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“You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both.”
- Brene Brown

Svalbard is the courage choice.

The Edge of the World: Svalbard, Norway

There are places you go because you need a vacation. And then there are places you go because they make you feel like you’ve stepped into another planet. Svalbard is the latter. A Norwegian archipelago 800 miles from the North Pole, it’s technically Europe—but really, it feels like Mars with polar bears.

Flying in, you’ll see glaciers that stretch like cracked porcelain across the sea, jagged mountains rising like shark fins, and towns so small you could blink and miss them. Longyearbyen, the capital, has just 2,400 people—and somehow manages to support multiple pubs, one luxury restaurant, and a seed vault built into a mountain that stores the genetic backup plan for all the world’s crops. (Yes, your future pizza ingredients are sleeping in a bunker here.)

The Vibe: Arctic Chic Meets Apocalypse Prepper

Step off the plane and the first thing you’ll notice is the silence. No billboards, no traffic, no city hum—just the crunch of snow and the occasional distant bark of a sled dog. It feels a little post-apocalyptic, like you’ve landed in the last outpost of civilization. Everyone walks around in massive parkas, rifles slung across their backs—not for drama, but because polar bears outnumber humans two to one.

And yet, there’s a surprising elegance. The bars serve aquavit cocktails that could hold their own in Oslo, and the bakery makes cinnamon rolls so good you forget your eyelashes are frozen. The gossip? Apparently, one hotelier ran out of wine during a storm and was caught trying to “borrow” from a rival lodge. In Svalbard, that’s basically a scandal of international proportions.

It’s interesting that anyone can live in Svalbard. Svalbard is part of Norway but the archipelago is visa free, which means that anyone can live and work there as long as they have a job and a place to live. 

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What You Do Here (Besides Not Freeze)

Forget lazy beach days. In Svalbard, adventure is the only currency. You’ll snowmobile across frozen fjords, ride dog sleds under skies streaked green by the Northern Lights, and step onto a glacier where the air feels thinner, cleaner—like sipping cold champagne.

And then there’s the boat trips. Picture yourself drifting through a silent fjord, the icebergs glowing blue, when suddenly a walrus the size of a small car flops onto the ice beside you. A guide whispers about a polar bear sighting “just around the corner.” Every sound echoes, and you’re caught between awe and adrenaline.

The Scandals & The Secrets

Svalbard isn’t all pristine wilderness and survival chic. It has its stories. Longyearbyen was once a coal mining town, and there are still abandoned Soviet settlements on nearby islands that feel straight out of a Cold War spy novel. Rumor has it that some of the Soviet miners never left—officially “missing,” unofficially still buried in the permafrost.

And here’s the fun one: marriages here have a higher-than-average breakup rate. Locals joke it’s because there are only two seasons—“dark” and “less dark.” Spend four months in total darkness, and you’ll either come out stronger together or very much apart.

Going Somewhere? Protect Your Trip (and Your Sanity)

Why You’ll Want To Go (Even If You Like Warm Beaches)

Because there’s nowhere else like it. The light here does strange things—it bends, lingers, paints the snow pink at midnight and blue at noon. You’ll feel tiny, vulnerable, and wildly alive. This isn’t a trip for comfort; it’s a trip that shakes you awake.

And yet, when you’re sipping hot chocolate in a cabin while the aurora dances across the sky, you realize you’ve joined a very small club: people who’ve stood at the edge of the world and said, “Yes, I was here when icebergs still existed.”

I once saw little penguins and kangaroos on the same day in Australia. Now you can see walruses! Hope you take lots of pictures and share them with me when you return from Svalbard.

See you next Wednesday.

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