The Norse had extensive contact with other civilizations, through war and trade. The early medieval world was more interconnected than popularly thought (historians having largely dropped the usage of the term "Dark Ages"), and Norsemen had some level of presence in most areas of Europe and even western Asia.

Varangians, or Swedish Vikings, established extensive trade networks through modern day Russia, forming the so-called Rus' Khaganate and successive Kievan Rus'.

Persian writers such as ibn Khordadbeh mentioned that Rus' merchants brought goods and slaves all the way to Baghdad, Iraq, which was then ruled by the Abbasid Caliphate. Although Rus' could refer to either Slavic Russians or the Swedish mercenaries that once ruled the disparate territory of Kievan Rus', ibn Khordadbeh distinguishes the Rus' from Saqlab (Slavs), so he was likely talking about Scandinavians. The largest and most ambitious Norse expedition to the east must have been that of Ingvar the Far-Travelled, who sailed across the Caspian Sea and raided northern Iran; his failed expedition to Persia was recorded in 26 Ingvar runestones across Sweden.

The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire recruited Varangians as an elite guard unit, and frequent travel occurred between Constantinople and Scandinavia. The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada had extensive service among the Byzantine army before his abortive attempt to conquer England in 1066.

Danes and Norwegians invaded and traded in a more westward direction. The first route of expansion was into the British Isles. The Great Heathen Army conquered eastern and northern England, forming the "Danelaw", a group of Norse-influenced petty kingdoms. Norse "Sea-Kings" settled in Ireland and re-founded the city of Dublin, establishing a new base of operations in the Scottish Western Isles. Norse-Gaels integrated themselves thoroughly with the politics and society of the existing statelets in Scotland and Ireland. Danish Vikings expanded into France, settling in Normandy as a compromise between the Vikings and Christians, with the Danish warlord Rollo allowed to legally settle in northern France to preserve Paris from Viking attack.

Muslim sources record a Viking raid on Seville, then part of the Emirate of Cordoba; as well as Viking raids throughout Christian and Muslim Iberia.

Norse were also present closer to home in the Baltic Sea, in Finland (which is arguably referred to as Kvenland in Icelandic sagas) and Poland. Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, who traveled in 961–62 in Central Europe, mentions that the drużyna of Duke Mieszko I of Poland had 3000 men, paid by the duke. Some of these warriors may have been Scandinavian based on archaeological evidence, the influx of Varangians into the Rus' druzhina, and that Mieszko would later marry his daughter Świętosława (Sigrid) to the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard. A Polish-Norse relationship doesn't appear to have been as frequent as that between the Norse and East Slavic tribes, however.

All in all, the Norse had varying levels of contact with almost the entirety of coastal Europe and parts of the Islamic World. Areas that the Norse would have been intimately familiar with would be the British Isles and the river networks of northwestern Russia, with trade contacts well into the Byzantine and Islamic Near East, and occasional raiding and military service in many neighboring lands.