The lights keep no timetable. Your booking can.
Which Tromso chase drives far enough to get out from under the cloud. What a Rovaniemi night with a money-back guarantee costs. Whether the Reykjavik coach beats a small-group jeep. Reviews of every northern lights tour you can book.
A Tromso chase, a Rovaniemi guarantee, a Reykjavik coach, an Alaskan soak.
Four nights that answer most of the question. What each costs, how long you are out in it, and what the people who stood there say.
01The Norwegian nightNorthern Lights Safari with Expert Guides and PhotosSix hours in a minibus that keeps driving until it finds a hole in the cloud, with the guide taking your photographs.
02The Finnish promiseNorthern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsRovaniemi operators compete on guarantees. This one takes you out again for free if the sky never opens.
03The Icelandic coachNorthern Lights Bus Tour with Hot CocoaThe cheapest way out of Reykjavik street light, hot cocoa on board, and more travellers than any other aurora night on earth.
04The Alaskan soakNorthern Lights & Chena Hot Springs TourChena Hot Springs after midnight, watching from chest-deep warm water while the air above the pool does the freezing.
In Norway the aurora night is a drive, and the guide picks the direction.
The cloud map is checked in the afternoon and the route is chosen off it, which is why two groups leaving the same harbour end the night two hundred kilometres apart. Three ways to spend it, what each costs to board, and how long you are out.
Every aurora photograph you have ever admired was taken on a tripod.
A phone cannot hold the shutter open long enough, and nobody learns manual exposure at minus fifteen. On these nights the guide carries the tripod, sets it up for you and sends the files the next morning.
Nobody sells you the northern lights. They sell the drive out to find them.
The season runs from late September to late March, when the nights are long enough and properly dark. Clear sky decides the evening far more often than solar activity does, which is why a good operator drives for hours and why almost every tour carries a weather rule: a refund, a free second night, or nothing at all. Dress for standing still rather than walking, and give the trip three nights instead of one.
What a night under the aurora actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. The bottom end is a coach seat out of town. The top end is a private guide who will cross a border to find clear sky.
Coach seats out of Reykjavik and Tromso, short chases, the hot-drink stop and back by midnight.
The full evening: minibus hunts, fjord cruises, snowmobile safaris and camp dinners with a fire.
Private guides, unlimited-distance hunts, glass roofs and the all-night photography trips.
Six countries under the auroral oval, and the best night in each.
The ring of sky where the aurora actually appears sits over northern Scandinavia, Iceland, Alaska and northern Canada. Choose the country first. The town, the transport and the price all follow from it.
Minibus, snowmobile, sled or boat. The transport makes the night.
A coach takes you to a lay-by with a clear horizon. A snowmobile puts you out on a frozen lake nobody else reaches. A sled runs on dog power and silence, and a boat gives you the whole fjord at once. The aurora is the same overhead; the evening is not.
The aurora nights more travellers book than any other.
Every northern lights tour we have reviewed →The tours that take the most people out under the lights, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Northern Lights Bus Tour with Hot Cocoa
Leave Reykjavik’s city lights on a four-hour Northern Lights hunt with guides such as Barbara, Darren, Kristi, and Pierre. You’ll follow weather forecasts, stop at dark viewing points, learn how solar particles create the aurora, and get time for photos. Hot cocoa is included, though availability can vary. If you see nothing, you can join one free retry tour.
From · $74
Read our review →
2
Northern Lights Safari with Expert Guides and Photos
from $61
3
Northern Lights Pioneer Tour with Photos Included
from $165
4
Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightings
from $164
5
Northern Lights Chase with Photos and Bodysuits
from $125
6
Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour from Reykjavik
from $107
7
#1 Northern Lights Tour In Iceland from Reykjavik with PRO photos
8
Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern Lights
from $219
In Iceland the dark starts forty minutes past the Reykjavik ring road.
Everything leaves from one city, which is why the coach seats here are the cheapest anywhere and why the boats sail from the old harbour. The trade is North Atlantic weather: the operators worth paying for move inland or down the south coast rather than cancel the night.
Every Iceland night →
Finland answers the cloud with a refund and another night out.
