My final stop on my Hurtigruten expedition around the Arctic Circle last summer was the world’s northernmost settlement: Ny-Alesund, at 79 degrees north. It was nowhere near as ominous as the vacant Russian mining town of Barentsburg, but still had a similar feel of depression. Its inhabitants probably wouldn’t agree, but I’m not so sure [...]
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Photo Friday: Ny-Alesund, Svalbard
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, Norway, Photo Friday, Svalbard, The Travel Bug, Travel Writing
I Am the Walrus
Way up North where the polar bears roam, where Buddy the Elf likes to frolic with his pals the narwhal and Acrtic puffin, there lies a sliver of land. You might not even notice it upon first glance; it’s perfectly flat and blends in seamlessly with the ocean. (That’s actually not said sliver of land. [...]
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, On the Job, Svalbard, The Travel Bug
Photo Friday: Barentsburg, Svalbard
Our first stop on the Hurtigruten expedition trip around the island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Circle was an eerie one indeed. A permanent Russian settlement that’s more or less autonomous, Barentsburg is one of only three “inhabited” towns on the whole island and had this creepy feeling of a ghost town where something bad [...]
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, Norway, Photo Friday, Svalbard, The Travel Bug, Travel Writing
Who Let the Dogs Out?
After a very long trip from San Francisco to Chicago to Sweden to Norway, I finally arrived in Oslo, where I spent the entire day sleeping off the jet lag (a big traveler no-no!) before catching a Scandinavian Airlines flight way up to the archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle the next morning. Surprisingly, [...]
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, Norway, On the Job, Svalbard, The Travel Bug
Warm and Fuzzies (Literally)
Unfortunately, a dreadful and mysterious stomach plague has robbed me of 10 pounds and the last 12 days of my life, rendering me useless, understandably incoherent and incapable of mustering the slightest bit of witty prose. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for “quick-and-easy” wedding weight loss; I just prefer a diet that consists of [...]
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, Norway, Svalbard, The Travel Bug, Travel Writing
Polar Dip
Sometimes, I’m a little crazy. But then you knew that already; that’s why you keep coming back time and time again, right? However, this story has less to do with me being crazy (OK, maybe a little to do with me being crazy) and more to do with my intensely competitive streak. You see, it [...]
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, Norway, On the Job, Svalbard, The Travel Bug
Photo Friday: Fuglefjorden, Spitsbergen
I’m on my final day of a two-week trip through Norway, and while I’m sad to leave such a stunning natural landscape, I’m happy I got the opportunity to cover so much ground in this massive country. One of my biggest regrets while living in Denmark was never making it to up here—simply put, it [...]
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Arctic, Europe, Norway, Photo Friday, Svalbard, The Travel Bug, Travel Writing
