Hello,
My husband and I are planning a 10-11 day trip starting around Aug 15. We plan to rent a car for the whole time. Based on the flights we have found, we can either arrive and depart from Oslo and do a circular driving route going west and then North (mostly looking for scenery - fjords, national parks, hiking, etc), or arrive in Bergen and do kind of an upside down horseshoe shaped route ending in Oslo for departure back to the states (I can only find reasonably priced flights back home from Oslo).

Arriving Bergen saves us 7-9 hrs of driving, but are we missing out on anything major if we skip the Oslo to Bergen drive? I did notice that car rentals charge a significant premium to rent 'one way' but am willing to pay that for the time saved in driving if that is what the forum recommends.
Thanks for any suggestions!

I do not think that you would lose that much by starting in Bergen. The train does cross some high mountains:

https://flic.kr/p/7qoz2H
but mountain roads do too:

https://flic.kr/p/7qoFmR
On a different but related topic: make sure that you have a transponder or vignette (whichever applies in Norway) with your rental. Unmanned toll stations can appear at the strangest places even on two lane roads.

Thanks for the advice, I'll make sure the rental company supplies a transponder! Beautiful pictures

There is a Norwegian site for scenic drives. It will help you plan your trip

I also do not think you will lose much by starting in Bergen if you have a car to tour the countryside. Cars are expensive though but worth it in my opinion. I suspect car rental rates are much higher than normal now due to COVID in Norway as in other parts of Europe. We paid about $400 for a three day rental of a Toyota RAV 4 in June. Drove 700 kilometers and our transponder for tolls rang up about $55. Gas was about $110 at about $10/gallon. Rental rates for longer probably much cheaper per day. Drop off fees otherwise quite expensive.

BTW: Think you can fly from BGO to OSL for less than $100 each so probably much cheaper than the drop off charge.

For car rentals use Autoeurope (https://www.autoeurope.com/) as a base against which to compare other offers.