The forecast only ever says maybe. The right hunt gives you a night out anyway.
Which chases drive far enough to get out from under the cloud. What a guaranteed sighting actually buys you. Whether the camp dinner is worth twice the coach seat. Reviews of the northern lights tours you can book tonight, in the six countries the lights reach.
Four aurora nights that make sense of the whole belt.
The first booking most people make in Reykjavík, Tromsø, Rovaniemi and Fairbanks. What each one costs, how long you are out in the cold, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01The Reykjavík first nightNorthern Lights Bus Tour with Hot CocoaA coach out to the dark side of the bay with cocoa on board. The cheapest way to find out whether the sky is going to play.
02The Tromsø chaseNorthern Lights Safari with Expert Guides and PhotosGuides who keep moving all evening to find a hole in the cloud, and hand over their photographs at the end of it.
03The Rovaniemi guaranteeNorthern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsA Lapland hunt that takes you out again free if the sky stays shut. The insurance policy for a short trip.
04The Alaskan long nightNorthern Lights & Chena Hot Springs TourTen hours out of Fairbanks, with a soak at Chena Hot Springs while you wait for the sky to open.
The aurora runs on darkness, and the dark half of the year is late August to early April.
Between May and July there is no night to see it in, however hard the solar wind blows. Inside the dark months the sky is the only real variable, and the tours that beat it are the ones that drive, sail or climb out from under the cloud. Book the formats that move, and give yourself more than one evening.
Tromsø sells four different aurora nights, and they are not interchangeable.
The city sits directly under the auroral oval with roads running inland to the Finnish border, which is why the chases here go so far. Four ways to spend the evening, what boarding each one costs, and who each suits.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Tromso Northern Lights Minibus Chase Small Group Tour with Photos
The minibus chaseSix or seven hours on the road, wherever the cloud is thinnest.
Eight seats, not eightyA small van turns down tracks the coaches cannot get out of.
Out on the fjordA dark deck twenty minutes from the harbour, no headlights anywhere.
Camp fire and a hot mealA lavvu, a stew and a sky you watch between courses.
All 120 nights in Norway →
Your phone will not catch the aurora. A guide with a tripod will.
A fifteen second exposure sees colour your eyes never do, which is why so many aurora guides double as photographers. These hunts hand back edited pictures of you standing under it, and most of them bring the tripod, the settings and the coaching along with the thermal suit.
Six countries sit under the auroral oval. Pick the one your flight reaches.
The lights ring the magnetic pole, and everything below is inside that ring: Arctic Norway, Finnish Lapland, the whole of Iceland, interior Alaska, Swedish Lapland and the Northwest Territories. Six places to start, and the best night out in each.
The aurora hunts more travellers take than any others.
Every aurora review on the site →These fill first across the whole belt, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Northern Lights Pioneer Tour with Photos Included
Set out from The Dock Hotel with an English-speaking guide such as Emil, Mattia, Brynjar, or Oscar. Your driver follows cloud breaks and aurora activity across northern Norway, with possible trips toward Finland or Sweden. Expect thermal suits, hot chocolate, a bonfire, portraits, and hotel drop-off.
From · $165
Read our review →
2
Northern Lights Chase with Photos and Bodysuits
from $125
3
Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour from Reykjavik
from $107
4
#1 Northern Lights Tour In Iceland from Reykjavik with PRO photos
5
Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern Lights
from $219
6
Northern Lights Chase in a Mercedes Benz with Photos
from $175
7
Northern Lights Tour with Local Stories & Photos
from $100
8
Northern Lights Rovaniemi: Guaranteed Viewing & Unlimited Mileage
from $228
Rovaniemi puts the aurora at the end of a snowmobile track.
Everything in Finland →
Lapland is flat, forested and full of frozen lakes, so the hunts here are less about outrunning cloud and more about what you do while you wait for it. A sledge, a snowmobile, a hole cut in the ice, a fire in a kota.
A guarantee, and what it is worth
If the sky stays shut you go out again another evening at no charge. That only pays off while you still have evenings left in Rovaniemi, so it belongs at the start of the week and never at the end of it.
