tomscott.com - / tomscott - I had an enormous amount of B-roll footage of Svalbard that I couldn't use, and the internet had a lot of questions about how to get there. Time to solve both those problems in one go!
Just returned from there about an hour ago. Big thanks to Tom Scott for inspiring me to go there and subsequently causing me to have probably the best trip of my entire life. I can thorougly recommend this to basically everyone who likes interesting places.
If I want I would want to rent a rugged truck with supplies, lots of gas, a few guns for protection & just have a blast exploring during the summer. Depending on how good solar energy is up there I already have portable power supplies I can use for my phone & GPS. Though maybe I would want some buddies to come up & we take 2 or 3 cars just in case anything happens, with plug sets, & lots of fix a flat kits. A week in the artic wilderness would be a blast!
SlykeThePhoxenix we set a course just east of Lyra, northwest of Pegasus. flew into the light of Daneb sailed across the milky way. on my ship the 'Rocinante' wheeling through the galaxy headed for the heart of Cygnus, headlong into mystery
25 years ago it was a remote outpost, with no shops, no hotels, with only tourist facility being a water faucet on an open spot near the airport. If you didn't work for the mining company you brought your own food for the stay. No rules changed, it was just that someone realised there was a tourist market and any citizen of a country which has signed the treaty may start commercial operations there if they feel like it. My profile photo is from there, 20 years ago, when there had been simple tourist accomodation and a few surprisingly large shops for a few years.
If you want Svalbard Lite, go to Shetland in Scotland. It's like Svalbard but with grass and without the polar bears, and with some awesome stone age and viking ruins.
There are important sattelite uplinks on Svalbard because its one of the most northern spots with a (coal) power station. The combination is the main reason there is such a good fiber connection with the rest of the world. Interesting stuff
I just saw this video after going though Toms back catalogue. My wife and I had our honeymoon inside Svalbard in 2014. It was one of the most relaxing 2 weeks i ever had. The silence and the sky at night were worth the 25,000 SEK to go there. It took us 5 hours total from Stockholm going through Oslo. If you are going there during spring you need to take a Night Time tour to see the stars and the northern lights. It's perhaps one of the most brilliant places i have ever been and i would like to go back.
Not sure if they're still running them, but there used to be cruises that sailed around the entire thing so people got to see the walruses and things living around Nordaustlandet and Kvitoya. I know all of that is a natural preserve now, but worth checking into if it's still tourist accessible. And affordable I suppose. It's a long way away, so it might not be.
in ww2 some german troops set up meteorology stations here, when germany itself surrendered... nobody was in the radio station back in mainland norway they were the last german troops to surrender because it took months for norway to realise they were broadcasting SOS
We were there in May 2017, as part of two weeks in Europe. "Oh, hey. There's cheap flights to this place waaaaay up north. [checks online for what's up there] Why not? We can always say we've been to the northernmost bar and grill in the world!" One thing to be aware of is that Svalbard is outside the Schengen Zone, so you have to go through customs each way. Direct flights are to/from Oslo, but there are also flights which stop in Tromso, which is worth a day or three layover itself. There's a thriving ecotourism business. If you're not interested in that or a visit to Pyramiden you can see & do most everything available in two to three days depending on how ambitious you are. There's a good Arctic museum, and another museum about the North Pole expeditions a century ago. Many of the points of interest are the northernmost example: northernmost church, northernmost [type] restaurant, etc. Events might draw you, such as the Polar Jazz Festival every February or the Spitsbergen Marathon ("the only race with armed guards to keep the runners safe from polar bears"). We had no idea we were visiting on Norwegian National Day. Many people wore traditional dress from their ancestral homes, and there was a parade plus performances at the community center. My companion is an expert seamstress and spent half an hour talking to a couple about their clothing, which was Sami. Food for the most part is typical Western fare as found in Norway, though there is a sushi place and the Thai restaurant got two thumbs up from us. Yes, by law you must have a high-powered rifle if you leave the town's area because of the polar bears...there are more bears than humans in the archipelago.
Two years ago I went by ship from the Netherlands to Svalbard. When we finaly arrived in Longyearbyen I was shocked by the fast amount of tourists.Even in such a remote place on earth it is busy these days. I wished I had seen it 50 years ago when there were only miners and polar bears.
@@Andreas4696 hah. Yes, we have distriktspolitikk, but the services you get in most of the districts can't even compare to the ones in the more populated areas. Internet and transportation for example, is something we have to fight for if we want good quality.
They're building it new, so they're using the newest technology. The U.S. has had telephone lines for over 100 years, so it takes a lot of time and money to upgrade the entire system. India has millions of people without telephone service, but they're going straight to cell phones and skipping all the earlier stages.
