🇸🇯 Country guide
Svalbard Travel Guide
The seventy-eighth parallel. For four months the sun never rises, for four it never sets; there are more polar bears than people.
Gateway
Longyearbyen · LYR
Capital
Longyearbyen
Best time
March–May · September–October
Budget
High
Don't miss
The polar night — four months without a sunrise
How to plan a Svalbard route
The Svalbard archipelago, between 78° and 81° north, is the world's northernmost inhabited area. Longyearbyen is the main base and gateway; Ny-Ålesund is a scientific research settlement, Pyramiden an abandoned Soviet mining town and Barentsburg a living coal-mining town.
In winter you experience the polar night and the northern lights; in spring and summer, the midnight sun, sea tours and polar nature.
4–6 days
The Polar Splendour Route
Accommodation based in Longyearbyen, with Ny-Ålesund and a fjord trip by boat tour.
Cities to visit in Svalbard
A trip to Svalbard is less a classic city break than an expedition planned around polar conditions. Longyearbyen is the archipelago's transport and accommodation hub; Ny-Ålesund is a scientific research settlement, while Pyramiden and Barentsburg are special stops reached on guided boat or snowmobile routes. Because the season, daylight, sea ice and weather directly shape the programme, don't think of moving between settlements like independent city transport.
2/4 city guides live
Guide liveLongyearbyen
The world's northernmost town — painted wooden houses beneath an icy mountain.
Guide liveNy-Ålesund
A research settlement where a handful of scientists overwinter in near-total darkness.
In the worksPyramiden
An abandoned Soviet mining town, frozen exactly as it was left in 1998.
In the worksBarentsburg
Still inhabited, still Russian; reachable only by boat or snowmobile.
Image credits
- Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · source · CC BY-SA 4.0
- In Vitrio · source · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Buiobuione · source · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Andre Shutterbird · source · CC BY-SA 4.0