Gateway to the North
Karmsundet was called Nordvegen – the shipping lane that gave Norway its name! For 3000 years, princes and kings at Avaldsnes controlled the ship traffic in the narrow strait.
Rune Johnsen
Viking ships
Parallel to Karmsundet lie Scandinavia's oldest ship burials. Storhaug and Grønhaug are two of Europe's 14 known ship burials with royal interments from the Viking Age. In 2023, a third emerged on the radar; Salhushaugen.
As of today, efforts are being made to facilitate the desire to share the exciting cultural heritage. Further investigations can provide new knowledge about Viking ship technology as well as the role of Avaldsnes and Haugalandet in the national unification process. Read more about this and the collaboration project Maktens Havn
Potential world heritage
The Directorate for Cultural Heritage is surveying Viking age cultural remains for Norway's tentative list for World Heritage, Storhaug is included in this list.
Ship graves are symbols of the wealth and power of the time, of faith and society. The monumental burial mounds have linked stories from mythology and sagas with the sites.
The road to World Heritage status is long. It is the government that decides whether the Viking heritage should be placed on the tentative list, and start a nomination process for consideration by Unesco.
Viking for a day
At Avaldsnes, you are invited to join a journey through time!
Meet Vikings for activities and guided tours at the reconstructed Viking farm. Here, you can try your hand at Viking treasure hunts and archery - and experience the Vikings' work with beautiful traditional crafts.
In June, you can participate in the largest Viking festival in Western Norway.
At Harald Fairhair and Gyda's at the Nordvegen History Centre, you can dress as a Viking and explore "Mimir's well"; the source of knowledge in Norse mythology.
Camilla Vandvik
Go Viking
Ancient sagas and poems and the sagas of kings tie exciting stories and named individuals to areas and cultural heritage sites in our district.
Aerophoto Norge
Karmøy is part of Destination Haugesund & Haugalandet. Just north of Haugesund city center lies Norway's only national monument: Haraldshaugen. This is where the saga tells us Harald Fairhair is buried. The Viking Planet is a modern and digital Viking museum in the heart of Haugesund. Here, the rich Viking history is presented in a fun and educational way.
Follow in the Viking's footsteps along The North Sea Road, a travel route along the sea that leads you to the most beautiful pearls along the Southwest coast of Norway.
You can travel through Europe on the Viking path Follow the Vikings - a network of sites conveying the story of the Vikings and the cultural heritage they have left us.