Svalbard in summer looks like my home in spring. Funny thing, it's also customary and almost mandatory that you take off your shoes when you enter someone's home. Not so much for public places. I live in the Faroe Islands and i think the only natural difference between us and Svalbard is that our wildlife would have a very hard time killing you, we have no glaciers and we have more grass. i genuinely thought the shot at 3:28 was somewhere in Sundalagi, in the Faroes.
@@unknown-jr3xe Late reply but ... It's climate change that's doing it. Also, there were 38 degrees Celsius days in Switzerland - and not the hottest part of it - in about 1998.
@@@camelopardalis84 That's ridiculous. It's summer that's doing it. Not even slightly warmer in Germany now than it was before statistically. It always get sweltering there in the summer, particularly in the south. Between 35 and 40C happens every year in Germany and it always has. Doesn't last long though.
I recommend going in January. Still lots to do and no tourists. Just because it's dark and cold doesn't make it any less fantastic. January is the best time to go.
Ade Larsen hi please My name is Lade. I am planning to come to Svalbard, can you help me with some informations, please how can I reach you for better communication?
Well in January you have dusk *and* dawn round noon, and it will be a bit chilly with -20°C or lower. But if you love that, you surely will have an experience you'll never forget.
As someone who plans to be a software engineer, I would _love_ to live there. All you need to be a software engineer is internet, and the crazy fast Svalbard internet would work just fine.
The only way to permanently settle in Svalbard is by working there. So you can't just move there and work for a company that's somewhere else; you'd need to land a tech job at one of the establishments there. (Which still isn't out the question!)
I love, love, LOVE obscure tourist destinations. Add this one to my bucket list, next to Greenland, Andorra, and (most of all) Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands.
Andorra?! I think you’ve confused that with somewhere else. Andorra is a cheap ski destination full of package holidays. I saw a 12 year old do a tequila shot on Mexican dinner night in Andorra. Don’t bother with Andorra
Went there in June filming, and did fossilhunting, visited a ghosttown and enjoyed the nightlife. It truly is a unique and amazing place! One of the best places I have been on.
OurayTheOwl You might like LindyBeige, he travels sometimes and records his findings. His channel is mostly about history and stuff though. See how you like him because I think he's great.
Going to Svalbard to get out of school production. My teacher said unless your on the north pole your doing it. So I will go to the closest place you can get easily.
+Aditya Jayaraj I think his correction was pretty justified. A guy claimed he wanted to get away from school, but his comment had a very basic grammar error. So making the joke that he should stay in school is very justified. Also bad spelling and grammar make the world a far worse place than people who point out bad spelling and grammar.
I went in 2018 on my own and loved it, climbed glaciers, mountains, went wild flower finding, had a cheap but very informative private tour around longyearbyen, walked into the abandoned mines, went kayaking around cruise ships, went on a ferry and toured pyramiden, saw massive icebergs and beluga whales and loads more that I cant remember off the top of my head. It didn't cost that much either :)
I visited a few years ago during a Princes Line cruise from the UK. Fascinating place. Purchased a red, wind proof jacket which I still use on cooler dry days. Recoded this as one of the best, non-run-of-the-mill destinations.
Hiked from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg with my dad, just the two of us. It was absolutely amazing, and a little terrifying. We had to carry a rifle and flare gun in case we had a stand off with a polar bear. Took 2,5 days to hike.
I liked Svalbard...I went in the Polar night but had fun. The hotels range from very nice to utilitarian. I stayed at the Svalbard Hotel which is new and comfy. Internet is probably the best in the world because of the science missions up there. They have a CO-OP grocery store, stores for warm clothing, a cafe, a few restaurants a brewery (bloody great beer I must say!!) and plenty of seasonal activities as mentioned here. I spent a week and had a great time.
Svalbard has an enormous satellite communication complex just outside Longyearbyen (one of only 2 in the world able to communicate with LEO polar satellites on every orbit), so it doesn't surprise me that fast internet is available there.
I went there this summer and it was amazing!! We stayed in a house right next to the water so we had a fantastic View from the livingroom. It was probably the most extraordinary trip I'll ever make and I'm so happy to have been there!
I’m planning a cruise there… I’m wondering how I can be polite in regards to the shoe thing as I use a wheelchair… maybe they’ll offer me wipes to wipe down my wheels 🤔 I’m going to have to look more into this.
So exited to see you sitting not far from my favourite hangout in Oslo! Would have been amazing to bump into you when you were here! It makes me wonder, how do you feel about getting waved over by fans on your global travels?
Big fan of Svalbard! Thought about saving a few pennies and taking the tent we were using on the mainland...but glad we opted for Mary-Ann's!! That was 2004, super cheap flights with SAS, and whale steak on the menu
Have you ever thought about visiting the Faroe Islands? Our one and only airport was initially built by the British in WW2 when they basically took the country by force for strategic purposes. A lot of interesting history, both old and new
If you did a regular 'travel/tour' show I would actually be interested in watching that. I normally don't have any taste for such things, but I like the way you've presented this locale. I actually want to go see Svalbard now. :3
You mentioned Piramida. My favourite album is named after that town and consists largely of sounds recorded there and that haunting Scandinavian echoey singing.
