Northern Lights - A Guide by Pål Brekke & Frederik Broms

Rather than focus your trip solely on seeing the lights, combine it with other experiences and perhaps some novel accommodation to mitigate potential disappointment. Given Schengen border freedoms, you may find yourself driven across a border from, say, Norway to Finland if the outlook is better in the latter. In peak season, some roads are lined with parked buses of tourists on northern lights tours, which rather takes away the magic. The cheapest way is to book a northern lights hunt *, a tour in which you will likely be driven around in a group as the guide tries to find a good vantage spot free of other spotters. Although rarer and less powerful, a viewing of the northern lights on home turf is hugely gratifying.Įxplore A tour bus in Iceland (Alamy) 3. Sightings even take place further south in Northumberland, which has the UK’s largest dark sky park, at Kielder Water. Northern Scotland lies at the same latitude as Stavanger in Norway and Nunivak Island in Alaska, which means there’s a chance of spotting the “Mirrie Dancers”, as Scots call them. Abisko National Park * in Sweden is rumoured to be the best spot of all. The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard is the furthest north you can go on a commercial flight during its winter months of 24-hour polar night, northern lights viewings are possible around the clock. Finland (part of the euro) is the cheapest of those options.

If you’re travelling from the UK you’ll find that Iceland is the best-served flight route, direct to the capital Reykjavik with no secondary flight needed. The auroral zone takes in Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Russia. If you click and buy a product, we may earn revenue.įrozen trees in Abisko Sweden (Alamy) 1. These buttons and adverts are clearly signposted, and provide direct links through to external sites. We also feature properties and itineraries from a specially selected list of trusted operators.

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Northern Lights - A Guide by Pål Brekke & Frederik Broms