NORTHERN LIGHTS TRAVEL GUIDE · CHASING THE AURORA
Some nights the sky catches fire. Be there for it.
Reviews of the best northern lights tours on earth, town by town. Fjord chases out of Tromso, snowmobile hunts around Rovaniemi, dark-sky coaches from Reykjavik and the clear nights over Abisko and Fairbanks. We read through the listings so you pick a hunt with real odds of seeing the green.
Worth the airfare
Three places the aurora shows up best.
You can catch the lights from a lot of cold places now. But the fjord chases out of Tromso, the rain-shadow clear skies at Abisko, and the oval directly overhead at Fairbanks give you odds the rest cannot. These three are where the science is on your side.
Arctic Norway
A Fjord-Country Chase out of Tromso
Tromso sits dead under the auroral oval, but the magic here is the chase: guides watch the cloud all afternoon, then drive for hours, over a pass, down a fjord, even across into Finland, to find the one patch of clear sky. When the green ignites over a black fjord ringed by the Lyngen Alps, with the water mirroring it back, there is nowhere on earth quite like it. This is the place to come if you want the best odds in winter.
- 1 From Tromsø: Aurora Borealis Tour
- 2 Tromsø: Northern Lights Chase Minibus Tour
- 3 Tromsø: Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern Lights
Swedish Lapland
Clear-Sky Nights at Abisko
Abisko has a secret: a rain shadow off the mountains gives it more clear nights than almost anywhere in the aurora belt. You ride a chairlift up to the Sky Station above the treeline, away from every light, and wait under a sky that opens up when others stay clouded. On a strong night the whole Tornetrask valley glows. The science is on your side here in a way it just is not further south.
- 1 Abisko: Guided Aurora Chase with Hotel Transfers
- 2 Abisko: Aurora Chasing with Snowmobiles
- 3 Abisko: Guided Autumn Aurora Chase with Hotel Transfers
Interior Alaska
Under the Oval at Fairbanks
Fairbanks sits right beneath the band where the aurora lives, so on a clear, cold night the lights are less a maybe than a when. You head out to a heated cabin or a dark ridge away from town, the temperature drops hard, and the sky fills with green and sometimes red and violet overhead rather than low on the horizon. Deep interior Alaska delivers the lights more reliably than almost anywhere you can drive to.
- 1 Northern Lights & Chena Hot Springs Tour
- 2 Northern Lights & Arctic Circle Tour
- 3 SkyChase™ | Northern Lights Experience – Free Photography & More
The hunt everyone books
If you only book one night out.
More travellers reach for this one than any other on the site. A safe first booking in a place you are still getting to know, with a guide who does this every night of the season.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Northern Lights Tours
Tromso, Rovaniemi, Reykjavik, Fairbanks, Abisko. The chases and hunts travellers reach for first, in the towns where the green shows up most.
Where to base yourself
Pick your aurora town.
Tromso for the fjord chases. Rovaniemi for the snowmobile hunts. Reykjavik for dark-sky coaches off the city glow. Abisko for the clearest skies, Fairbanks for the oval overhead, Yellowknife for the cold clear nights. Each town, with the kind of hunt it does best.
Which kind of night
How to spend a night under the lights.
How you hunt matters as much as where. Three ways to spend a night chasing the aurora, depending on how far you want to go and how warm you want to stay.
Arctic Norway
Norway gives you the best odds in winter.
From Tromso the guides chase the weather, not just the dark: drive for hours to find the one clear fjord and you might get the green mirrored on black water below the Lyngen Alps. Further north and out on the Lofoten islands the sky stays huge and empty, and the deep-winter dark over Alta and Kirkenes runs from afternoon to morning. This is where serious aurora chasers come.
See the best northern lights tours in Norway →Finnish Lapland
Finland turns the hunt into the holiday.
Around Rovaniemi and up through Saariselka, Levi and Kemi the lights come wrapped in a whole winter world: snowmobile safaris across frozen lakes, reindeer and husky sleds, a fire in a Lapp tent, and glass-roofed cabins where you watch the sky from a warm bed. The forests are deep and the towns are small, so the dark is properly dark and the green has nothing to compete with.
See the best northern lights tours in Finland →The moment it happens
A faint grey smudge, and then the sky moves.
It rarely arrives the way the photos promise. First a pale arc that could be cloud, and you wonder if that is it. Then it brightens, ripples, and suddenly the whole sky is sheeting green overhead while everyone goes quiet and then loud at once. A guide who has stood here a hundred nights still looks up. That is the thing you fly north for, and a good tour gives you the best shot at it.
Browse every northern lights tour →Iceland
In Iceland the hunt comes with the landscape.
From Reykjavik the easiest start is a big dark-sky coach that drives you clear of the city glow to wherever the cloud breaks. Want it quieter? Small-group 4x4 hunts go further off the road, and boat trips chase the dark out on the water. With a guide reading the forecast you might catch the green above a glacier, a black-sand coast or a steaming geothermal field. The setting does half the work.
- 1 Iceland: Northern Lights Bus Tour from Reykjavik
- 2 Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour from Reykjavik
- 3 #1 Northern Lights Tour In Iceland from Reykjavik with PRO photos
By how far you go
How hard do you want to chase?
Some nights you want a short run out of town and an early bed. Some nights you want a driver who will cross a mountain to find clear sky. And some you want to be out on the snow by snowmobile, miles from any light. Pick the night, we will point you at the hunt.
A few evening hours
Just get out under the dark sky.A short evening coach or boat run clear of the city lights: dress warm, watch the forecast, and let a guide read the sky while you wait for the green to rise. Back at the hotel before midnight.
A full night chase
Chase the clear sky in a van.The serious way to see them: a small group and a driver who will cross a mountain pass or follow a fjord for hours to find the one hole in the cloud. Hot drinks, a tripod set up for you, and a real shot at a strong display.
A night on the move
Hunt by snowmobile and sled.The trip you plan the whole journey around: out across frozen lakes and through the forest by snowmobile or reindeer sled, a fire and a warm hut, and the lights overhead far from any town glow.
The clear-sky secret
Swedish Lapland has the kindest skies.
Abisko sits in a rain shadow off the mountains that gives it more clear nights than almost anywhere in the aurora belt, and the Sky Station chairlift carries you above the treeline to wait under it. Down the valley around Kiruna you get the same dark over the Icehotel and the frozen Tornetrask lake. When skies further south stay socked in with cloud, this corner of Sweden quietly delivers.
See all 14 northern lights tours in Sweden →By town
Pick a town and head out after dark.
Tromso for the fjord chases. Rovaniemi for the snowmobile hunts. Reykjavik for the dark-sky coaches. Fairbanks for the oval right overhead. Kiruna for the clear Swedish-Lapland nights. Yellowknife for the cold, still Canadian skies.
By country
Every country with a real shot at the lights.
From Arctic Norway and Finnish Lapland to Iceland, Swedish Lapland, interior Alaska and the Canadian north. Browse by the country whose winter sky you want overhead.
Afternoon to last light
How a night chasing the aurora goes.
First winter up north and not sure what to expect? Here is how a good hunt unfolds, from checking the forecast at dusk to the moment the sky finally moves.
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