Northern Delights: Svalbard and Arctic Norway in Winter
Two nights in Longyearbyen with a husky safari and a wilderness evening, a flight to Tromsø, then the Coastal Express over the top of Norway to Kirkenes. January to March 2027, from £1,773 per person.
Svalbard and the Finnmark coast in one short winter break
Duration6 days, 5 nights
RouteLongyearbyen, Tromsø and Kirkenes
ShipOriginal Coastal Express
SeasonJanuary to March 2027
From£1,773 pp
Northern Delights is one of Hurtigruten's newest packages, and it solves a problem that has puzzled plenty of winter travellers: how to see Svalbard and mainland Arctic Norway in a single trip without a fortnight to spare. The answer is a cruise and tour package that starts with two nights in Longyearbyen, flies you south to Tromsø for a night in the city, then puts you aboard a Coastal Express ship for the most remote stretch of its route, round the North Cape and along the Finnmark coast to Kirkenes near the Russian border.
It runs only in winter, from January to March, which is the whole point. Svalbard in the dark months is a different world from the summer archipelago that cruise passengers know, and the Finnmark coast under snow, with the aurora overhead on clear nights, is the Norwegian Arctic at its most elemental. The package is compact, well organised and sensibly priced, and it suits anyone who wants a real taste of the High Arctic in under a week.
£1,773per person, from
9 departures from Longyearbyen, 5 January to 23 March 2027 · UK flight packages from London Gatwick or Manchester
The Journey
How the package fits together
It helps to see the trip as three parts. The first is Svalbard. You arrive in Longyearbyen and spend two nights in a hotel there, with an evening at Camp Barentz in the Adventdalen valley and an afternoon dog sledding in Bolterdalen included. Transfers between the airport and the hotel are arranged for you.
The second is the hop to the mainland. On the morning of day three you check out and transfer to the airport for an economy flight south to Tromsø, which is included in the price. You are met and taken to the Thon Hotel Tromsø, or a comparable hotel, for one night with breakfast, and the next day is yours to explore the city.
The third is the sea. In the early evening of day four you make your own way to the Hurtigruten terminal in Tromsø, which is a short walk from the centre, and board the northbound Coastal Express. The ship sails overnight past the Lyngen Alps, calls at Hammerfest early on day five, reaches Honningsvåg for the North Cape, and continues past Kjøllefjord and Mehamn along the Finnmark coast to arrive at Kirkenes on the morning of day six, where the trip ends. On board you are on full board, with breakfast, lunch and dinner included.
The coastal leg is sailed by one of Hurtigruten's Original Coastal Express ships, the working ships that run the Bergen to Kirkenes route every day of the year carrying passengers, cars, freight and post. Which ship you join depends on your date, and the fare table lists it. Life on board is informal and comfortable, with a panoramic lounge, restaurant and outer decks, and the ship calls at small Finnmark ports at all hours, often for only a few minutes, as it has done for well over a century. Read more about the northbound Coastal Express.
Watch
Winter on the Norwegian coast
Hurtigruten's short film of the coast in winter, the season of this tour, with snow on the mountains and the Northern Lights overhead.
Video from Hurtigruten's official YouTube channel.
Day by Day
Longyearbyen to Kirkenes in six days
The included activities are part of the package. The North Cape trip from Honningsvåg and the Snowhotel stay in Kirkenes are optional extras, which we can book for you.
Day 1
Longyearbyen, a first night in the High Arctic
Today · Longyearbyen
You land at Svalbard Airport, a few kilometres outside Longyearbyen, and are transferred to your hotel in the town. Even in January the place is busier than you might expect. Between two and three thousand people live here, scientists, guides, students and families from dozens of countries, and the town has shops, galleries, restaurants and a cultural life all of its own. It began in 1906 as an American coal mining camp, and the timber cableway towers that once carried coal down from the mines still stand on the hillsides above the streets.
In the evening a bus takes you out into Adventdalen to Camp Barentz, a wilderness camp named after the Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz, whose expedition sighted Spitsbergen in 1596. Dinner is served in a timber cabin: bidos, the traditional reindeer stew, followed by coffee and dessert, while your host talks about life in the Arctic and the science and folklore of the Northern Lights. If the sky is clear you step outside afterwards to look for the aurora, far from the lights of town, before returning to Longyearbyen for the night.
