’m on vacation, but it’s tough for me not to keep working on projects whose timelines simply spill over for one reason or another.

How do you manage vacations?

The Lofoten Islands, pitched against Norway’s northwest coast, in the Arctic Circle, are all volcanic crags and pristine lakes and bays, and I’ve found it quite difficult to describe, since coming home, exactly what makes them so special. They are beautiful, but so are many remote and untamed places. They are breathtaking, but mountains and lakes often are.

What stands out in my memory is how dramatically inhospitable the landscape is, in spite of all its beauty. If not for the cod that spawn nearby and support a major fishing industry, it would be difficult to see why people thought they could find room for themselves at all here, and for the red and yellow fishing cabins that are now, in several places, available for tourists to rent. We stayed in one such cabin in the village of Hamnøy, and our periodic excursions into the sea and mountains only confirmed our impressions that to live in Lofoten is to understand human limits.

The only downside, from my perspective, is that the country is absurdly expensive, even for two jaded New Yorkers who are quite used to paying dearly to live in small spaces, and to overpaying for common goods at convenience stores. Nonetheless, if you get the chance (and you don’t expect to eat out every night), I heartily recommend it.