I Took a Cruise to One of The Most Remote Places on Earth

ad – This content was created on a press trip (similar to those travel agents and journalists take). All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’ve just disembarked a cruise where I went to a town that is so remote that you are not allowed to die or give birth there.

The cruise was 12 days long, and I didn’t see the sunset at all for 10 days – because it just didn’t. The sun was up 24 hours a day.

I tried my hand at a new profession far underground, spent my time whale watching, and so much more. This cruise was anything but ordinary. It really does need to be seen to be believed. 

When I saw the itinerary, I was instantly interested. I’d never been to Svalbard or Iceland, and I didn’t realise that mainstream cruise ships went that far north.

I wasn’t sure if a cruise would be the best way to visit these kinds of places. I wondered how the 24-hour daylight would affect me, and I wanted to make the most out of all my time in port, so I decided to do a mix of cruise line excursions and exploring by myself.

I was hoping to see a whale too, but I wasn’t holding my breath for that one.

(Side note, though, whales do go about half an hour between breaths. That’s very impressive.) 

We flew to Copenhagen to board our cruise, and in total, we would travel 3331 nautical miles up along the coast to Svalbard before ending in Reykjavik. 

I have visited Norway on cruises before, but I’d never been as far north as when we visited Honningsvåg.

It’s actually a city despite only having 2200 residents, which is very similar to the number of passengers onboard the Norwegian Star, the ship that I was sailing on.

If you count the crew in that stat too, we outnumbered the locals.

Honningsvåg has been officially a city since 1996, and the sun shines here all the time from late May until July.

In winter, the sun doesn’t rise at all from November until late January. That’s just because of the way the Earth rotates, when you’re so far north, the sun never goes that far away in summer. 

People do use light therapy lights in winter to try to help, and you can, of course, see the northern lights pretty much anytime when it’s dark.

It must be strange seeing the northern lights at 2 pm on a random Tuesday. You can’t see them in summer of course, because it’s always light and it has to be dark to see them.

The city is the gateway to get to one of the most famous landmarks in Norway, North Cape and that’s where we decided to go on our excursion.

We met in the theatre to pick up our excursion tickets and then were called to the bus outside.

It was a big bus with a toilet which I always appreciate – and I don’t know if its just me, but I always find bus rides so relaxing I struggle to stay awake. Especially if it’s cold outside and a tour guide is telling me about the place. 

The scenery was beautiful, and it did seem strange looking at the big patches of ice because it really didn’t feel cold at all. I probably should have brought my hat in hindsight, but that was about it. I was fine in just a jumper and a coat. 

It’s the furthest point North that can be accessed by road or car. It didn’t always used to be that way though. People would have to climb up the cliff to get here until the road was added in the 1950s. 

I’m glad that we didn’t have to climb up any cliffs, our coach dropped us off at the visitors centre, and we were able to take pictures with the famous landmark.

The rest of the centre was cool too. There was a cinema room, a museum, and a space of lights where it showed North Cape going through the different seasons.

They had plenty of Trolls to buy in the gift shop, of course. It really did feel like being on top of the world.

On our way back to the ship, we stopped off for a Sami experience. The Sami people have lived in this part of the world for thousands of years. They were traditionally reindeer herders, and some of them still are, like the guide that we met.

We all gathered around in a tent, and he taught us how to sing some Sami songs.

We were all given a piece of reindeer and bread to try in this cool cup, and he talked a bit about the clothes that are traditionally worn.

I’d definitely like to learn more after this quick visit. He taught us how to throw a lasso, too. I’m not sure when that’ll come in handy, but you never know. 

We also learnt how to throw axes when we took an excursion to visit a Llama farm in Maloy.

I named my twig Twiggy Stardust, and the Llamas, goats, and deer seemed to like it.

It did make me laugh when I saw some dogs that looked as though they were driving the tractor.

If there was an excursion called “Watch a dog drive a tractor” I’d be there like a shot. That sounds amazing! 

The llamas did prefer the bread, and I can’t say I’d blame them. I’d always pick eating bread over eating leaves too. 

It was a very rainy day, but that didn’t matter. We’d had a lot of luck already with sunshine in the Norwegian ports of Kristiansand and Alesund, and we always knew that the weather would get colder as we went further north.

I was hoping for blue skies, though of course, but as long as it wasn’t pouring with rain and really foggy, I’d be happy.

I had heard of people coming a long way and not seeing anything. I wanted to see Iceland and Svalbard after coming all this way. 

In Kristiansand and Ålesund, we decided to do our own thing instead of taking an excursion, and we had a great day in both ports.

In Alesund, we climbed to the top of the mountain, and that is something I could have only dreamed about when I visited a couple of years ago, when the snow was up to my knees.

