Swing by Klitmøller beach in northwestern Denmark on any given day and the gray ocean will be dotted with surfers and kiteboarders in wet suits. So good are the waves along the windswept coastline stretching between the towns of Nørre Vorupør and Hanstholm that in recent years the area has come to be known as Cold Hawaii.
“When I moved here in 2017, surfing wasn't a big thing,” says Alexander Bengtsen, one of the founders of Surf & Work, a coworking space in Nørre Vorupør. “I would surf with just a handful of people down at the local spot. That's impossible now.” He's one of the many Danes who have decided good waves are as important as a career and traded city life for a slower-paced existence. Many work remotely, but others, like Bengtsen, have launched businesses that have helped create a sense of community. Maja Overgård relocated to Klitmøller after leaving her corporate job at Deloitte and in 2023 helped form Tech & Surf, a networking community that aims to connect women in tech. “I wanted to try something else, work less, enjoy life more, and surf when the waves are good,” she says. In 2023 another coworking space, VK3, which also hosts workshops for creatives, opened in a refurbished carpenters warehouse in Nørre Vorupør.
The influx of transplants has spurred the development of a café and restaurant scene. After years of cooking in major cities around Denmark, chef Nicolas Min Jørgensen moved to a small town south of Nørre Vorupør with his wife and daughter. In 2022, in a glass-fronted building with lots of light wood, he opened Tri with a menu that highlights the region's bounty of local produce, wild lobster, and fjord shrimp. A year later it became the first restaurant in the area to receive a Michelin star. Beate Bak tells a similar story: After 15 years of running a coffee shop in Copenhagen, she moved to Nørre Vorupør and opened Kaffebaren I VØ, an outpost of her café in the city. Laura Rannje, the founder of Omni Coffee Roastery, also moved from the capital so she could surf while providing coffee beans to local cafés.
In the past this coastline was visited largely by vacationers from neighboring Germany, who were generally satisfied with budget accommodations and fish-and-chips shops. Many of them came to hike or bike in Thy National Park, a rugged 94-square-mile wilderness area with heathered fields and coastal dunes. The people who are coming now are much more diverse, and a crop of new hotels is catering to the changing demographics. In 2015 award-winning chef Kenneth Toft-Hansen and his wife, Louise, took over Svinkløv, a historic seaside inn south of Klitmøller, maintaining its traditional feel with whitewashed rooms and blue floral curtains. Next came Vorupør Badehotel, located in a renovated 1904 building inside Thy National Park. Earlier this year Vipp Cold Hawaii, a guesthouse from the iconic Danish design brand, opened. Though it is the area's splashiest place to stay, it's still just a simple wooden A-frame house constructed from natural materials. “It's down-to-earth,” says Vipp CEO and third-generation co-owner Kasper Egelund, “but there's also a tremendous attention to detail.”
That's true of most places you'll find in this wind-whipped pocket of Denmark. Take Østlængen, a bakery that pops up in a lighthouse in Hanstholm during the summer months. Three friends who split time between Copenhagen and the Klitmøller area opened it in 2023. “It's remarkable that such a windy and chilly place can transform into a tourist mecca,” says Østlængen cofounder Julius Ley. In the morning the bakery serves buttery croissants and flat whites; in the evenings, homemade sourdough pizzas. Even on a stormy night, locals and travelers bundle into the simple dining room, where candlelit tables quickly become crowded with excellent burrata, ‘nduja pies, and glasses of natural wine. It's the Danish version of the casual postsurf bite.
This article appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
