Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders

Re:Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open ... by dheera on Thursday August 08, 2019 @02:04PM (#20646940)

Svalbard is an amazing, humbling place in terms of nature. The fact that once you leave town, for hundreds of kilometers in any direction there are zero humans, zero cellular reception, just nothing but you, the ice, and maybe the bears. I went there one winter and spent a week without sunlight. It was the first time in my life I went a few days without seeing the sun. A few photos:

https://www.facebook.com/dheera/media_set?set=a.101010917929...

True, I wouldn't want to live there long term -- the limitations of a small town and no road access to other towns could get depressing after a while. But it was definitely an experience being there for a week.

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Re:Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open ... by cco on Thursday August 08, 2019 @03:43PM (#20647904)

>...for hundreds of kilometers in any direction there are zero humans...

I think you've argued directly for the previous poster's point no?

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Re:Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open ... by maxehnert on Thursday August 08, 2019 @03:56PM (#20648036)

I was looking over pictures of this place last night actually. There's a national park there too which looks other worldly.

Then of course I looked at flights and it's about 40hrs of travel and $1300 so probably not making that trip in this lifetime.

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Re:Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open ... by dheera on Thursday August 08, 2019 @04:48PM (#20648565)

Yeah so the trick I used is to find a cheap deal to Oslo, and then use Star Alliance miles to get the Oslo-Longyearbyen segment as a reward flight on SAS. It counts as a domestic EU flight as far as mileage goes.

FYI unlike mainland Norway's national parks, you cannot "randomly" go to the national parks in Svalbard. Svalbard is almost completely devoid of infrastructure (no roads outside the couple of towns) so you'd have to make a completely self-sufficient expedition across arctic terrain to get there. You also need someone with rifle skills in case of a polar bear attack, and it's required to carry a rifle and register all plans with the Governor of Svalbard to leave the town. It's possible, but definitely needs a properly-equipped team -- not a casual trip.

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Re:Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open ... by sib on Thursday August 08, 2019 @06:24PM (#20649489)

If you can make it, you should...

I was lucky enough to go there for a trip a couple of years ago and it was incredible, in all the ways that others have described.

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