Svalbard, Norway

Polar bears outnumber people. Snowmobile under the aurora in March or cruise the ice edge in July.

arcticwildlifenorthern-lightsexpeditionice

Best time to visit

Month	High	Low	Rain	Season
Jan	-10°	-15°	45 mm
Feb	-11°	-16°	34 mm
Mar	-12°	-16°	37 mm	prime
Apr	-8°	-12°	27 mm	prime
May	-2°	-5°	24 mm
Jun	4°	2°	19 mm	prime
Jul	9°	5°	35 mm	prime
Aug	7°	4°	43 mm	prime
Sep	3°	-1°	51 mm	prime
Oct	-3°	-7°	44 mm
Nov	-6°	-11°	48 mm
Dec	-9°	-14°	46 mm

30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.

Serves travellers at Mid-range→Ultra-luxury level. Typically around $400 a day on the ground.

Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.

Cards for everything, in kroner. Cash is close to useless and several places will not handle it at all.
money · editorial
You cannot leave the settlement without a rifle and someone trained to use it, because of polar bears. That single rule is why everything here is an organised trip, and why wandering off for a walk is not an option. Take your shoes off indoors; it is a coal-town habit that stuck everywhere, hotels included.
know before · editorial
The polar night runs from late October to mid-February: no sun at all, and no boats. The break-up weeks in late spring are the genuine dead time, when the sea ice is too rotten for snowmobiles and still too solid for boats, so almost nothing runs.
when not to go · editorial
Longyearbyen is effectively the only option, either in the small centre or strung up the valley along the old mine road. There are a couple of remote lodges reachable only by snowmobile or boat, and nothing else on the archipelago that takes guests.
where to stay · editorial
Longyearbyen is walkable end to end. Beyond the town there are no roads at all: travel is by snowmobile, boat or dog sled, and in practice always with an organised group.
getting around · editorial
Fly to Longyearbyen, via Oslo or Tromso, around three hours from Oslo. There is no other practical way in short of an expedition ship, and no road connects Svalbard to anything.
getting there · editorial

The polar bear sign
At the edge of Longyearbyen. Going past it without a rifle is illegal, and for good reason.
Svalbard church
The northernmost church in the world, open 24 hours, with coffee always made.
Svalbard Museum
Whaling, coal and ice, told without romance.
The global seed vault
A concrete door in the hillside. Nobody goes in; seeing it from outside is the point.
The suspended coal mines
Timber structures on the slopes, abandoned and preserved by the cold.
Adventdalen
The wide valley where the Svalbard reindeer graze, short and fat.

Eat reindeer or Arctic fish — it is what exists at 78 degrees north
Beer from the northernmost brewery in the world
A law from 1928 had to be changed for it to exist.
Svalbard reindeer
A subspecies that exists nowhere else. Served without ceremony.
A hot dinner after a day at minus twenty
Anything will do. The point is the contrast.

Spend a whole day inside the polar night, with no sun at all
The polar night
From mid-November to late January the sun does not rise. Not even at midday.
Midnight sun at three in the morning
April to August, with the whole town awake at the wrong hours.

Sarkofagen
Five hundred metres above Longyearbyen, with an armed guide, because that is the rule.