Snowmobile into the dark
Two to a machine along logging tracks to a lake where the sky is unbroken from one treeline to the other. Warmer than standing about, and it puts real distance between you and the town lights.
Reindeer sled, then a fire
A sled at walking pace through the forest and a fire at the end of it. The only aurora night with no engine running, and the one small children last through.
Reykjavík puts the aurora forty minutes from a city centre.
The coaches leave the same downtown stops every clear evening and drive until the guide finds a gap, which on an island this size can mean the south coast or simply the far side of the bay. Boats go out from the old harbour, and super jeeps go up tracks the coaches will not attempt.
Every Iceland night out →
What a night under the northern lights actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. Aurora nights are not cheap, and the gap between a coach seat and a small van with a photographer in it is most of the decision.
Coach seats out of Reykjavík and the shorter Tromsø runs. Big groups, and you go where the coach goes.
The bulk of the belt: minibus chases, camp dinners, snowmobile safaris and the guaranteed hunts.
Small vans, private guides, glass roofs over the bed and the ten-hour Alaskan nights.
Three aurora nights that exist nowhere south of the belt.
Anywhere with a dark sky sells stargazing. A heated float on a frozen lake, a glass roof over the bed and a dog team running under the lights belong to the Arctic and nowhere else.
Aurora camps and glass igloos
A lavvu with a stove in it, a heated cabin with a glass roof, or a room built so the bed faces north through the ceiling. The point is the waiting. An aurora can take four hours to arrive and nobody stands outside for four hours at minus twenty, so the camps let you go in, thaw, and come back out when the guide shouts.
- 1Reindeer Camp Dinner with Chance of Northern Lights★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 806 reviews
- 2Mountaintop 360° Best Alaskan Cabin with Photography @Aurora Camp★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 322 reviews
- 3Northern Lights Viewing at Murphy Dome★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 289 reviews
Ice floating
A dry suit floats you on your back in a hole cut through lake ice, so the only thing in your field of view is sky. The suit does all the work and you stay dry and warm; the odd part is how quiet it goes once your ears are under the water. It runs in deep winter only, when the ice is thick enough to cut safely.
- 1Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 797 reviews
- 2Aurora Arctic Ice Floating in Rovaniemi, Small-group★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 109 reviews
- 3Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 77 reviews
Husky nights
A team pulls in near silence, which is the entire argument for running one after dark. Most kennels put you through a short daylight loop first and take you out again at night. Expect to help harness the dogs, and expect them to be far louder before the run than during it.
- 1Northern Lights Husky Visit with Traditional Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,666 reviews
- 2Levi Polar Lights Tours: Arctic Circle Guided Husky Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 299 reviews
- 3Aurora Viewing – Aurora Husky Lodge , Great view from top of the ridge★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 283 reviews
Four aurora bookings that will not wait for you to land.
Most of a northern trip can be arranged from the hotel lobby once you have seen the forecast. These four cannot, either because their season is short or because the seats are counted in single figures.
- 01Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsA guarantee buys a free second attempt, not a sighting. It only pays while you still have nights left, so it belongs on the first evening of the trip.
- 02Abisko National Park Northern Lights TourAbisko sits in a rain shadow that keeps its sky open when the coast is shut in. It is a very small place, and it runs out of beds long before it runs out of season.
- 03Northern Lights & Chena Hot Springs TourTen hours out of Fairbanks and back, so it swallows the night and most of the next morning. Put it early in the week in case cloud costs you an evening.
- 04Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora BorealisThe lake has to be frozen thick enough to cut, so this one runs in the deep middle of winter and at neither shoulder of the season.
By place, from Iceland to the Northwest Territories
By kind of night, from a coach seat to a glass roof
The newest northern lights reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Chena Lake: Aurora Borealis Viewing & Ice Fishing Adventure
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Lofoten: Northern Lights Tour with Photographer
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Chase the Magic of the Northern Lights in Tromsø Norway
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Berlin: Classical concerts in Köpenick Palace – Aurora Hall
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Aurora Small Group 4×4 Northern Lights Adventure
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