We had been looking forward to our 11-hour speed boat trip to Ny-Ålesund ever since we started looking into booking a trip to Spitsbergen. It was supposed to be the highlight of our weekend stay. The linear distance is only 114km, but only government, scientists and emergency services are permitted to do inland flights (even though you can buy unfilled seats on scientists’ flight connections for large amounts of money), which is why boat is the only option. This means that the actual distance travelled one-way is roughly 200km.       You pass by some decent whale spotting locations (including 45m long blue whales), a giant walrus colony, and, if going from Longyearbyen by boat at this time of year: your best chance of seeing a polar bear, unless you’re happy with the stuffed variety in the local museum. We had booked our trip with Better Moments, the highest-ranking Spitsbergen […]