Longyearbyen

Longyearbyen, pronounced "LUNG-yer-bin", is the largest settlement on Svalbard.

Understand

Longyearbyen is named after American entrepreneur John Munro Longyear (1860-1922), who as head of the Arctic Coal Company founded the town and the neighboring coal mine, the first one on Svalbard. Mining is still big business here, with the roadsides and mountainsides littered with mines and their equipment, but tourism is catching up fast. With nearly 2000 inhabitants, the town is the de facto "capital" of the islands, featuring the airport, a school, a shopping center, hotels, restaurants and more.

Orientation

Longyearbyen lies at the southern side of Adventfjorden, stretched out along the Longyearelva River. The center of town lies near the coast on the east side of the river, with the district of Skjæringa across the river, the district of Nybyen 2 km (1.2 mile) to the south and the airport 3 km (1.9 mile) to the west. Adventdalen, the valley housing Longyearbyen's only currently operational mine (#7), stretches out to the east.

Be sure to pick up the free Longyearbyen 78° North pamphlet (available at the airport and most lodges), which has a detailed map of the city and listings of all its facilities.

Get in

By plane

Longyearbyen Svalbard Airport (LYR) is the largest airport in Svalbard. It fields a daily SAS flight to Tromsø all year around, and there are additional flights as well as twice-weekly services direct to Oslo in the summer high season. Chartered planes occasionally connect elsewhere in the islands as well, including bases up north for starting your trek to the North Pole.

The airport has a cafeteria/gift/tax-free shop but no other services. Shuttle buses timed to flight departures and arrivals connect the airport to all hotels and guesthouses for a flat 40 kr per person.

By boat

Longyearbyen's port is accessible only in the summer when the pack ice recedes. For dates, see the port website. There are once-weekly boats to Tromso and regular (near-daily) cruises visit Barentsburg in the summer.

Get around

There is no public transportation aside from the airport shuttle bus. Walking is a viable option, although rather tedious if you need to move around outside the center. Alternatively, you can try your luck hitchhiking, or rent a bike from Basecamp Spitsbergen. Taxi (tel. +47-7902-1305) and car rental are also available.

See

Sights in town are rather limited, and most visitors come here for the activities around instead (see Do).

Do

A wide variety of activities including hiking, dog-sledding, kayaking and snowmobile safaris and even coal mining and more are offered by Svalbard's many tour companies. The largest operators are Spitsbergen Travel and Svalbard Wildlife Service (SWS). Prices are high — figure on 500 kr for a half-day activity, 1000 kr for a full day — but so are standards.

If you have multiple days to spare then your options really open up: how about a week-long snow scooter trip (21,500 kr) or 11 days by boat around all of Spitsbergen (from €2580)? For the ultimate Arctic experience, you can even arrange to join a trip to the North Pole.

Buy

Svalbard's shopping is concentrated in and around the two-story Lompensenteret shopping mall. Beware the limited opening hours: most shops are only open 11-18 weekdays, 11-14 Saturday and closed Sunday.

Eat

Eating out in Longyearbyen is expensive, with the simplest sit-down meals costing over 70 kr.

Budget

The only remotely budget option is self-catering.

Mid-range

Splurge

Drink

Svalbard's tax-free status makes alcohol a lot cheaper than on the mainland.

Sleep

Staying in anything other than a tent is outrageously expensive. Rates given here are for the summer peak season, they are generally around 20-50% lower in the October-May off season.

Budget

Mid-range

A number of guesthouses and homestays offer basic accommodation. Read the small print carefully, as you're often charged extra for breakfast, linens, towels and perhaps even use of the bathtub!

Splurge

Cope

Sparebank1 in the post office building has an ATM and currency exchange facilities.

Contact

Stay safe

As everywhere in Svalbard, it is critical to understand that all year round there is a significant threat from polar bears and, outside city limits, everyone needs to either go armed or have someone with them with a rifle. However, shooting a polar bear will be regarded very seriously by the police and investigated thoroughly. Polar bears are protected.

Get out

This text of this article is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0. It has been slightly modified to fit the general design of this website. The authors of this document are Andrew Burns, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel, Evan Prodromou, Steffen Mokosch and the following WikiTravel users: Jpatokal, Jonboy. The original version of this article can be seen at http://wikitravel.org/en/Longyearbyen.