Have you ever been tooling up the highway in, say, Boston, Miami or Chicago, and you pass a car with an Alaska license plate? Too cool! A few weeks ago, I saw a Hawaii plate on a car in North Carolina. Even cooler! (Warmer?)
This car came to Norway from Lithuania.
It reminded me how this past summer when we were bicycling on Lofoten, an archipelago in Norway, above the arctic circle, we spotted some rather exotic plates.
Of course we saw mostly Norwegian plates
Of course there was the usual abundance of French, Dutch, and German road-tripping tourists. Any worldwide traveler knows that the German and Dutch go everywhere. And of course the Scandanavian drivers were in full force as well, including drivers from Finland.
This Icelandic plate was the one farthest from Norway that we spotted
But the other more faraway plates included Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Lithuania and …. Iceland! That’s one of the many great things about international travel — spotting other international travelers.
Another interesting thing about Norway’s own plates — they have special ones for electric cars and hydrogen-powered cars. Perhaps that’s something we’ll start see in the good ol’ gas-guzzling USA some day.
License plates from an electric (left) and hydrogen-powered car (Norway); Click on image to read Diane's story on electric cars for Ode Magazine
Tags: alaska license plate, hawaii license plate, international license plates
Places we go, People we see 
November 19, 2008 at 12:25 pm |
Diane – A great example of why I love to read your stuff….You ID the details that make travel interesting. Thanks!
October 16, 2009 at 12:40 pm |
I live in Singapore and I saw a CALIFORNIA PLATE !
October 16, 2009 at 12:44 pm |
well now that is cool!
November 1, 2010 at 10:53 am |
It used to be cool to see a lot of different licenceplates in Norway. But now most people here thinks of criminals when we see a licenceplate from Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. We have been invaded by criminals from these countries, and they destroy the reputation for the rest of their fellow countrymen.
If they get sendt to prison in Norway they don’t care since the standard of most prisons are higher then some motels. The food is supposed to be better too.
I guess this is the drawback of the Shengen agreement. No control of who is travelling to and in Norway.
but enough ranting..
I saw cars from the Emirates and Saudi Arabia this summer in Norway. I also saw a car from Egypt. That is not something I usually do (unless it is an embassy car).
I guess people have seen my car in a lot of countries too. I took it for a spin to Syria, Egypt, Iran to mention a few (and all the European countries of course). The old Volvo had reached about 680 000km when I scrapped it. Just minor setbacks stopped me from driving the car to Thailand…. the gulf war..