I get that it SOUNDS remote if you say "I'm further north than all of Alaska." - but why exactly are you so surprised that a part of Norway is just like the other parts of Norway? Does the UK not treat it's dependencies with the same respect it does with the home co... oh wait, nevermind... :D
Svalbards internet is over insanely fast like i lived in Chicago originally moved to Svalbard and 5x faster wifi. Don’t know if they have 5g there yet.
Definitely need to go. Just looked up flights from where I live, only 500 Euros roundtrip for two people... Way cheaper than Iceland! I definitely need to go back to Norway, and this would be a fantastic way of doing that.
''You know those short speed boar trips where you bounce up and down the waves? It's that but for several hours.'' Me: reaches for my motion sickness bag.
Sounds fun. Provided to food is good and plentiful, the rooms comfy and the WiFi rocks I'm happy. But you can't see the Northern Lights in summer, so not much point unless the glaciers, polar bears, fjords and mountains appeal... in the dark.
English translator here: 6:59 "...indoor shoes" so that's what you said! That's been bothering me for the entirety of the day. I translated it last night when I when I was a bit sleepy. Thank you for fixing the mistakes
Great video 👍🏻. I would absolutely love it there!! I love cold weather ♥️ I’m miserable when it gets above 60. Definitely a place I would love to visit. I would seriously miss tree though. If I could live in the cold 365 days a year and have a lot of trees I would be the happiest person in the world ❄️🌲♥️❄️🌲♥️
@@eggrollsoup don't it sucks. I know a few family members that used to live there and the nature is cool and all but it's dark all the time, cold, there's only one major city and it barely has anything and that's it
Nitelynx I don’t like the sun anyways, i’ve had enough of it, and I like cold weather anyways. Plus I don’t need any large social circles or many commodities major cities provide.
Me and my girlfriend are going next year. We hate the heat, and it's an unusual place to go to, on top of that, it's really cheap, so we think it's perfect for us. A long weekend, 2 people with activities and food cost less than a thousand pounds. BTW, wifi and 4G is everywhere here in Norway. I pity people who live in countries with limited access to high speed Internet ;-)
Just to let you know, Svalbard is by no means cheap. I studied at the university (UNIS) for 5 months beginning in January this year so I'm very familiar with the prices. Food is super over priced ! For example, a loaf of bread cost roughly £5 and a single pomegranate is close to £4. The tourist companies are also really costly and in my opinion they don't show you the true beauty of the island. I would recommend asking the local students at UNIS if it would be possible to take you out on hikes. They would probably do it for free and are pretty much all trained to carry a rifle in case of a polar bear encounter. However the chance of an encounter is so low as they almost never enter Longyearbyen :) Sorry if you thought I was being nosey, but I think you would struggle with paying for everything you listed. Just trying to give some advice so that you don't get to Svalbard and realise you might not be able to do all the things you wanted. Definitely go though, it's one if the most breathtaking places you could visit !
Had a look at all the costs, including restaurant meal prices, and it's really cheap. But being a tourist for a long weekend and living there is not the same thing. Hotel with breakfast and trasport for 2 people: £550. Restaurant dinners 4 days 2 people: £100. Two days of activities for two people: £300, (more if it's the more expensive activities). We're probably going to budget £1200. Sorry, but it's really not that much
Ben McClean Actually me and my girlfriend is up here, (I'm laying in my hotel room now), for the second time. We are discussing a third trip, or going on a "working vacation" a few months here :-D
Hah! Again, you've taught me a lot of things I should already know as a Norwegian! My only relationship with Svalbard is a movie called Orions Belte (Orion's Belt), which tells the tale of a man who finds himself locked in a fight with some very angry Russians, in the middle of an arctic barren wasteland. It's an old movie, and now I've forgotten most of its story, so that suffering person was sort of my image of the entire overseas territory (my best guess at its classification).
"I can use my credit card everywhere and in any store however small" is apparently a very Scandinavian thing... Please catch up The-Rest-Of-The-World xD
During the flight back, there was a G3 level geomagnetic storm, one of the strongest in recent years. There would've been a fantastic auroral display… except the aurora only appears at night. It was constant daytime, so we saw, well, just sunlight!
I heard Svalbard is too high to really see the northern lights. The best place to see them is a little further south on the northern shores of mainland norway - or the like latitude on the arctic circle.
Just returned from there about an hour ago. Big thanks to Tom Scott for inspiring me to go there and subsequently causing me to have probably the best trip of my entire life. I can thorougly recommend this to basically everyone who likes interesting places.
I was there 7 years ago and it was one of the best trips of my life... :)
So I agree with you!
+Hawest how long did you go for?
