Snowmobile tours in Longyearbyen

7 min read Updated October 2026 Compare all tours

Svalbard has only about 40 kilometres of road, and none of it links one settlement with another. Once the valleys are covered in snow, residents and visitors use snowmobiles to cross them. Visit Svalbard names Tempelfjorden and the east coast of Spitsbergen as the classic destinations, and Barentsburg, about 60 kilometres west of Longyearbyen, is the other long day out. Every tour on this page starts in Longyearbyen, and nearly all of them collect you from where you are staying.

A snowmobile day is long and loud. Reviews of the Barentsburg tour suggest earplugs and a few snacks for the stretches before and after lunch. You will sit on the machine for hours in temperatures well below freezing, so the shorter tours are a fair choice for a first ride.

To Barentsburg or to a glacier front

The Barentsburg tour takes ten hours. The route runs through Todalen, Skiferdalen and Grøndalen to the settlement on Grønfjorden, where lunch is served in the hotel restaurant and a guide shows you around. The ride back follows a different route. Barentsburg is a Russian mining town run by the state-owned company Trust Arktikugol, and it still has an active coal mine and a bust of Lenin. Reviewers point out that a group with slow drivers loses time on the way out, and that time is then missing in Barentsburg. If you bring your passport, you can get a stamp at the post office.

Tempelfjorden is the shorter option at six hours. The tour heads up Adventdalen, through Eskerdalen and Sassendalen, and ends with a view of Tunabreen, the glacier that runs into the head of the fjord. Lunch is eaten outdoors, and the inclusions list insurance for search and rescue. Both tours exclude children under 12, pregnant women and people with back problems.

Since 2025 motor traffic on the sea ice of selected fjords is banned after 1 March. The Governor of Svalbard publishes the affected areas in maps, and the tour operators plan their routes around them.

Ice caves, the east coast and three days to Pyramiden

Two tours combine the ride with a walk into a glacier cave. The seven-hour version rides to a glacier and then explores the cave with head torches; it needs at least two participants and is not open to people with claustrophobia or guests over 75. One reviewer writes that the day ended two hours earlier than advertised, and another that the field meal was a hot drink with biscuits. The four-hour tour by the same route keeps groups to four guests per guide, but you bring your own winter clothes. Our page on ice caves around Longyearbyen covers the caves you reach on foot.

The east coast expedition is the most remote day trip here. It runs for ten hours to Mohnbukta, with a stop on the frozen sea itself. It has very few reviews so far, and its age rules contradict each other: one field excludes children under 15, the description speaks of passengers over 16. Ask before you book with a teenager.

For more than a day on the snow, there is a three-day trip to Pyramiden, the abandoned Soviet mining town on Billefjorden. Day one crosses Adventdalen, Sassendalen and the Nordenskiöldbreen glacier, day two is a guided walk through the settlement and a ride in the area, and day three returns over the Lomonosovfonna ice cap. The hotel in Pyramiden and restaurant meals are not in the tour price; the operator asks you to pay them on site by card. The trip is for adults with a driving licence.

Short rides in the polar night

In Longyearbyen the sun stays below the horizon from 27 October 2026 to 15 February 2027, according to the US Naval Observatory. From 13 November to 29 January there is not even twilight at midday. Visit Svalbard gives 11 November to 30 January as its polar night, which roughly matches that darkest phase. The long day trips on this page are reviewed from February onwards; for the dark months the tours are shorter, between three and four and a half hours.

The ride to the pingo takes about 3.5 hours and covers 40 to 50 kilometres through Adventdalen to an ice-cored hill, with a break for a hot drink. A beginner tour of the same length moves at a relaxed pace while you learn to handle the machine, and promises the aurora only if conditions allow. Both are new and have few or no reviews yet. If you would rather not drive at all, the private northern lights tour puts you behind a guide, and the operator warns of cold, wind and a bumpy ride. A private photo tour of 4.5 hours uses the snowmobile to move between viewpoints, with one-to-one help on composition and keeping a camera working in the cold. More on the dark season is on our northern lights page.

Licence, passengers and age limits

To drive a snowmobile on Svalbard you need a valid driving licence. Visit Svalbard says a class B car licence is enough, that you must carry the licence on organised tours, and that digital licences only count if they were issued in Norway. Several tours by one operator go further and ask for a licence under the Geneva convention or an international driving permit; a translated copy is not accepted, and without the right document there is no refund.

When two people book one machine, one drives and the other rides behind. Most day trips exclude children under 12, the polar night rides start at 8, and some tours also list back problems or pregnancy as reasons not to join.

Polar bears and safety on the trail

Polar bears can appear anywhere on Svalbard and at any time of year. Anyone leaving the settlements must carry suitable means of scaring them off, which is why visitors go with a guide. The rules in force since 2025 say you must keep at least 300 metres from a bear, and from 1 March to 30 June at least 500 metres. No tour can promise a sighting. Read our page on polar bear safety before you go.

Mobile coverage is almost non-existent outside town. Visit Svalbard points out that ordinary travel insurance usually does not cover search and rescue costs, while local operators include that insurance in booked activities.

Cold and light through the season

At Svalbard Airport the average temperature is −11.6 °C in February, −12.0 °C in March and −8.8 °C in April. Wind on an open snowmobile makes it feel much colder. Visit Svalbard recommends a windproof outer layer with several layers of wool or fleece underneath; the overall from the tour goes on top. Our page on what to wear has the details.

The light changes quickly after the polar night. The sun rises again on 16 February, but the mountains hide it from the town until about 8 March, when people gather on the steps of the old hospital to greet it. On 1 March the sun is up from 08:29 to 15:53, on 1 April from 05:17 to 20:52, and from 19 April it does not set at all. Visit Svalbard calls this bright late winter the most popular time of year, so book the long tours early.