Friluftsliv can be translated directly as "free air's life." If you go outside, the air is free for everyone. So if you do that, then you're now entering "free air." And if your goal is to enjoy the time in that "free air," this now becomes friluftsliv, meaning that you're now giving that time "life." So yeah, it basically involves being outside...
It usually involves more serious outdoors activities, though, such as skiing, camping or longer hikes in the forest or in the mountains including, but not limited to, such activities as fishing or hunting. But it may also involve just a short stroll around the neighbourhood, or to the park, so we're not discussing something truly revolutionary here.
Closely related to this activity, which can be cooked down to "being outide," is the Norwegian rhyming phrase, Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær, which in English means "There is no bad bad weather, only bad clothes." (Perhaps if you rhymed with leather it would kinda work, but idk.)
My own relation to this word, as a Northerner from Norway, is that there is never any bad weather in Oslo, where I live, even if it's raining cats and dogs. The reasoning behind that claim is that, while it can rain in Oslo, at last the rain falls straight down... And if you as a foreigner comes to Oslo, and then go on to think that you've been to Norway, then you're sadly mistaken. ;)
It usually involves more serious outdoors activities, though, such as skiing, camping or longer hikes in the forest or in the mountains including, but not limited to, such activities as fishing or hunting. But it may also involve just a short stroll around the neighbourhood, or to the park, so we're not discussing something truly revolutionary here.
Closely related to this activity, which can be cooked down to "being outide," is the Norwegian rhyming phrase, Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær, which in English means "There is no bad bad weather, only bad clothes." (Perhaps if you rhymed with leather it would kinda work, but idk.)
My own relation to this word, as a Northerner from Norway, is that there is never any bad weather in Oslo, where I live, even if it's raining cats and dogs. The reasoning behind that claim is that, while it can rain in Oslo, at last the rain falls straight down... And if you as a foreigner comes to Oslo, and then go on to think that you've been to Norway, then you're sadly mistaken. ;)