Svalbard
Norway
Seventy-eight degrees north, a mining town in a treeless valley, and a rule that you do not leave it unprotected against polar bears
Photo by Dylan Shaw on Unsplash
Photos by Himmel S, Thomas Lipke, Daniel Fatnes and Andres Oropeza on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Norway
November to February for the aurora at midday, March to April for snow in returning light, and June to August for the boats
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 26mm in Sep
Where it is
78.22°N, 15.63°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Weeks of it- Do not walk past the polar bear warning signs at the edge of town without an armed guide
- Come in the polar night for the aurora, or in the late-winter light for the landscape, and know which you came for
- Take a boat to a glacier front in summer
- Go to the Svalbard Museum on the first day, which explains everything else
- Book activities before you fly, because guides sell out
Svalbard travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Norway
Very expensiveNorwegian kroner, and cards for everything. Svalbard charges no VAT, which takes the edge off the prices but does not make them low.
ATMs & cards
There is a minibank in Longyearbyen and nobody uses it. Pay by card, and in kroner if a terminal offers to convert.
Avoid these
- nothing in particular — cash is barely used here
Use these instead
- Minibank in Longyearbyen
Cards do everything. Always take the krone price if a terminal offers to convert.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Norway
SafeInside Longyearbyen it is very safe. Outside it, polar bears are the reason for every rule. Anyone leaving the settlement must by law carry means of scaring a bear off, and the Governor advises a firearm as well; visitors meet both by going with a licensed guide, who is armed. Keep 300 metres from a bear, and 500 from the start of spring to midsummer, and turn back if one is closer. Svalbard is Norwegian but outside Schengen: bring your passport, and if you need a Schengen visa for the mainland, get one that allows more than one entry. The sun is below the horizon from late October to mid-February and does not set from mid-April to late August.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (8 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- beyond the polar bear signs — the law requires protection against bears outside the settlement; go with an armed, licensed guide
- the edges of town at night — bears have come into Longyearbyen, rarely, and the dark hides them
- the slopes above the houses — avalanches have reached homes in Longyearbyen, and the warnings are worth reading
- Glaciers and sea ice, which only someone who knows them should take you onto
- The cold, which with wind on a snowmobile is far below what the thermometer says
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Norway visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Norway
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Tetanus up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis for a summer spent in forest
Getting treated
Excellent, and free at the point of use for emergencies. The EHIC and the UK GHIC are accepted. Lofoten’s nearest hospital is at Gravdal on Vestvågøy; anything serious is a helicopter to Bodø or Tromsø, which is routine here and is why the mountain rescue statistics are survivable.
Nothing infectious worth planning around. Hypothermia and falls are what the clinics treat: the mountains are small, steep and slippery, and Reinebringen has an accident record. Ticks are present in the summer scrub in the south.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodAlmost everything is flown or shipped in, so the local things are few and worth having: reindeer from the Svalbard herd, Arctic char, and seal and whale on some menus. Longyearbyen eats better than a town of two and a half thousand should, and prices like the place it is.
Travel tipsGetting around
Limited- From the airport
- Oslo airport to the centre 900–1,100 kr, against 230 kr on the airport train
There is nothing to hail by app. Longyearbyen has a few taxis, booked by telephone, and the airport bus meets the flights.
Time zone and your working day
Arctic/Longyearbyen — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Norway
Why these are Norway's numbers and not Svalbard's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 1.2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at 1.3× the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Svalbard, so these are medians for all of Norway. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Travel tipseSIM
A data eSIM for Norway, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:
Works here
Works hereRevolutIn the app
Must-see
Travel tipsNearby day trips
Travel tipsSay a few words
Norwegian
- HelloHeihey
- PleaseVær så snillvair sho snill
- Thank youTakktahk
- Yes / NoJa / Neiyah / nay
5 more phrases
- Excuse meUnnskyldOONN-shill
- How much is it?Hva koster det?va KOS-ter deh
- Thanks for the foodTakk for matentahk for MAH-ten
- CheersSkålskawl
- GoodbyeHa detha deh
Everybody under seventy speaks excellent English and will switch to it instantly. Norwegian is not needed; a few words are noticed and appreciated anyway.
Travel tipsReligion
Lutheran by heritage, secular in practice
Around two thirds still belong to the Church of Norway and a small fraction attend it. The stave churches are museums with services a few times a year. Nobody will ask what you believe.
Travel tipsDo's and don'ts
Do
- Take your shoes off inside a house, without being asked
- Respect allemannsretten, the right to roam — it comes with the duty to leave no trace and to camp 150m from any dwelling
- Queue, quietly, and leave a metre of space in it
- Say takk for maten — thanks for the food — when you leave the table
Don't
- Do not make small talk with strangers on public transport; it is not rudeness, it is the norm
- Do not haggle, anywhere, over anything
- Do not litter or leave a fire ring in the outfield — this is the one thing that genuinely offends
- Do not comment on the prices, which everybody already knows
Where to stay in Svalbard
No Holistay rentals in Svalbard yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Svalbard on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Svalbard Longyear LYR
10 minfrom the airport· 5 km as the crow flies
10 min to Longyearbyen on the airport bus.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