POST A VIDEO OF IT
If I want I would want to rent a rugged truck with supplies, lots of gas, a few guns for protection & just have a blast exploring during the summer. Depending on how good solar energy is up there I already have portable power supplies I can use for my phone & GPS. Though maybe I would want some buddies to come up & we take 2 or 3 cars just in case anything happens, with plug sets, & lots of fix a flat kits.
A week in the artic wilderness would be a blast!
Jorden Belanic hmmm, I really don’t think it would be wise to leave the settlement alone even if you do have some guns.
Things to do: Open up a portal to another world through the Aurora Borealis.
Things to Avoid: Armoured polar bears.
***** You beat me to it on that second one...
***** The Longyearbyen airport code is LYR. 1 letter short from Lyra.
SlykeThePhoxenix we set a course just east of Lyra, northwest of Pegasus. flew into the light of Daneb sailed across the milky way. on my ship the 'Rocinante' wheeling through the galaxy headed for the heart of Cygnus, headlong into mystery
+Majestic Skywhale but then we won't find the Borealis?
John Salter I agree, what if people encounter armed polar bears riding snowmobiles. Scary
25 years ago it was a remote outpost, with no shops, no hotels, with only tourist facility being a water faucet on an open spot near the airport. If you didn't work for the mining company you brought your own food for the stay.
No rules changed, it was just that someone realised there was a tourist market and any citizen of a country which has signed the treaty may start commercial operations there if they feel like it.
My profile photo is from there, 20 years ago, when there had been simple tourist accomodation and a few surprisingly large shops for a few years.
What a fascinating comment! Much appreciated.
Thanks for the insight wow!
@Arruda dude this post is 4 years old...
@@MrSen4lifE and?
get over it toebee, those sneeds are freezing! get yur buemass ready for a visitation!!
Being a Norwegian, I think I'd rather go to Cyprus this summer. But hey, nice videos about Svalbard.
Hey jacksfilms, are you still doing YGS? have i got the comment for you.
Iam from a tropical green country and I want to go there so bad...
their summer is colder than my winter, i'd go there during my winter (cause im in the southern hemisphere) and in their summer.
@@Nanw23 Very wise words
Where would you go this summer?😎
I am always amazed at humanity’s ability to plop down their stuff at any point in the world and make it home.
Thats what will make Mars our home.
If you want Svalbard Lite, go to Shetland in Scotland. It's like Svalbard but with grass and without the polar bears, and with some awesome stone age and viking ruins.
It's amazing how the internet has made pretty much everything and everywhere so accessible
There are important sattelite uplinks on Svalbard because its one of the most northern spots with a (coal) power station. The combination is the main reason there is such a good fiber connection with the rest of the world. Interesting stuff
True
On the opposite side this makes the places that have remained un accessible especially in places you wouldn't expect that much more amazing to me
I just saw this video after going though Toms back catalogue.
My wife and I had our honeymoon inside Svalbard in 2014. It was one of the most relaxing 2 weeks i ever had. The silence and the sky at night were worth the 25,000 SEK to go there. It took us 5 hours total from Stockholm going through Oslo.
If you are going there during spring you need to take a Night Time tour to see the stars and the northern lights. It's perhaps one of the most brilliant places i have ever been and i would like to go back.
Not sure if they're still running them, but there used to be cruises that sailed around the entire thing so people got to see the walruses and things living around Nordaustlandet and Kvitoya. I know all of that is a natural preserve now, but worth checking into if it's still tourist accessible. And affordable I suppose. It's a long way away, so it might not be.
in ww2 some german troops set up meteorology stations here, when germany itself surrendered... nobody was in the radio station back in mainland norway
they were the last german troops to surrender because it took months for norway to realise they were broadcasting SOS
That's a film right there.
That would've been a crazy experience for those soldiers. Definitely movie worthy. 🌎😎
I like to think Norwegians intentionally ignored them just as a little sweet revenge
Think they did that on purpose
Perhaps on purpose 🤣🤣
We were there in May 2017, as part of two weeks in Europe. "Oh, hey. There's cheap flights to this place waaaaay up north. [checks online for what's up there] Why not? We can always say we've been to the northernmost bar and grill in the world!"
One thing to be aware of is that Svalbard is outside the Schengen Zone, so you have to go through customs each way. Direct flights are to/from Oslo, but there are also flights which stop in Tromso, which is worth a day or three layover itself.
There's a thriving ecotourism business. If you're not interested in that or a visit to Pyramiden you can see & do most everything available in two to three days depending on how ambitious you are. There's a good Arctic museum, and another museum about the North Pole expeditions a century ago. Many of the points of interest are the northernmost example: northernmost church, northernmost [type] restaurant, etc.
Events might draw you, such as the Polar Jazz Festival every February or the Spitsbergen Marathon ("the only race with armed guards to keep the runners safe from polar bears"). We had no idea we were visiting on Norwegian National Day. Many people wore traditional dress from their ancestral homes, and there was a parade plus performances at the community center. My companion is an expert seamstress and spent half an hour talking to a couple about their clothing, which was Sami.
