Klitmøller has been transformed from a fishing village into a buzzing and gnarly surf spot, where newcomers are welcomed to join Cold Hawaii’s growing community of transplants.
By the time Mai Knudsen was 33, she was a civil engineer at the top of her game. She’d “made it” by most definitions of success – except her own. “Work was so stressful,” she said. “I was spending my weekends doing nothing just to cope before going back on Monday. I felt my life should be different.”
One visit to the town of Klitmøller in north-west Denmark was all it took. She traded her demanding life in Copenhagen for a seaside home overlooking dunes and surf, turning the first floor of her house into the pancake cafe she’d always dreamt of owning. Ten years later, in this old fishing village now known as “Cold Hawaii”, Knudsen runs Kesses Hus for half the year, and in the wintery off-season she closes the shop to surf.
“I knew I could really live here,” she said.
Knudsen is among Cold Hawaii’s growing community of transplants, most of whom left skyscrapers and traffic to slow down and surf by the sea. Denmark’s once sleepy north-west coast is now crawling with galleries and boutiques, organic bakeries and a co-working space – many of them opened by the newcomers from 20-some-odd countries. Even more young South Africans, Brazilians, Australians and Germans moved here post-Covid to work remotely, some to raise their kids. There are doctors and lawyers, and a famous Danish artist who’d been living in Berlin, Jeppe Hein, who now volunteers in local schools teaching children how to paint their own breath.
“You’re forced to slow down. There isn’t a lot here, so if you want art, you make it yourself. If you want pancakes, you make them yourself,” said Knudsen. “That part hasn’t changed. It’s still the mentality of the fishermen who’ve lived here the longest.”