A week in Svalbard: one of my favorite trips, ever

I spent a week in Svalbard, a place that’s been on my bucket list for a looooong time. In short - it was incredible. If you’re looking for a wild, edge-of-the-world kind of place with (mostly!) modern creature comforts, this is it. Set under the backdrop of a bright, eternally blue skies time felt immaterial and lent an otherworldly quality to a lovely summer holiday.

Svalbard is a place that’s simultaneously barren and teeming with life. I did not see any polar bears (but saw their tracks on several occasions!), though I saw countless puffin, walrus, arctic tern, beluga whales, and arctic foxes throughout my visit. I’ve gone out of my way to see arctic foxes in Iceland (to no avail), but I saw 3 or 4 in about a 15 minute period just walking around the grounds of Isfjord Radio; simply wild stuff.

Getting there: Direct flight from Oslo to Longyearbyen. While Svalbard is a part of Norway, it is not in Schengen so you will be going through customs both departing “Norway” and returning to “Norway”.

Accommodations: I stayed at the Basecamp Hotel in Longyearbyen and Basecamp’s accommodations at Isfjord Radio. Wonderful staff and beautiful properties; I’d stay with them again in a heartbeat.

Worth mentioning: if you really want to explore Svalbard, you should visit in the late winter / early spring. The island has exceptionally few roads and travel to the interior is accomplished almost exclusively via snowmobile or dogsled. The summer months are good for spotting wildlife, but you can only really navigate via boats. 

Highlights: the aforementioned wildlife, a journey to Isfjord Radio (probably one of the coolest “hotels” I’ve ever stayed in), and a visit to Pyramiden, an abandoned Soviet-era mining village. 

Verdict: If you’re into the outdoors and want to see a less-traveled corner of our beautiful planet, I can’t recommend it more. I’ve never been anywhere else quite like it. 

Happy to answer questions and sharing an explainer on pics below!

1. Nordenskiöld Glacier on the approach to Pyramiden
2. Walruses — there’s plenty to see in Svalbard (and a small group has even set up residence just outside of Longyearbyen for even easier spotting)
3. Isfjord Radio — an old radio station that served as my “hotel” during half of my stay in Svalbard. It is quite remote and frequently visited by polar bears. You are not allowed to step outside without an armed guide
4. A puffin at sea. They are the cutest!
5. A field of flowers on a hike from Isfjord Radio. As an arctic desert, Svalbard is exceptionally barren; after days without seeing any colorful vegetation, stumbling into this felt like an assault on the senses. My guide — a Svalbard veteran of a decade — noted that the one thing she misses most from home is sitting in a grassy field
6. A small "garden" growing in and around a whale bone. Much of coastal Svalbard is former seabed, so it’s very common to see old (per my guide, up to a thousand+ years aged) whale bones on the ground. In the warmer months, nutrients from the bones nurse these pockets of life, adding splashes of color to a monochromatic landscape. Unbelievably cool.
7. Traversing the hallways of an old Soviet school in Pyramiden, an abandoned Russian mining town. You can see my lovely guide packing heat in front of me: Pyramiden is in the heart of polar bear country so you are never far from a rifle
8. The view of the Nordenskiöld Glacier from the top of an apartment building in Pyramiden
9. An old classroom in Pyramiden. Spooky vibes abound. The artwork is made from thousands upon thousands of sliced, colored wires
10. It’s just the peak of a mountain, but I love it. I could post a thousand of these, though I fear I'm overstaying my welcome here; appreciate your reading and happy travels!

Author: evner