Location: Svalbard, Arctic, Norway, Spitsbergen, Longyearbyen

Published: BBC Travel 

Last June, on the longest day of the year, I sailed out of southern Norway aboard a 37ft-long fibreglass-hulled sailboat, bound for one of Europe’s last true wildernesses and the greatest adventure of my life. An American, I was the only woman sailing with four men – two Norwegians, a German and a Russian. We immediately bonded over our mutual desire to see places few people do in a manner that few people dare…