Originally Posted by
henrus
Svalbard has been on my bucket list for a while but the majority of the time I'm in Europe, its winter and I'm not sure how good it would be to go up to Svalbard in December/January.
Since my original plan was to use the Finnair flights and they only had a narrow schedule - just six weeks if I recall correctly - this was always going to be a summer trip. 2016 was
looking set to be Longyearbyen's warmest on record, and the first with average temperatures above freezing. My own visit coincided with particularly mild conditions - double digits celsius! - so I probably have an inflated sense of my ability to cope, and therefore am keen to revisit when there's snow on the ground.
I think dec/jan would be particularly punishing due to the lack of light, which would also make photography challenging (a major reason I like to travel). But I did get emails suggesting a christmas visit, and skipping the activities and just settling in to a comfy hotel room to watch arctic winter raging outside has some appeal!