Svalbard Travel News

From hot-spring holidays in Japan to romantic rail journeys through Siberia, snow travel is the way to go.

IMAGES The entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the island of Spitsbergen, Nor.[Credits : John McConnico/AP] Main On Feb.

Researchers studying the effects of global warming in the Arctic region off northern Norway briefed visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday on their research.

LONGYEARBYEN: UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited on Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world's most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he was "alarmed" by the rate at which the Arctic's glaciers are retreating as he visited the region ahead of key climate talks in December.

Mr Ban said world leaders had a "moral political responsibility" to safeguard the future of the planet.

Need an insider's visitor guide to the northernmost settlement on Earth? NASA's got you covered.

ALESUND, Svalbard, Norway, Jun 15 - Political and business leaders may agree in principle that climate change is a serious threat, but there is a startling lack of consensus and a 'you-go-first' attitude on taking action, even amongst a small group of high-level decision makers disconnected from their cell phones here in the Arctic.

Why travel to a frozen landscape, rather than bask in a tropical paradise? Why travel to a frozen landscape, rather than bask in a tropical paradise? For the uplifting feeling of being at the northernmost extremity of the globe, of having reached somewhere otherworldly.