Food for the most part is typical Western fare as found in Norway, though there is a sushi place and the Thai restaurant got two thumbs up from us. Yes, by law you must have a high-powered rifle if you leave the town's area because of the polar bears...there are more bears than humans in the archipelago.
Two years ago I went by ship from the Netherlands to Svalbard. When we finaly arrived in Longyearbyen I was shocked by the fast amount of tourists.Even in such a remote place on earth it is busy these days. I wished I had seen it 50 years ago when there were only miners and polar bears.
You’re a tourist yourself
you can barely use buses with credit cards in friggin Geneva holy crap this place is advanced
カステラ It's Geneva...what do you expect from Romands?
@@Andreas4696 hah. Yes, we have distriktspolitikk, but the services you get in most of the districts can't even compare to the ones in the more populated areas. Internet and transportation for example, is something we have to fight for if we want good quality.
I went to London about a year ago and they wouldn’t accept cash on the bus! Only card I couldn’t believe it
@@PickeringSamuel Who still uses cash? It's just a recipe for getting robbed.
They're building it new, so they're using the newest technology. The U.S. has had telephone lines for over 100 years, so it takes a lot of time and money to upgrade the entire system. India has millions of people without telephone service, but they're going straight to cell phones and skipping all the earlier stages.
Svalbard in summer looks like my home in spring.
Funny thing, it's also customary and almost mandatory that you take off your shoes when you enter someone's home. Not so much for public places.
I live in the Faroe Islands and i think the only natural difference between us and Svalbard is that our wildlife would have a very hard time killing you, we have no glaciers and we have more grass.
i genuinely thought the shot at 3:28 was somewhere in Sundalagi, in the Faroes.
Yea, Svalbard has the "privilge" of hosting the only animal that did not develop a fear towards humans and will actively hunt humans.
it's 40°C in Germany right now... I want to be in Svalbard so much right now
its time for air-conditioning-due to global climate change!-in Deutschland-Wo ist Der Klima-anlage?
Aetohatir
._. Since when is Germany 40°C?
We all do...
@@unknown-jr3xe Late reply but ... It's climate change that's doing it. Also, there were 38 degrees Celsius days in Switzerland - and not the hottest part of it - in about 1998.
@@@camelopardalis84 That's ridiculous. It's summer that's doing it. Not even slightly warmer in Germany now than it was before statistically. It always get sweltering there in the summer, particularly in the south. Between 35 and 40C happens every year in Germany and it always has. Doesn't last long though.
I recommend going in January. Still lots to do and no tourists.
Just because it's dark and cold doesn't make it any less fantastic.
January is the best time to go.
***** Well, err, yes, you can't see them in the summer.
Ade Larsen hi please My name is Lade. I am planning to come to Svalbard, can you help me with some informations, please how can I reach you for better communication?
TifFy Johnson PM me or ask me a question.
Ask me :-)
Well in January you have dusk *and* dawn round noon, and it will be a bit chilly with -20°C or lower. But if you love that, you surely will have an experience you'll never forget.
is it safe in darks?
As someone who plans to be a software engineer, I would _love_ to live there. All you need to be a software engineer is internet, and the crazy fast Svalbard internet would work just fine.
Zeb McCorkle Best of luck to you, bud 👌🏻
You just wanted to put in Software Engineer in here didn’t you
The only way to permanently settle in Svalbard is by working there. So you can't just move there and work for a company that's somewhere else; you'd need to land a tech job at one of the establishments there. (Which still isn't out the question!)
@@TheMitcher technically you dont have to have a job, just need to be wealthy enough to provide for yourself
@@hauglid- technically if youre rich you can live anywhere doing nothing
I love, love, LOVE obscure tourist destinations. Add this one to my bucket list, next to Greenland, Andorra, and (most of all) Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands.
How's the bucket list coming along?
Andorra?!
I think you’ve confused that with somewhere else.
Andorra is a cheap ski destination full of package holidays. I saw a 12 year old do a tequila shot on Mexican dinner night in Andorra.
Don’t bother with Andorra
Add Jordan
Went there in June filming, and did fossilhunting, visited a ghosttown and enjoyed the nightlife. It truly is a unique and amazing place! One of the best places I have been on.
did you find any fossils?
You should do these videos for some of the other places youve been. Seriously you travel more than any other youtuber i follow
OurayTheOwl I know, right? I keep being jealous.
OurayTheOwl You might like LindyBeige, he travels sometimes and records his findings. His channel is mostly about history and stuff though. See how you like him because I think he's great.
Simply Rover already subscribed, but thank you ^ ^
2:07 "just taking my dogs for a drive"
6:58 Someone has slapped a sticker of the emblem of Finnish Airforce on that sign. Weird..
The Finnuminati is everywhere.
