There is a travel hack I want to share with you; when buying flights with frequent flyer miles the airlines usually base their prices on country zones, not distance. That means the Easter Islands counts as Chile. Galapagos as Equador and.. Svalbard as Norway! That meant that I could book a flight almost to the Northpole- for just the same price as any other domestic flight! So I went there for a long weekend with a couple of colleagues.
When we arrived there at 2am it was still as light as it was mid day. We could cycle around when we wanted, sleep, go partying and time didnt matter!
Prices there were a lot cheaper too. A tent at the camping spot was 100nok, half a litre of craft beer in Barentsburg was 30kr and taxis was at least half price of what it would cost on the main land- a paradise for partying in the summers!
We also got a guided tour at the Worlds Northernmost brewery, went to the northernmost bar, post office etc etc. Everything was the Worlds Northernmost!
We got to do some sightseeing when were there as well. We had booked a full day boat trip to Pyramiden which was an abandoned mining town and to Barentsburg- the second biggest settlement after Longyearbyen where I got to drink Russian beer, eat russian cabbage soup and send a postcard with a Russian stamp. Soviet slogans and a Lenin statue was still there and it visiting it was the second most fun thing I did while up there after going skinny dipping in the ice cold waters and putting my name up on the Artic Challenge list! I didnt see any polar bears though- so Svalbard, Ill be back!
The landscape we passed on the boatride from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg
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