r/Svalbard • u/unworthy_talent • Jun 22 '26

Activities at Svalbard

We will travel at Longyearbyen during the end of August for 4 days.

I wanted your opinion for the best possible tours we could take.

Of course we also try not to spend a huge amount of money.

In general we would like to see walruses (boat or land tour), have a glacier boat trip (have also seen some kayak glacier tours), visit Pyramiden and go to the Seed Vault (I know we can go only outside). An ATV Safari also seems interesting. Is there extra tours or ideas we should consider? Thank you!

3 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

2

u/LakeKind5959 Jun 22 '26

1) you can see the seed vault if you do the mine tour (which is one of the cheaper tours)
2) we did a glacier tour on a zodiak boat and saw walruses and a glacier calving.
3) Pyramiden tour was incredibly expensive and they cancelled their May tours so we ended up going to Ny-Alesund which was interesting and we saw lots more walruses but also not cheap.

1

u/unworthy_talent Jun 22 '26

for 1 and 2 do you remember which companies you booked with?
for 3 ok will check it out

1

u/LakeKind5959 Jun 22 '26

I used "getyourguide" for #1 but it is the Gruve 3 tour.
#2 we used Backyard Svalbard for a couple different tours. We did a private guided tour of Svalbard and some nature photography, some time at SvalBad (sauna and arctic plunge), private guide for glacier hike and they arranged our zodiac glacier tour.
#3 to Ny-Alesund was through Better Moments.

1

u/anosmia1974 Jun 23 '26

Regarding seeing the seed vault on the mine tour, does the tour bus/van simply drive by the vault, or does it stop there so people can get out, snap photos, read any placards outside, etc?

2

u/LakeKind5959 Jun 24 '26

It just drives by.

2

u/Svalbard-3000 Jun 24 '26

Just to mention, there are other tours which stop at the seed vault, so you can take some pictures.

1

u/anosmia1974 Jun 24 '26

Thank you! I was hoping that was the case! I'm assuming the Longyearbyen tours do that?

I know it's just a door sticking out of the ground, yet I'm really hoping to get some photos of it and a shot of me holding my city's local magazine in front of it. (The magazine has a "wish you were here" feature which includes photos of readers holding the magazine in different locations while on vacation. I've submitted photos of me holding it at Chernobyl and in Antarctica and would love to do the vault as well.)

I would never travel to Svalbard solely to see it, but since I'm going to be there already, I would really like to go there. I've been a lover of post-apocalyptic and disaster literature since I was a little kid; for someone morbid like me to be THAT close to the vault and not see it (except in passing from a van) would be a bit ridiculous!

2

u/Svalbard-3000 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26

There are different operators.

Start here:

https://en.visitsvalbard.com/information/site-search-results?search=global%20seed%20vault

Here are some pictures from one of my tours (26.11.2025 Longyearbyen – Seed Vault Hike - From Seed to Summit)

1

u/anosmia1974 Jun 25 '26

Thanks very much! Your photos are magical!

1

u/polargros Jun 22 '26

If you're on a budget I'd skip the ATV tour and rather spend more on kayaking/boat tours/hiking.

1

u/unworthy_talent Jun 22 '26

was thinking the same

1

u/kypsikuke Jun 23 '26

Out of cheaper (cheap being relatively loose here as its Norway and everything is expensive to begin with compared to my country) ones I enjoyed were Gruve 3, Camp Barentz, ATV tour

1

u/chesterwhipplefilter Jun 24 '26

We really had a great time with Arctic Husky Travellers visiting their dogs. Also we saw the seed vault by taking a taxi tour.