Day 2 · Longyearbyen and a husky adventure in Bolterdalen
Today · Longyearbyen, Bolterdalen
The morning is free. The Svalbard Museum is the place to start, with a clear and well designed account of the trappers, whalers, miners and scientists who have shaped the archipelago, and a polar bear on display that most visitors stop to photograph. The small galleries and outdoor shops along the main street are good for an hour, and lunch in town is a pleasure; Longyearbyen eats well for its size.
In the afternoon you are collected and taken to a husky centre outside town. On every departure in this package, which all run from January to March, you drive your own dog sled, with a team of excitable huskies pulling you through the snow of Bolterdalen, a wide valley where you may spot Svalbard reindeer, ptarmigan and, with luck, an Arctic fox. The mushers teach you how to handle the sled before you set off. Afterwards there are waffles and a hot drink to warm you up.
The light depends on when you travel. In Longyearbyen the sun stays below the horizon from late October until mid February, and the deepest part of the polar night, when there is barely any twilight at all, lasts until the end of January. Early departures therefore sledge under starlight and moonlight, February brings a deep blue glow at midday, and by March there is proper daylight, with the sun finally clearing the mountains above the town around 8 March.
Day 3 · Flying south to Tromsø
Today · Longyearbyen, Tromsø
After breakfast and a last morning to wander Longyearbyen, you check out and transfer to the airport for your flight to the mainland. The flight takes you across the Barents Sea in a fraction of the time a ship needs, and on a clear day the view from the window as you leave Spitsbergen, with glaciers and white peaks running to the horizon, is worth requesting a window seat for.
In Tromsø you are transferred to the Thon Hotel Tromsø or a comparable central hotel. The rest of the day is free, and the city centre is compact enough to explore on foot. Its old wooden houses, waterfront bars and the busy main street of Storgata give it a lively feel even in the depths of winter.
Day 4
Tromsø and joining the Coastal Express
Today · Tromsø
You have the whole day in Tromsø, the largest city in northern Norway and one of the best places on earth to see the Northern Lights. Its history is an Arctic one: from the nineteenth century this was the base for sealing and trapping voyages to Svalbard, and later for polar explorers, so in a sense you are following them in reverse. The Polar Museum by the harbour covers that era well.
Hurtigruten particularly recommends the Arctic Cathedral, across the bridge in Tromsødalen. Completed in 1965, its stepped white roof is often likened to an iceberg, and the vast glass mosaic of its east window glows when the low sun or the interior lights catch it. The Fjellheisen cable car nearby climbs to a viewpoint high above the city, and Polaria, the Arctic aquarium, is a good indoor option if the weather turns.
In the early evening you make your own way to the Hurtigruten terminal and board your ship. After your first dinner in the restaurant the ship heads north out of Tromsø, and if the night is clear, the deck is the place to be as the jagged Lyngen Alps slide past to the east, their highest summit, Jiehkkevárri, rising to about 1,834 metres above a range of some 140 glaciers.
The ship calls at Hammerfest in the early morning. On the Fuglenes headland stands the Meridian Column, which marks the northern end of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey points used in the nineteenth century to measure the size and shape of the earth and now on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Later the ship reaches Honningsvåg on the island of Magerøya, where you can join the optional excursion to the North Cape. In winter the road across the island is often driven in convoy behind a snowplough, and the plateau 307 metres above the Barents Sea is a world of snow, wind and wide sky, with the globe monument standing at the cliff edge. It is a raw, exhilarating place at this time of year.
From here the ship sails into Sámi country. As it approaches Kjøllefjord, look out for Finnkirka, a great sea cliff shaped like a cathedral that was an ancient Sámi sacrificial site, where fishermen also used to stop to pray for good weather and give thanks for safe return. In the evening the ship calls at Mehamn on the Nordkinn Peninsula, the northernmost port on the whole Coastal Express route; the peninsula's tip, Kinnarodden, is the northernmost point of the European mainland. Continuing east, the ship passes Slettnes Lighthouse, first lit in 1905 and the northernmost lighthouse on the European mainland, before heading on towards Berlevåg.
