Svalbard (Spitsbergen)

Roger Norum is a social anthropologist and travel journalist with extensive experience studying, working and travelling in Northern Norway. He has authored several guides to Norway and regularly writes about Norway for publications such as The Telegraph. Roger currently teaches Norwegian language and translation at University College London, and holds a post as Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, where he carries out research on the links between tourism, travel writing and environmental change in the European Arctic on an EU-funded project, Arctic Encounters: Contemporary Travel/Writing in the European High North. Roger won the silver medal for Travel Writer of the Year in 2010 from the British Guild of Travel Writers. He is fluent in Norwegian and Russian, and holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford.

James Proctor first came across all things Nordic as a student. After mistakenly wandering into a Swedish lecture, he soon realised that his native Yorkshire dialect, liberally laced with dozens of old Viking words, was going to make learning this offbeat Scandinavian language a doddle. And so began a love affair with the Nordic countries, which has endured to this day - 30 years or so later. As the BBC's Scandinavia correspondent in the 90s, James travelled widely across the Nordic countries and has since written no fewer than six travel guides to the region. He first visited Svalbard in 2017 and, despite his knowledge of northern countries, was still struck by the fact that it takes a full 11/2 hours by jet-engined 737 to reach Svalbard from northernmost Lapland. A trip to Svalbard will always be one of those once-in-a-lifetime adventures and James is glad to count himself among the members of this still rather exclusive club who have made it to the High Arctic. Today he divides his time between the South of France and his beloved Yorkshire.

Anika Paust left her studies in Aerospace Engineering to travel the world, but ended up in the tiny town of Longyearbyen just 1,300km from the North Pole, and on the opposite side of the planet from her home town of Perth, Western Australia. Her work as the international sales manager for a major tour operator enables her to combine two of her passions: travel and Svalbard. Having lived in Longyearbyen since 2008, she has seen a number of changes to the town and the region over the last few years, and is excited to see the development of the archipelago as a sustainable destination for year-round tourism.