Seeing the aurora borealis dance across the sky is on almost every traveller's wish list, and with a little planning your chances on a first trip are good.
When to go
The aurora season runs from late September to late March, when nights in the Arctic are long and dark. Plan for at least four nights in one place: clouds come and go, and the lights rarely appear on a schedule.
Where to base yourself
Tromsø in Norway, Abisko in Swedish Lapland, Rovaniemi in Finland and the countryside around Reykjavík all sit under the auroral oval and have tours that drive away from cloud cover. Choose somewhere with little light pollution and plenty to do in daylight.
Seeing and photographing them
Dress in warm layers, let your eyes adjust to the dark for twenty minutes and keep checking the sky after midnight. For photos, use a tripod, a wide lens and an exposure of a few seconds.
One thought on “Chasing the Northern Lights: When and Where to Go”
Abisko is a great choice, the clear-sky statistics there are hard to beat. We saw the lights three nights out of four.