Optional excursion
The North Cape From Honningsvåg by road to the North Cape plateau, with the globe monument, the views over the Barents Sea and North Cape Hall.
Day 6
Along the Varanger Peninsula to Kirkenes
Ports today · Kirkenes
Through the night and early morning the ship runs along the coast of the Varanger Peninsula, a bare, treeless land of low hills and fishing communities that faces the Barents Sea, before turning into Varangerfjord and arriving at Kirkenes in the morning. This is where the Coastal Express turns round, and where your trip ends.
Kirkenes is a border town in every sense. It lies close to the Russian frontier and further east than Istanbul, and street signs are in Norwegian and Russian. It suffered terribly in the Second World War, when it was among the most bombed places in Norway, and many residents sheltered from the raids in Andersgrotta, a tunnel blasted into the rock beneath the town that could hold 2,500 people. Soviet forces arrived in October 1944 as the German army retreated. Today the town is known for king crab, caught in the fjords here and served in local restaurants.
If you are not ready to go home, Hurtigruten offers an optional stay at the Kirkenes Snowhotel just outside town, rebuilt from snow and ice each winter, with a choice of Snow Suites or heated Gamme Cabins. We can book it as an extension.
About Svalbard
Winter in Svalbard, a few things worth knowing
Svalbard is part of Norway under the Svalbard Treaty, signed in Paris on 9 February 1920 and in force since 14 August 1925. The treaty confirmed Norwegian sovereignty while allowing citizens of every signatory country to live and work there on equal terms. That is why the archipelago has no visa requirement of its own, and why the Russian coal mining settlement of Barentsburg still operates a short way west of Longyearbyen. You still need a passport, and you will be travelling via mainland Norway.
About 60 percent of Svalbard is under glacier ice, and its wildlife has adapted to extremes. The Svalbard reindeer is a stocky, short legged subspecies found only here, and most of the Arctic foxes turn white for the winter. Polar bears are protected, and the Norwegian Polar Institute's 2015 survey estimated around 264 living within Svalbard. Because they can appear anywhere, guided trips outside the settlements carry protection, which is why your Camp Barentz guide and your husky mushers are equipped for it. You are very unlikely to see a bear in or near Longyearbyen.
Svalbard's climate is milder than its latitude suggests, thanks to the West Spitsbergen Current, the northernmost reach of the warm Atlantic water that flows up the Norwegian coast. It is still the Arctic in winter, though, so expect serious cold and wind, especially on the sledge. Clothing is not part of the package, so our advice is warm layers, a windproof outer shell, insulated boots, a hat that covers the ears and good mittens.
Fares
Northern Delights fares, January to March 2027
Prices are per person in pounds, for two people sharing, and cover the whole package as Hurtigruten describes it: two nights in Longyearbyen with the included activities, the flight to Tromsø, the night in Tromsø with breakfast, transfers, and the Coastal Express voyage from Tromsø to Kirkenes on full board. Flights to Svalbard and home from Kirkenes are not included in these prices. The cabin category refers only to your cabin on the ship. When we checked, only Polar Inside and Polar Outside cabins were available on this package, and the ship shown is the Coastal Express ship you join in Tromsø. There are 9 departures in 2027.
Departure date
Ship
Polar Inside
Polar Outside
5 January 2027
MS Kong Harald
from £1,773
from £1,789
24 January 2027
MS Richard With
from £1,773
from £1,789
31 January 2027
MS Nordkapp
Call
from £1,817
2 February 2027
MS Polarlys
from £1,808
from £1,824
16 February 2027
MS Nordnorge
from £1,808
from £1,824
21 February 2027
MS Nordlys
from £1,808
from £1,824
2 March 2027
MS Vesterålen
from £1,914
from £1,958
9 March 2027
MS Richard With
from £1,930
Call
23 March 2027
MS Kong Harald
from £1,914
from £1,930
Fares are per person in pounds, based on two sharing, without flights, and were checked on 20 October 2026. They are subject to availability and may change; call 0333 405 0194 for current prices. Where a category shows Call, it was not available when we checked. Single supplements on request.