Rovaniemi stands on the Arctic Circle and runs on this one industry, so the operators compete on terms rather than scenery: free repeat trips, unlimited driving distance, money back when the sky never opens. Put a snowmobile, a reindeer sleigh or a heated glass roof under it and the waiting stops being the hard part.
- 1Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightingsfrom $164
- 2Northern Lights Rovaniemi: Guaranteed Viewing & Unlimited Mileagefrom $228
- 3Lapland Northern Lights Tour with BBQfrom $81
Three things you can only do under an aurora sky.
Standing in a field looking up works the same everywhere. Floating in a frozen lake in a survival suit, sleeping under a glass roof and riding a reindeer sleigh at midnight do not.
Ice Floating
A hole is cut in a frozen forest lake, you are zipped into a buoyant thermal suit and pushed out onto the water on your back. The suit keeps you dry and floating, the lake makes no sound at all, and the only thing in your field of view is sky. Sessions run about two or three hours with a sauna at the end, and they go ahead whether or not the aurora does.
- 1Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 797 reviews
- 2Aurora Arctic Ice Floating in Rovaniemi, Small-group★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 109 reviews
- 3Arctic Ice Floating and Northern Lights Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 64 reviews
A Ceiling Made of Sky
Glass igloos, heated domes and mountain cabins all solve the same problem: nobody can stand outside for six hours in February. You lie in a warm bed and the ceiling does the watching, and most camps keep somebody awake to wake the guests when the band brightens. Some are a single room in the forest, others a ridge-top cabin with a view all the way round.
- 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
A Sleigh at Midnight
Reindeer herding is a working Sami livelihood across northern Norway, Sweden and Finland, and the evening sleigh runs are the visitor end of it. The pace is slow, the harness bells are the only sound, and the trip usually finishes in a lavvu with a fire and something hot. The animals set the speed; the lights, when they come, arrive on top of it.
- 1Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern Lights★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,651 reviews
- 2Reindeer Feeding & Chance of Northern Lights Viewing★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,440 reviews
- 3Northern Lights and Husky Sleigh Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 3.7 · 282 reviews
Interior Alaska is cold, dry and cloudless, and that is the whole point.
Everything in Alaska →
Fairbanks sits hundreds of miles from any ocean, so the winter sky there is clear far more often than it is over the coast. The nights are long and the cold is serious, which is why the answer up here is usually a hot spring, a heated cabin or a lodge with somebody on watch.
Chena, after midnight
An hour and a half northeast of Fairbanks to a hot spring rock lake, where you sit in chest-deep water at about forty degrees and watch. The coach runs once a night and comes back at dawn.
A ridge with a roof
Mountaintop cabins sit above the valley fog with a view the whole way round, and somebody stays awake to call the room when the band comes up. Photography is usually part of the ticket.
Over the Arctic Circle
North up the haul road, across the line at sixty-six degrees, and the hunt run on the way back down. A whole night in a coach, and the only way to stand on the circle itself.
Four aurora nights that will not wait for you.
The season is short and the operators running these are small. They sell out first, and none of them can be arranged from a hotel lobby the same afternoon.
- 01Mountaintop 360° Best Alaskan Cabin with Photography @Aurora CampCamps and glass roofs are counted in beds, not seats. The midwinter rooms in Lapland and interior Alaska go months ahead.
- 02Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora BorealisThe lake has to be frozen hard enough to cut, so this runs midwinter only and in groups of a handful at a time.
- 03Northern Lights & Chena Hot Springs TourA Chena night is a ten-hour round trip out of Fairbanks. When a departure fills, that date is simply gone.
- 04Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern LightsSami camps run small herds and a fixed number of sleighs a night, which is why the Tromso and Rovaniemi runs close weeks out.
By town — where you will actually be standing
By kind of night — chase, camp, sleigh or boat
Tromso, Abisko, Rovaniemi: the overland run people make when one night is not enough.
IvaloThe newest northern lights tour reviews.
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PRIVATE Glass Igloo Dinner Under Northern Lights
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Oulu: Guided Night Walking Tour with Northern Lights Hunting
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Oulu: Starguaranteed Northern Lights Mobile Chase
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Northern lights Tromsø – small group tour with local guide
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Northern Lights Tour From Reykjavik with Photography
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