You didn't hear that from me.
Gosh darn it, you better prepare for extraction.
@Ivan The evil that's the spirit.
To annoy the Russians
@@jaeoskyldig Why would that annoy the Russians?
Going to Svalbard to get out of school production. My teacher said unless your on the north pole your doing it. So I will go to the closest place you can get easily.
well you clearly need school, as you don't even know the difference between your and you're!
Alwin Priven yknow its the people like you that make the internet a terrible place
+Aditya Jayaraj I think his correction was pretty justified. A guy claimed he wanted to get away from school, but his comment had a very basic grammar error. So making the joke that he should stay in school is very justified.
Also bad spelling and grammar make the world a far worse place than people who point out bad spelling and grammar.
+Solarstar10 you clearly understood +Kanewolf's message, so don't complain, you spoiled brat.
Cd-iLozytp What, we're not allowed to say we're annoyed by a glaring typo?
I went in 2018 on my own and loved it, climbed glaciers, mountains, went wild flower finding, had a cheap but very informative private tour around longyearbyen, walked into the abandoned mines, went kayaking around cruise ships, went on a ferry and toured pyramiden, saw massive icebergs and beluga whales and loads more that I cant remember off the top of my head. It didn't cost that much either :)
Hi! In which month where you there? Thanks!
I visited a few years ago during a Princes Line cruise from the UK.
Fascinating place.
Purchased a red, wind proof jacket which I still use on cooler dry days.
Recoded this as one of the best, non-run-of-the-mill destinations.
Well, That's on my bucket list now.
*bukkit
KYOOB
me,too!
Same
"The most northerly statue of Lenin" really tickled me for some reason.
Hiked from Longyearbyen to Barentsburg with my dad, just the two of us. It was absolutely amazing, and a little terrifying.
We had to carry a rifle and flare gun in case we had a stand off with a polar bear.
Took 2,5 days to hike.
Iceland is the Bahama's, Svalbard is Turks and Caicos.
I liked Svalbard...I went in the Polar night but had fun. The hotels range from very nice to utilitarian. I stayed at the Svalbard Hotel which is new and comfy. Internet is probably the best in the world because of the science missions up there. They have a CO-OP grocery store, stores for warm clothing, a cafe, a few restaurants a brewery (bloody great beer I must say!!) and plenty of seasonal activities as mentioned here. I spent a week and had a great time.
Svalbard has an enormous satellite communication complex just outside Longyearbyen (one of only 2 in the world able to communicate with LEO polar satellites on every orbit), so it doesn't surprise me that fast internet is available there.
I visited Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund last week. Great and beautiful place... Thx for great video.
I went there this summer and it was amazing!! We stayed in a house right next to the water so we had a fantastic View from the livingroom. It was probably the most extraordinary trip I'll ever make and I'm so happy to have been there!
I’m planning a cruise there… I’m wondering how I can be polite in regards to the shoe thing as I use a wheelchair… maybe they’ll offer me wipes to wipe down my wheels 🤔 I’m going to have to look more into this.
thank you so much for taking the time to show us this footage!
8:15 "there's not really much to be concerned about" while showing a sign warning about polar bears :D
I was on Google maps and I was curious
dang it i cant like the comment
it has 69 likes and i cant change it
Stone_Pickaxe you can now
@@lowdieee done xdd
It's nice to visit fascinating places around the world from here behind the computer screen. Great show!
This is bringing back memories from my trip last year! Svalbard is so beautiful))
I saw this video, then I flew to Svalbard the next day. It's a cool place!
Sunshine at midnight is just freaky weird!
I realize you probably already had a trip planned, but it would be way funnier if you just made an impulse decision to fly to Svalbard.
try to be there in the winter when it's only dark
@@kullingen6909 Sure but I need a lot of vitamin D supplements to avoid the seasonal depression.
This kinda reminds me of my trip to Ladakh.Loving these Amazing Places videos....keep em coming Tom!
Your pronunciation of Longyearbyen was spot on!
Yes, that was impressive!
Kinda helps that 2/3s of the name is in English
Svalbard having good internet connection makes sense giving the position as a major satelite down-link, the research-work and the setlement
Svalbard has interested me for a while. I don’t know why, but a lot of animals there and just the tree-less environment, it’s so… pristine-looking.
That was exactly what I needed to see, thanks!
Wish there were more videos like this for other places in the world!
Seeing your appartment, your workplace and your everyday places in a Tom Scott video is priceless ahaha 😂
This actually gave me the idea to travel to Svalbard... In the winter, and it was AMAZING! Thanks Tom for the amazing suggestion!
So exited to see you sitting not far from my favourite hangout in Oslo! Would have been amazing to bump into you when you were here! It makes me wonder, how do you feel about getting waved over by fans on your global travels?
I took a ship MS Norsel in 1992 camped near the airport, stayed 2 weeks and returned to Tromso on the ship. Greeting from Australia.
