This travel update is for part one of our week in Longyearbyen, Norway. It covers July 26.

July 26, 2023 – Tuesday: Flying Above The Arctic Circle!

We were excited to be traveling to Longyearbyen today. We packed up and left our Airbnb in Oslo around 11 AM, caught the tram to the main train station downtown, then got the airport express train.

As we got on the train there was a family of 4 trying to go up the same steps as us with lots of luggage and we ended up sharing a small compartment at the end of the carriage with them for the 30-minute ride to the airport. We ended up having a nice chat with them. Patti explained to Max, the dad, about our lifestyle and he had a lot of questions for us. Max, his wife, daughter, and son are traveling around Scandinavia for a couple of weeks, they come from Los Angeles. They seem to like to travel and Max asked some good questions about health insurance and other things as it pertains to our lifestyle. His wife was particularly interested in my pants, from clothingarts.com, for their pick-pocket-proof capability.

We said goodbye to Max’s family on the platform and walked into the airport. We were both wearing white shirts today, here’s our selfie at the airport.

We made it through check-in and security easily. Then we had to go through immigration passport control. That surprised me because I thought our destination, Svalbard, was part of Norway. But a security guard explained that it’s actually a special region of Norway so we had to get a visa stamp for it.

While in line for our visa stamp we talked to a couple from Australia who were also traveling to Longyearbyen for the typical tourist activities like walrus safaris, glacier hikes, fjord cruises, etc. They told us the best time to travel to Australia would be October through December. We do want to see Australia at some point so we try to talk to Australians about going there when we can.

When we got to our gate I was surprised to see this waiting room of artistically-designed lounging platforms. They were attractive, comfortable, and functional, is that typical of Scandinavian design?

Our Norwegian Airlines Boeing 737 arrived about 45 minutes before our flight and we boarded efficiently.

It was about a 2.5 hour flight, here’s our airplane selfie.

Our flight path was almost due north from Oslo to the archipelago of Svalbard and the town of Longyearbyen.

In case you’ve never heard of Svalbard or Longyearbyen (and I never had before we started reading tour books for Norway) here’s an intro.

“Svalbard, also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it lies about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen, followed in size by Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen.”

“Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank of the Longyear Valley and on the shore of Adventfjorden, the short estuary leading into Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the island’s broadest inlet. As of 2002 Longyearbyen Community Council became an official Norwegian municipality. It is the seat of the Governor of Svalbard. The town’s mayor is Arild Olsen.”

When we were planning our trip to Norway we decided to fly up here after just one week in Oslo. Normally we spend at least a couple of weeks in a country’s capital city but the summer tourist season in Longyearbyen is short and we wanted to get up here while there was still 24 hours of sun (land of the midnight sun) and summer tourist activities to take part in. So, here we are.

The scenery as we approached was, I suppose, Arctic in nature. I’ve never been to the arctic before. Not much color, just grays and whites, sharp hills and snowy valleys. I believe we saw glaciers in some of the valleys.

I think in this picture you can see two glaciers spilling out into a fjord.

What is a glacier?

“A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as crevasses and seracs, as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques, moraines, or fjords. Although a glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.”

I learn something new every day, I can’t remember ever seeing a glacier before.

Longyearbyen airport only has one runway, and no taxiways. Our plane came to a stop near the end of the runway then made a U-turn and taxied back to the entry gate. I got this picture of the runway as the plane turned.

Here’s our selfie on the runway.

There was only one baggage carousel, and it was decorated with a stuffed polar bear.

There are two airport buses that park outside the terminal for arrivals, we got on the one that went to our destination stop, the Hotel Svalbard Polfareren.

From the bus stop it was a short walk to our Airbnb. This is the apartment building we’re living in here.

The utilities piping runs between our building and the road. We crossed a wooden bridge over the pipelines and pulled our bags down the gravel walkway to the front door. Longyearbyen could be considered a bit rugged. Good thing we were traveling in our hiking boots!

In the lobby you take off your boots, there are lots of racks to keep boots on. We decided to take our boots up to the apartment with us rather than leave them in the lobby area.

Our apartment here is quite nice, the kitchen/living room/ dining room area is roomy.

And has a nice, big Phillips TV and a lot of potted plants.

Our bedroom is also comfortable.

And so is the bathroom, where we have a washer/dryer set.

There is a spare room with a small bed and a storage rack for the owners.

It’s plenty warm too, there are three radiators and I turned all three of them off and opened both windows to try to cool it down a bit. We’ll be comfortable here for a week.

We had thought we would go to the grocery store (there is only one in Longyearbyen) for some provisions but it had already closed so we just unpacked and hit the sack.

Future Plans

• July 18 – 26: We are currently staying at an Airbnb reservation in Oslo.
• July 27: We fly Norwegian Airlines from Oslo to Longyearbyen.
• July 27 – August 2: We reserved an Airbnb in Longyearbyen.
• August 2: We fly SAS Airlines from Longyearbyen to Tromsø.
• August 2 – 10: We reserved an Airbnb in Tomsø.
• After Tromsø, we may head south down the coast of Norway, making reservations as we travel along.
• October 17 – December 3: No plans yet.
• December 3 – 9: I will be participating in research in Durham, North Carolina, at the Med-El facilities there. Med-El is the company that made my Cochlear Implant. I’ll spend 9am to 4pm for five days being a lab rat. They say they will test various new programming options for my cochlear implant with the goal of improving their systems. It should be fun. I’m looking forward to it.
• December 9: We drive to Bradenton, Florida
• December 9 – 31: We reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida, where we stayed last year for two months (November and December). We look forward to singing in the Christmas Choir again.

2024

• January through April: We plan to travel through Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama. We don’t have any reservations yet.
• May and June: We reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida. We’ll spend these two months getting our yearly medical stuff done and visiting with family and friends. May and June are “off-season” in the Sarasota / Bradenton area, and the rate is $56 per night for these 61 days, which is pretty good for a place like this in this location. In season, January through March, the price doubles.
• After June 30, we have no plans, but we are entertaining options about where to travel next summer. Maybe Germany/Austria/Switzerland?