Your Package
What is included
What's included
Svalbard
Two nights in Longyearbyen Hotel accommodation in the town, with the pre tour programme
Included
Camp Barentz evening Bus to the camp in Adventdalen, dinner of reindeer bidos with coffee and dessert, and a talk on Arctic life and the Northern Lights
Included
Husky tour Drive your own dog sled through Bolterdalen, followed by waffles and a hot drink
Included
Transfers in Longyearbyen Airport, hotel and activity transfers
Included
Flight and Tromsø
Economy flight from Longyearbyen to Tromsø
Included
One night in Tromsø with breakfast Thon Hotel Tromsø or a comparable hotel
Included
Transfer from Tromsø airport to the hotel
Included
Coastal Express
Voyage from Tromsø to Kirkenes Two nights on an Original Coastal Express ship in the cabin category you choose
Included
Full board on the ship Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Included
Not included: flights from the UK to Longyearbyen and home from Kirkenes unless booked as a flight package, meals in Longyearbyen and Tromsø other than those listed, drinks, the optional North Cape excursion, the Kirkenes Snowhotel, and travel insurance. Note that you make your own way from the hotel to the ship in Tromsø. You can arrange travel insurance online here.
Flights
UK flight packages from London Gatwick or Manchester
This package starts and finishes in different places, so flights need a little more thought than a round trip. Hurtigruten offers flight inclusive versions from London Gatwick and Manchester, flying you out to Longyearbyen and home from Kirkenes, with connections in Norway. Booking flights as part of the package means the timings are matched to the tour and you have the protection of Hurtigruten's ATOL licence.
Package
Starts / Ends
Included in price
Price
Northern Delights Flight Package
Longyearbyen / Kirkenes
Flights from London Gatwick or Manchester to Longyearbyen and from Kirkenes back to the UK, plus everything in the package above
Call
Flight package prices depend on the date and airport and are quoted on request, per person based on two sharing. Extra nights in Kirkenes and the Snowhotel can be added. Call 0333 405 0194 for a quote.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Is Northern Delights a guided tour?
It is a package rather than an escorted group tour. Your hotels, flight from Longyearbyen to Tromsø, transfers and included activities are all arranged, but you travel independently between them, and you make your own way from your Tromsø hotel to the ship.
How do I get from Svalbard to the ship?
On day three you fly from Longyearbyen to Tromsø on an included economy flight. You spend that night and the following day in Tromsø, then board the northbound Coastal Express there in the early evening of day four.
Which part of the coast does the ship sail?
The northbound route from Tromsø to Kirkenes, the far northern end of the Coastal Express. It calls at Hammerfest and Honningsvåg for the North Cape, then Mehamn and other small Finnmark ports, arriving in Kirkenes on the morning of day six.
Which cabins can I book?
When we checked, only Polar Inside and Polar Outside cabins were available on this package. Hurtigruten showed no availability in Arctic Superior cabins or suites, but call us if you would like us to check again.
Which ship will I be on?
One of Hurtigruten's Original Coastal Express ships, depending on your date. The fare table shows the ship for each departure, such as MS Richard With, MS Kong Harald or MS Polarlys.
Will I see the Northern Lights?
January to March is a very good time for the aurora in both Svalbard and northern Norway, and the Camp Barentz evening and the nights at sea give you good chances, but nothing is guaranteed. The Northern Lights Promise only covers Hurtigruten voyages of 11 days or more, so it does not apply to this six day package.
Will it be dark in Svalbard?
On January departures, almost entirely. In Longyearbyen the sun does not rise from late October to mid February, and the darkest period, with hardly any twilight, lasts until about the end of January. February brings blue twilight around midday, and by March there is real daylight, with the sun returning over the mountains around 8 March.
Are flights from the UK included?
Not in the prices shown. Hurtigruten offers flight packages from London Gatwick or Manchester, flying out to Longyearbyen and home from Kirkenes, and we can quote these for your date.
Do I need a passport for Svalbard?
Yes. There is no separate visa for Svalbard, but you need a valid passport, and you travel through mainland Norway, so the normal Schengen entry rules apply.
Can I extend my stay in Kirkenes?
Yes. Hurtigruten offers an optional stay at the Kirkenes Snowhotel, in a Snow Suite or a Gamme Cabin, and we can also add ordinary hotel nights in Kirkenes before your flight home.