Tom, I recommend going to Port-aux-francais. It's smack-dab between Madagascar, Australia, and Antarctica.
Some of the things you described are just about Norway, not specific to Svarlbard. Stuff like the shoe habit occurs in places like Oslo too :)
Heavy shoes damage the linoleum...
when your researching svalbard and tom scott has a video on it.
happiness noise
Big fan of Svalbard! Thought about saving a few pennies and taking the tent we were using on the mainland...but glad we opted for Mary-Ann's!! That was 2004, super cheap flights with SAS, and whale steak on the menu
Another place on my list of amazing cities to visit!!
...I wonder if it's cheaper in the winter.
And darker
You *would* be able to see the Northern Lights.
if the clouds don't block them
Have you ever thought about visiting the Faroe Islands? Our one and only airport was initially built by the British in WW2 when they basically took the country by force for strategic purposes. A lot of interesting history, both old and new
If you did a regular 'travel/tour' show I would actually be interested in watching that. I normally don't have any taste for such things, but I like the way you've presented this locale. I actually want to go see Svalbard now. :3
Great video and great advice; thanks Tom. I would love to visit Svalbard some day.
This is a perfect youtube video. Thank you
Few more questions. How long did you go for? How easy would it be for someone who only speaks English?
Two nights! (Er, "nights".) And because it's an international university and research centre, pretty much everyone speaks excellent English!
Everyone in the Nordic country is pretty much fluent in English. And if you wanted to learn Norwegian, it is not very hard coming from English.
***** Sounds good, almost like a "City Break"! Definitely going to look into this.
***** Cheers man!
***** To be fair, some have just ghastly grammar
🙏Tack så mycket för väldigt bra beskrivning av Svalbard-Spetsbergen👍 /Björne from Sweden 🇸🇪
One place to visit what is my bucketlist for a long time now. I would prefer the winter season.
The most "inaccessible" part of Svalbard is the long flight across the Atlantic xD
For Europeans it doesn't seem *that* far away
You had me on “Northernmost statue of Lenin”.
You mentioned Piramida. My favourite album is named after that town and consists largely of sounds recorded there and that haunting Scandinavian echoey singing.
Wow thank you for sharing. My great-grandfather used to work there around 100 years ago.
I get that it SOUNDS remote if you say "I'm further north than all of Alaska." - but why exactly are you so surprised that a part of Norway is just like the other parts of Norway? Does the UK not treat it's dependencies with the same respect it does with the home co... oh wait, nevermind... :D
Finnish Air Force sticker at 6:58
johnmccnj: Good eye! :D
I'm sold. Seed vault would be my focal point as I'm focusing on botany currently. So I'll stand outside it and admire it's wonder.
Just watched a couple of Tom's Videos. Really good for learning about the Wifi in random places like Chernobyl and Svalbard.
Svalbards internet is over insanely fast like i lived in Chicago originally moved to Svalbard and 5x faster wifi. Don’t know if they have 5g there yet.
I've always wanted to go there
2:30 Correction: Alert, Nunavut (82°30'05" N) is the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world.
Thanks for this great information. I've been curious about going there as a tourist, but wasn't sure how difficult it would be
Definitely need to go. Just looked up flights from where I live, only 500 Euros roundtrip for two people... Way cheaper than Iceland! I definitely need to go back to Norway, and this would be a fantastic way of doing that.
I feel like you're briefing me on my DofE expedition
''You know those short speed boar trips where you bounce up and down the waves? It's that but for several hours.''
Me: reaches for my motion sickness bag.
Just got back, we were there over the fie=rst week in April, still lots of snow. Once in a lifetime trip..
Sounds fun. Provided to food is good and plentiful, the rooms comfy and the WiFi rocks I'm happy.
But you can't see the Northern Lights in summer, so not much point unless the glaciers, polar bears, fjords and mountains appeal... in the dark.
0:33
Turn on closed captions..
Het Thakkar Oh, I am dying. Small dog, small barred... it can't decide what he's saying!
Het Thakkar This is a great video of freaking asked questions about the booty of small dogs!
This is actually perfect as of now! It makes more sense now
It's almost a pity that they've been fixed now. :D
They changed it :(
It looks like another world, or as the BBC would have us believe... Cardiff.
Dixavd , indeed it is .
Or a disused slate quarry somewhere near Merthyr Tydfil.
English translator here: 6:59 "...indoor shoes" so that's what you said! That's been bothering me for the entirety of the day. I translated it last night when I when I was a bit sleepy. Thank you for fixing the mistakes
Great video 👍🏻. I would absolutely love it there!! I love cold weather ♥️ I’m miserable when it gets above 60. Definitely a place I would love to visit. I would seriously miss tree though. If I could live in the cold 365 days a year and have a lot of trees I would be the happiest person in the world ❄️🌲♥️❄️🌲♥️
So basically... Svalbard, Norway's Alaska!