Seeing the difference here between winter and summer really drove it home to me just how much life here must vary at different times of the year.

I’m from the UK, where we don’t have a whole lot of variety with the weather, not compared to somewhere like this anyway. 

The view from the top of Alesund was beautiful and it was so warm in Kristansand I dressed as though it was a summers day.

I was on the cruise with a mix of people from China, America, Germany, Canada, Australia and more, and it was so interesting to see who thought this weather was warm.

For a bit of context, it was 13 °C, which is 55°F. For me, that was the perfect weather to sit by the pool.

These Norwegian ports were really lovely and very pretty, but it definitely wasn’t the thing that I was looking forward to most on this cruise. That would be Svalbard and Iceland. 

I’d heard about Svalbard before I came on the trip. It’s halfway between Norway and the North Pole, and I knew that because of the remote location, nobody is allowed to die or give birth on the island.

Of course, they can’t really control the dying bit, but if you are seriously ill, they will take you to the mainland so you can die there instead.

It can be hard to control the giving birth bit, too, but generally, people just move to the mainland as their due date approaches. If a baby was born early though they do have a hospital.

Svalbard is home to people of around 50 different nationalities, and in the first half of this year, it was recorded that there were only 8 babies under the age of 1. 

No cats are allowed on Svalbard, but there are lots of dogs. I did hear one story about somebody who bought a cat and registered it as a fox, but I’m not sure how true that one is.

I don’t think I could live somewhere without cats!

Pulling into port was so exciting, I had no idea what to expect, or what to wear, but as I had a tour booked for the afternoon, I decided I’d venture out alone in the morning. Not past the polar bear warning sign, of course…

We were docked until late at night, so although we were only there for one day, we had plenty of time to explore. 

I wrapped up warm, and you can see my scarf flapping around here, but honestly, it wasn’t too cold. The weather can get up to around 5 °C, which is 41°F, in summer, and drops down to around -5 °C, which is 23°F, in winter.

In winter, the sun sets in October and doesn’t rise again at all for almost 4 months. It is pitch black the entire time. 

We wandered along from our ship into town, and there were plenty of people along the way to help us find where we were going.

We went past the museum, and I found what is called the Huskies Cafe. I’d heard that the cookies here were great, and that was so true. They were some of the best cookies I’ve had in years.

We had to take off our shoes before going into the cafe, and the cafe itself was so cute. They have huskies in there, if you hadn’t guessed from the name, and they were so well behaved, wandering around the cafe, making sure that everything was in order. 

I left the cosy cafe next to go from one extreme to the other, I swapped my hat for a helmet and went deep underground. 

The town that the cafe is in is called Longyearbyen, byen means town, and Longyear was named after John Longyear, who founded the Arctic Coal Company in 1906.

Most of the people who lived here then did so because they were working in the mines.

I got to experience a little bit of what that would have been like on my tour. The mine we were exploring was mine 3, which opened in the 1970s and closed in 1996.

Everything has pretty much remained untouched since then, and they are still currently using mine 7. By the time this video comes out though, it’ll have also shut down. 

We were first taken into a little room, which was used as one of the dining rooms for the workers. Our guide was fantastic, and he explained to us how coal mining worked.

I have to admit this was not something I knew a lot about before this visit. I thought I had a very basic understanding, but I was wrong, and it was so interesting. 

He told us about the different jobs, and they would strategically collapse the mountain back down after they had finished digging out a section.

I knew that it was a dangerous job, but watching a video about it really brought it home. 

We were asked if we wanted to try crawling around the mine ourselves, and I thought yes, why not, I’ve come all this way,

I’m sure my friends watching me on YouTube will want to see me crawl through a 60cm high tunnel.

Luckily for me, I’m not really claustrophobic – the temperature and the dirt were more my issue. It was FREEZING, and everything was so cold to the touch.

We saw the little trains that were used to transport the coal and were able to test out lifting some of the machinery.

I could barely lift some of it, let alone work with it for 8 hours at a time. I definitely won’t be looking to change careers after this.

In total, we walked about 800 metres down a long path, stopping to look at different interesting things along the way, including creepy, mouldy Santa!

We saw the original seed bank where they used to store different types of seeds. They did this to make sure that we basically have backups of all the seeds for things like food.

That’s very smart, it seems like something out of science fiction, honestly, but I’m glad they do it. There is a new one which opened in 2008, and in there they have 660 million seeds. 

They have an information bank down in the coal mine here too where you can pay companies to store data for you. If you have a message that’s very important, you pay to put it in here and somebody will be able to read it in thousands of years, in theory. It’s all stored on special film. 

