I took this photo after about an hour of hiking from the buildings in the center of this photo, up on Platåfjellet mountain right next to town.
Very cool, I've always wanted to visit Longyearbyen. How long did you stay and what all did you do?
I stayed quite a while, and did as much as I can. :) I got a long-term place to stay and used it as a kind of workation. The bandwidth is great (5G), and there's a good mix of heavy storms and awesome weather, so it's good to stay a while to be able to wait for the good days. Some people visit for a week, and all they see is a blizzard and plane delays. But when it's good, it's excellent!
Visited in 2019 and the scenery was stunning. Staying longterm sounds like a good idea cause it's not cheap renting anything there for a week and the weather varies so much.
I was there last summer. Wouldn't call it beautiful, but the roughness around the edges is wonderful.
It's basically a mining town when it comes to looks, but the surroundings couldn't be much more beautiful in its polar way. And the transition between relative civilization and utter wilderness is incredibly narrow there.