Thanks Elsa, both Svalbard and Alaska are well worth to visit of course. I have had many work trips in the past to Svalbard, partly as a physiologist and partly as a scientific scuba diver, mostly to Ny-Ålesund in Kings Bay. No polar bears to be seen though, they do not frequent the west coast of Svalbard that often in the summer. Perhaps a good thing when diving from a boat or from a hole in the ice. Svalbard is very much worth visiting just for the landscapes. If deciding to go to Northern Norway, Svalbard is then just a 2 hour or so flight from Tromsø... At the coast of northern Alaska, polar bears typically hang around during the native whaling season to look for scraps. Flight to the villages can be quite costly, and for instance in Point Barrow the hotel can get quite expensive and require reservations long in advance at that time of the year.
