A Place Where Time Doesn’t Matter: Inside Norway’s Island That Lives Beyond the Clock

High above the Arctic Circle lies Sommarøy, a small Norwegian island that challenges one of the most basic rules of modern life: time. I traveled to this remote fishing village to find out whether a town can truly exist without the clock—and what happens when the sun refuses to follow a normal schedule.

From mid-May to late July, the sun rises in Sommarøy and simply never sets. The nights glow like early evening, and the idea of “bedtime” becomes optional. Later in the year, the opposite happens. From November to January, the sun disappears completely, leaving the island wrapped in long stretches of darkness. In a place like this, time feels less like a rule and more like a suggestion.

During the midnight sun, Sommarøy looks almost unreal. Purple wildflowers push through soft moss, white beaches meet electric-blue water, and the air feels surprisingly warm. At 11 p.m., children run along the shore in pajamas, fishing and laughing, while kayakers glide silently across the sea. No one checks their watch, because there’s no real reason to.

Inspired by these extreme cycles of light and dark, locals made global headlines in 2019 when they proposed turning Sommarøy into the world’s first “time-free zone.” The idea was simple: if daylight doesn’t follow the clock, why should daily life? Residents wanted the freedom to shop, work, eat, or sleep whenever it felt natural.

The story quickly caught international attention. Media outlets painted Sommarøy as a stress-free paradise, a place where deadlines disappear and life slows down. The island leaned into the image, inviting visitors to experience a life untethered from schedules. What often went unsaid, however, was the reality behind the dream—how businesses coordinate, how work gets done, and how social life functions when time loses structure.

Sommarøy may not have fully escaped the clock, but it has exposed something important. Time, as we know it, is not as fixed as we think. On this island, life bends to nature instead of the other way around—and that alone is enough to make you question how much of your own life is ruled by the ticking of a watch.