5 simple tips for using your cell phone in Svalbard

Nowadays, most of us stick to using our cell phone rather than a camera to capture our vacation photos. Normally it’s not much of an issue to use a phone when travelling, but in Svalbard it’s not always that easy to snap some shots, if both your fingers and your phone is freezing up in the cold weather. To help you get the most out of your cell phone when visiting Svalbard, we’ve gathered up 5 simple tips for you.

Keep your phone warm but accessible

Keep your phone close to your body to prevent the battery from depleting quickly. At the same time you also want to have the phone readily available to take photos, but these two points aren’t easily reconcilable. Our tip, get an insulated phone bag and stuff a heatpack in it together with your phone. That’ll help keep your phone warm even if it's easily accessible in one of your outer pockets. Phone bags like the one on the photo below, and heatpacks, are available in several shops in Longyearbyen.

Use your nose!

The last thing you might feel like doing in cold weather is to take off your gloves or mittens to use the touch screen on your phone. A local tip to avoid frosty fingers is to simply use your readily available nose! With some practice you’ll be able to swipe away with your nose to take photos while your hands remain nice and warm.

Flight mode is the best mode

When you’re going on trips in the Svalbard wilderness you might loose your phone reception, especially on longer trips away from settled areas. When your phone can’t find a signal it’ll start searching for one, using up more power than than normal. By putting your phone in flight mode you’ll stop it from trying to find a signal, and your battery will last a little bit longer.

Battery packs on standby

If you’ve got a phone with a battery that loses power quickly in cold temperatures, you’ll find that a battery pack will help you keep it alive. Rechargeable battery packs or powerbanks that can charge your phone whenever you need to are readily available in a lot of different shops. By bringing one or two of these in your pocket you can keep your phone topped up on power even on longer trips in the wilderness.

Lost your phone?

If you're unlucky and lose your phone when visiting Svalbard there’s still hope!
Let your guide or receptionist know that you lost it, and where you think you may have lost it. They can put out a post on local Facebook groups where helpful locals may notify them if they find the phone or other "lost and found" items in Longyearbyen or out in nature.