+sion8 Good analogy! ☺
WHY
IS YO FLAG
IN SPACE
sion8 I’m from texas and i want to move to alaska
@@eggrollsoup don't it sucks. I know a few family members that used to live there and the nature is cool and all but it's dark all the time, cold, there's only one major city and it barely has anything and that's it
Nitelynx I don’t like the sun anyways, i’ve had enough of it, and I like cold weather anyways. Plus I don’t need any large social circles or many commodities major cities provide.
Me and my girlfriend are going next year. We hate the heat, and it's an unusual place to go to, on top of that, it's really cheap, so we think it's perfect for us.
A long weekend, 2 people with activities and food cost less than a thousand pounds.
BTW, wifi and 4G is everywhere here in Norway. I pity people who live in countries with limited access to high speed Internet ;-)
Just to let you know, Svalbard is by no means cheap. I studied at the university (UNIS) for 5 months beginning in January this year so I'm very familiar with the prices. Food is super over priced ! For example, a loaf of bread cost roughly £5 and a single pomegranate is close to £4. The tourist companies are also really costly and in my opinion they don't show you the true beauty of the island. I would recommend asking the local students at UNIS if it would be possible to take you out on hikes. They would probably do it for free and are pretty much all trained to carry a rifle in case of a polar bear encounter. However the chance of an encounter is so low as they almost never enter Longyearbyen :) Sorry if you thought I was being nosey, but I think you would struggle with paying for everything you listed. Just trying to give some advice so that you don't get to Svalbard and realise you might not be able to do all the things you wanted. Definitely go though, it's one if the most breathtaking places you could visit !
Had a look at all the costs, including restaurant meal prices, and it's really cheap. But being a tourist for a long weekend and living there is not the same thing.
Hotel with breakfast and trasport for 2 people: £550. Restaurant dinners 4 days 2 people: £100. Two days of activities for two people: £300, (more if it's the more expensive activities). We're probably going to budget £1200.
Sorry, but it's really not that much
+Frank R. Haugen Have you been there now? If so how was it?
Ben McClean Actually me and my girlfriend is up here, (I'm laying in my hotel room now), for the second time. We are discussing a third trip, or going on a "working vacation" a few months here :-D
It's so cool watching this video after listening to Sam from Wendover talking about Svalbard in S2 of Extremities.
Hah! Again, you've taught me a lot of things I should already know as a Norwegian! My only relationship with Svalbard is a movie called Orions Belte (Orion's Belt), which tells the tale of a man who finds himself locked in a fight with some very angry Russians, in the middle of an arctic barren wasteland. It's an old movie, and now I've forgotten most of its story, so that suffering person was sort of my image of the entire overseas territory (my best guess at its classification).
"I can use my credit card everywhere and in any store however small" is apparently a very Scandinavian thing... Please catch up The-Rest-Of-The-World xD
"There's fast WiFi"
Svalbard, here I come!
Another great video tom!
I'm American and I've always wanted to visit this place. Sounds like a lot of fun!
I am from Somalia, Slavbard is one of my favorite places. I like Iceland more than.
did you get to see the armoured bears while you were there?
Watching this from the miners cabin hotel! Such fast wifi!!
That's some flex!
Thanks for the video. You’ve firmed up my resolve to go to Svalbard, once the pandemic ends.
5:10 - that's why they are testing mars rovers there! XD
If you translate Byen, you get Longyearcity
clankFilmstudios The city got it's name from John Munroe Longyear, not from the year being any longer in Longyearbyen.
sevret313 I just said that if you translated byen the city would be called Longyearcity
clank
You're not making any sense. If you translate "byen" It's just "The city"
Hoo Dini so “The Longyearcity”?
@@cheekybastard7798 Yup :) .
I have wanted to visit Norway and Svalbard for forever, and I'm glad I found this video
Pro tip: dont waste time in Oslo. The northern part of Norway and the south western part is where you should go.
Wow Tom, Your videos are amazing. Thanks for sharing
i want to go there to experience polar night
Did you see the northern lights?
During the flight back, there was a G3 level geomagnetic storm, one of the strongest in recent years. There would've been a fantastic auroral display… except the aurora only appears at night. It was constant daytime, so we saw, well, just sunlight!
***** damn! I wish you got to see it, the same time that happened over there here in New Zealand we had a G5!
Tom, thanks to you I oculd convince my parents to go to svalbard instead of staying on Norway's mainland. Thanks
I heard Svalbard is too high to really see the northern lights. The best place to see them is a little further south on the northern shores of mainland norway - or the like latitude on the arctic circle.
Too far north? I wouldn't think so... I do think you'd be able to see it in the winter. Just not in the summer because the sun doesn't set.
I really appreciate this video, short and to the point. Planning to go there soon, and this is the 101 I needed. +Like
Your pronounciation of Longyearbyen is almost perfect!