Information

Visiting Longyearbyen

Longyearbyen is a very small town (~2'600 residents) that is located in Svalbard at 78° North, which is less than 1'300 Kilometers from the North Pole.

You may wonder what the heck you can do up there in such a small village where temperatures go down to -30° C in the winter and will not exceed 5° C in high summer.

Well, besides being an incredible human experience Longyearbyen is very well organized. You will find almost all the comfort of a normal small town in a place thatis clearly submitted to all the extreme conditions of the far innermost Arctic circle. Ok, but you wouldn't go all the way up there just to find out that you can watch Netflix.

Longyearbyen is not just another Disneyland attraction. It carries with it the whole story of the Arctic exploration, discoveries of new navigation pathes, adaptation to extreme conditions and more. The conditions in which humans are still fighting up there to extract cole in amazing conditions, to store and preserve seeds on behalf of the entire humanity, to study and understand the effects of global heating makes this place incredibly more interesting than you would ever expect.

But of course, you may also want to experience many of the activities that you can only practice in the Polar circle. Tourism is an important source of revenue for Svalbard, besides of subventions provided by Norway. So you will find plenty of activities provided for visitors. Fortunately, visitors travelling so far into the extreme regions of the world are rather educated and respectful people. As a counter part, activities are absolutely not shaped for mass tourism. Most they will be practiced in small groups of four to six people. Guides are extremely gentle and polite. They actually really like what they're doing and do really share their passion.

In fact, in Longyeabyen, since thre are only 2'600 residents, everybody has 2 or 3 jobs to cover all the needs. Your guide is certainly not just a guide. he may be also be a researcher at the Longyearbyen University, the girl who sold you a jacket at the sports store in the afternoon or the guy who checked your luggage at the airport in the morning.

Ok, but why would you want to take guides anyway. First of all, nobody that doesn't live up there is really prepared for Polar conditions. As soon as you leave Longyearbyen, you're alone. Really alone. There is no street to any other town, simply because there is no other town, except a small Russian settlement, with 300 permanent residents (Baretsburg) and some ghost towns that used to have some life in the past but abandoned since. Moreover, even if you might not see any of them, there are polar bears walking around in the whole island. Therefore it is mandatory to go out armed, as soon as you leave Longyearbyen.

Have a look at the Visit Svalbard web site. It will offer you quite a lot of activities that are really stunning. Don't expect them to be very cheap, that's a fact, but considering the very exceptional conditions in which you will be practicing them and the amazing experiences that you will live, you won't regret a single penny.