I’m not sure what I would put down here, maybe a message for the world like “Yes, ketchup does go on pizza”, “Elf is the best Christmas movie” – that kind of thing.

It’s not cheap, as you can imagine, and you have to pay monthly, for I’m guessing forever?

Towards the bottom of the mine, we were given the chance to try crawling through an area that was 60cm high. That’s just under 2 ft. 

The miners would climb and work in hundreds of metres of paths of this height.

I banged my head a couple of times just climbing about 10 metres, and the ground was so cold it really stung my hands. It was colder down here than it was outside, but at least I had my overalls as another layer. 

We were able to keep a piece of coal, too, which was so fun. I bought it all the way home. I’m so used to visiting places where you can’t touch or take anything, but our guide said they had plenty of coal to spare, which was very true. 

We all had lights on our helmets, but it did take a while to get used to the bright sunlight again when we came outside.

If you did live and work here in summer, it might be quite nice to go into the dark of the mine, because it won’t be dark outside at any point. 

The strange thing about Svalbard is that there are no trees. Well, that isn’t the only strange thing, but it is one of the strange things. Lots of polar bears, but no trees.

There are lots and lots of trees in Iceland though, and that was my next stop. This was a first for me, and seeing things like cats again was really nice. 

Imagine if you were born and raised on Svalbard and then went somewhere else and saw a cat for the first time, not literally born there, of course. I did find an Icelandic version of my cat Hudson. 

The scenery is breathtaking in Iceland, and it all just felt so clean and welcoming for everybody. Iceland is the safest country in the world according to the World Peace Index, and it’s had that title for 15 years.

The country is also often voted as one of the happiest in the world, and I can see why. The locals were so friendly but not pushy, and I always appreciate that.

We visited Akureyi and Isafjordur – two places which I can’t pronounce very well.

We visited the botanical gardens in Akureyi and went to visit the town, it was all very pedestrian-friendly and even the traffic light in the shape of a love heart, which I thought was cute.

Don’t ask me to tell you where we actually went in terms of roads, though, I have no idea how to even start with their words.

Luckily for me, over 90% of people in Iceland do speak English, and whenever we went into a shop or anything, they’d just speak to us in English by default. Probably because they knew that there was a cruise ship in port. 

In Iceland, we saw lots of these Purple flowers that are called Lupine. These flowers are everywhere, and some Icelanders love that – and some not so much.

They were brought here on purpose, but have really taken over. Personally, I love them.

These bloom in June and July, so I feel lucky to have seen them. I also felt so lucky with the weather we had, it was cloudy, sure, but the clouds were so low. We don’t normally get clouds like this where I’m from in the UK. Ours normally look more like the Toy Story clouds. 

A random fun fact here is that Iceland doesn’t have any McDonald’s. They did used to have a few, but they closed down in 2009. The last cheeseburger served is in a museum. 

Up until this point, I still hadn’t seen any whales. I’d seen lots of seagulls, and we’d actually given some a lift across the ocean at one point, but I was hopeful.

The seas were calm, and my wish was granted when we spotted some while sailing out of the port.

The water was so unbelievably smooth, and we were able to see at least 5 or 10 whales. They hung around for a good hour or so, too. 

The captain on the ship made an announcement when the whales were spotted, and it was so fun to watch everybody drop whatever they were doing to run outside.

I just think humans are so cute, and yes, I am human too, that makes it sound like I’m not.

To see that, watch my full excursion video I made for the Norwegian Cruise Lines channel here:

There were a lot of different people from different countries on this cruise, but even if I couldn’t understand what somebody was saying in another language, we could all understand that we were excited about the whales and where they were.

For me, this is really what cruising is all about, and I won’t forget it. Visiting by ship gave us the chance to experience things like this – things that I wouldn’t see in my everyday life.

I’d love to come back to Iceland and Svalbard one day, Norway too, but visiting by cruise gave us a great chance to have a taster of each place.

Now I know that I definitely don’t want to be a coal miner in the Arctic Circle, and that I couldn’t live somewhere without cats. 

In total, our cruise spent 3 days in Norwegian ports, 1 day in Svalbard and 2 days in Iceland. We had 4 sea days, and they were the perfect way to relax and recharge between the busy port days. 

Watch this video next, and I’ll show you everything that we got up to when on the ship, from entertainment to food, this is just as important as the ports, in my opinion:

Before You Go

Find out what the top 10 cruise destinations were in 2024 below: (Not a surprise that Svalbard wasn’t one of them!)

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Cruise ships make up only a small proportion of ships at sea. Find out what the others are here:

1% of Ships are Cruise Ships, Here’s What The Rest Are