How To Book A Room At A DNT Cabin

The DNT Cabins are a unique part of Norway. These cabins are owned by Den Norske Turistforeningen (usually only referred to as DNT), but anyone can become a member and book a stay at these cabins.

You will find the DNT cabins in both popular tourism areas as well as in remote places that very few people ever visit. The great thing about these cabins is that anyone can become a member and book a stay, and you can often just enter a cabin and find an available bed there.

Many cabins do require you to book in advance, so let’s take a closer look at how you can book a stay at a DNT cabin!

To book a room at a DNT cabin, go to ut.no and search for the cabin you want to stay at. Click on “Bestill overnatting”, choose your date, and pay with a banking card. When you have made the reservation, pick up the key at the local DNT Shop or use the universal DNT cabin key if you have it.

You will probably want to use Google Translate to understand the DNT booking systems, since this is only in Norwegian. The reason is simply because its aimed towards Norwegians, not foreign tourists.

As you can see from Ut.no’s web interface, there’s a contact address where you can send an e-mail to get in touch with the person who is responsible for the bookings.

Some DNT cabins have other booking systems

Pre-booking a room at the cabin is not always necessarily or even possible, and some cabins uses other systems.

One of the systems is a manned cabin that will only accept drop-in visitors that stop by. These can usually be paid at a banking terminal right there at the cabin. Cabins that are staffed are known as “Staffed lodges“, and are mostly found close to cities and towns, or near tourist attractions.

Other DNT Cabins cannot be pre-booked, but instead requires a universal DNT Cabin Key to enter. These are known as “No-service cabins“. All members can rent this key, and it opens a lot of different cabins. When arriving at one of these unmanned, unbookable cabins, just go there, find a bed, then fill out a payment form. Bring this with you and pay when you get home.

All DNT Cabins guarantee a place to sleep, but you might be required to sleep on a mattress on the floor if there are many people there.

Do you need to be a DNT member to use the cabins?

You might not need to be a DNT member to be able to use the cabin, but this will limit you to only be able to use the staffed lodges. The reason is because only DNT members can get the keys or the universal key to the cabins. All members can rent the keys by paying 100 NOK in a deposit that is returned to you when you hand the key back in.

Only a single person in the travel group needs to be a member, and anyone can use the cabin regardless if they are traveling with a member that has the key. However, staying at the cabins is far cheaper for members, so it might be a good idea to become a DNT member if you plan on staying more than just a few nights.