Ice
Norway · March to May for snow with daylight
Svalbard
Polar bears, glaciers to the sea and four months without a sunset
Svalbard · Ilulissat · Antarctic Peninsula
Ice
Three places where the light does not behave: a town at 78 degrees north with bears beyond the sign, a fjord full of icebergs in Greenland, and the only continent that belongs to nobody, two days across the Drake.
The ice realm is about light and money. The three places here sit at 78, 69 and 65 degrees from the equator, and at those latitudes the day length swings from nothing to everything within a few months. The Daylight Simulator was built for this realm, and the Monte Carlo run learned its weather probabilities here.
The cost is the other fact. Nothing in the polar regions is cheap and nothing runs to schedule; the plans that work carry a buffer day at each end and a budget that has read the page before booking.
Everything in Ice
Ice
Norway · March to May for snow with daylight
Svalbard
Polar bears, glaciers to the sea and four months without a sunset
Ice
Greenland · June to September for boats and the midnight sun
Ilulissat Icefjord
A fjord full of icebergs the size of cathedrals, calved from the fastest glacier on earth
Ice
Antarctica · November to March
Antarctic Peninsula
Two days across the Drake Passage to the only continent that belongs to nobody
Climate by month
Svalbard
Ilulissat Icefjord
Antarctic Peninsula
Midnight sun or polar night?
Questions people ask
Which polar place first?
Svalbard: a daily flight from Oslo, a warm town and guided days from it. Greenland needs the summer direct flight or two connections; Antarctica needs two weeks and the budget of a small car.
How cold does it get?
In the visiting seasons, minus fifteen in the Svalbard spring, around zero on the Antarctic coast in summer, five to twelve in Ilulissat in July. Wind is the real cold in all three.
Can I afford it?
Svalbard on a guesthouse budget, yes. Greenland, with care. Antarctica costs what the page says it costs, and the regret rate is the lowest on this site.
The Simulation Brief
One place, one simulator, one honest number. Every second Sunday.
No newsletter theatre. A short e-mail with the place we modelled, what the model said and what the ground said back.