I first learned of Tromsø two years ago, as a recent college graduate looking for more research experience before applying to graduate school for social psychology. In search of an opportunity that would allow me to explore my interests in positive psychology and mental health—and satisfy my sense of adventure—I stumbled upon the work of Joar Vittersø, a psychologist at the University of Tromsø who studies happiness, personal growth, and quality of life.

After reaching out to him via e-mail, I learned that the University of Tromsø is the northernmost university in the world. It seemed like the perfect place to test just how adventurous I really was, while also providing a unique population for a psychology research study: How do the residents of northern Norway protect themselves from wintertime woes? And could these strategies be identified and applied elsewhere, to the same beneficial effects?

A few months after our initial correspondence, Vittersø agreed to serve as my advisor on a research project designed to answer these questions; a year later, after receiving a U.S.-Norway Fulbright to fund my study, I boarded a plane to Norway. When I arrived in Tromsø in August, the Midnight Sun period had just ended, the sky was only dark for an hour or two each night, and the Polar Night was still some three months away.

Tromsø is a tiny island, roughly the same size as Manhattan, and is home to approximately 70,000 inhabitants, making it the second-most populated city north of the Arctic Circle. With everything a person could “need”—a mall, three main shopping streets, and a few movie theaters—but nothing extra, Tromsø felt more like a small suburb than a city. Surrounded by mountains and fjords on all sides, it also felt isolated and wild.

For all that, I soon found Tromsø likable. For the city’s relatively small size, I was pleasantly surprised to find it home to an astounding number of festivals, cultural events, and city-wide celebrations. The main pedestrian street is thrumming every day of the week except Sunday, when most shops are closed, and is particularly lively on Saturdays and after 2 a.m. on weekends.

I settled into my student-housing apartment, with its amazing fjord views and three Norwegian roommates, and began building my Tromsø life. I took Norwegian lessons, which I used mostly to decipher food items in the grocery store, as almost everyone in Norway speaks English. I found a group of friends composed mostly of European international students, all of whom shared my desire to experience all that Tromsø had to offer (and to do it cheaply— Norway is prohibitively expensive). Instead of frequenting bars and restaurants as I had in the U.S., I enjoyed hikes, cabin trips, and yoga with my new friends. I joined several Norwegian meditation groups, which gave me friends outside the student community, and my Norwegian friends in these groups were kind enough to hold conversations in English for my benefit.

I soon found my routine: work on my research and graduate-school applications during the week, and enjoy the outdoors and potluck dinners on the weekends. Over several months, Vittersø and I laid the groundwork for our study, expanding upon the background research I had conducted before coming to Tromsø, deciding what questions we wanted to ask, recruiting participants, and testing the online platform we would use to distribute our survey. I became more comfortable spending time alone, and frequented Tromsø coffee shops where I would spend the day working or reading, nursing a $6 latte to the point of loitering.