Thousands of Norwegians spend weekends and holidays at the family cabin, which ideally speaking should be should be tucked away in the wilderness surrounded by the pristine landscape of the Norwegian mountains. Cabins like this do not have indoor plumbing, so you have to fetch water from a pond or haul water containers from town. Mountain cabins never have a shower. Ideally, a cabin is not supposed to have electricity either, although over half are hooked up today. The typical Norwegian cabin is built of logs and consists of a living room, one or more bedrooms, an outdoor lavatory, woodshed and small kitchen.
Heating is preferably by wood, although kerosene is permissible, just barely.
Oil lamps and candlelight provide light on dark winter nights. This simplicity is not due to a desire to save money. In fact a mountain cabin in an attractive location is a costly investment, no matter how simply they are furnished. The absence of modern comforts is founded on ideological and moral, rather than economic, reasons. The cabin is the starting point for private expeditions into the great outdoors, on skis in the winter, on foot in the summer.