Northern Lights holidays

[bcngran]

We are constrained by school term times. When/where is best to go with a teenager so as to have a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights? Teenager skis and is pretty adventurous - two adults less so, (and we dont ski). All of us just want to see the Aurora. Does anyone have any advice?

I’m on a campaign to go to Scotland as having to combine DH. This will add to the list!!

But my parents went on a northern lights trip as part of a cruise and my dad could see them a bit but my mum couldn’t see them?? 😵‍💫 and was very disappointed. And the photos the crew took of the same night came out amazingly, so she thinks they’re not as bright in real life?? But sounds from this thread like she’s totally wrong 😄

They do come out much brighter on photos

@MassiveSalad22 they can look much brighter in photos so what your parents have said makes sense.

It depends on the type of activity. To the naked eye it might look more like faint white wisps across the sky, and the colours might only show up in photos. Also, if you’re photographing the lights you’ll have a slow shutter speed, so that’ll make the lights look much brighter too.

But some people will be disappointed as they have an idea in their head it’ll be very colourful and it has to be quite strong to be really colourful to the naked eye.

If you’re lucky and get a good display you’ll see the colours but it depends! Fingers crossed!

We went to Tromso in February half term. I think it’s one of the best places to see the lights and it’s a lovely place. I know lots of people who’ve gone to Iceland and not seen them at all.

We booked a small bus tour when we got there and if you don’t see them, they’ll take you out again the next night. We were told to be prepared to stay up all night and take our passports in case we needed to cross the border to see the lights.

We were very lucky that we saw what was apparently the best show of the season within about 30 minutes of stopping. Our guide made us stew and hot chocolate and a camp fire and helped us all set up our cameras properly. We were back at the hotel by about 10.30 because the guide said there was no point going anywhere else as we’d never see anything as good.

We were debating going to Iceland or Norway to see them however Orkney is another top spot for seeing them and it’s a place dh and I have a place wanted to visit. So we are going to do a bit more research about there.

October half term might be good. You need to have clear skies. If the weather is too bad you stand less chance.

It was amazing!

We went with this company www.aurora-service.eu/

We flew into Helsinki and spent a few days there, then flew up to Ivalo and had a minibus transfer to the village we were staying in. We stayed in a cabin outside the village, about as far north as you can get in mainland Europe. There were 8 of us, which was the perfect size of group really. There were activities in the day if you wanted them, but we'd find those on a previous trip so didn't book anything.

Each night our guide would WhatsApp us with an idea of what was likely to happen, and whether we'd need to travel to see the lights. The first night we got called to go out onto the frozen river in front of the cabin. There we saw the most incredible display which lasted hours. What was lovely was that each night the display was different, sometimes like a curtain, another time bright coloured rods flying across the sky, and sometimes multicoloured ribbons. We saw different colours in the sky several times, so we were extremely lucky.

The guides from different sites kept in touch by radio, and were checking the weather and aurora forecasts all the time. We nipped across to Norway one night, another night we ended up lying in the road enjoying the display overhead!

I would say it's quite hardcore, it was -35 at times, but we got used to that pretty quickly. I didn't take many photos, none of us did really, as the guide took endless photos and gave us a memory stick at the end. For me, that was a real plus as we were able to experience the displays as they happened rather than worry about getting great photos. Appreciate that's not the same for everyone though.

I’m enjoying this thread. This is on my bucket list but no immediate plans. Kids are too small to come/enjoy or be left behind so it’s on the back burner. Time to think of a future family or couples trip.

Has anyone stayed in one of those glass igloo type place? I’ve always had this fantasy of watching the northern lines from under a cosy blanket. But may be an unrealistic fantasy!

@bcngran

I know you are constrained by fixed holiday dates but I'd strongly second the advice given upthread about avoiding dates around the full Moon, the light from that will severely compromise your enjoyment of anything but a very bright display.

FWIW auroral displays cannot be forecast long term, the best you can get an is observation of an event on the Sun that might trigger Aurora in a few hours time..

The statistics do however show there's an increase in incidence of Aurora around the equinoxes.

In summary best way of increasing your odds of seeing something good is being, up north, dark location with no Full Moon, good chance of clear skies, and to really finesse it sometime around Sept-Oct or Mar-Feb..

Good Luck.

Hi OP, seeing the Aurora was on my bucket list so we did lots of research - and obviously got lucky too! We saw them 4 out of 5 nights of our trip, incredible bright displays of yellow, green and pink dancing waterfalls of light to which the photos do no justice.

I honestly wouldn't go at Christmas - the Aurora activity relates to solar flares, and these are measurably higher during winter and spring equinoxes. We went for the spring equinox, around 21st March.

We flew to Helsinki, spent a night there for city fun, then got the tiny plane up to Ivalo and car transfer to Kakslauttanen. We stayed in a log cabin for 3 nights and glass igloo for 2 (preferred the cabin, honestly, though obviously seeing the lights through your glass ceiling is fun!)

It was extremely cold, -30 I think, but very clear blue skies. During the days the activities were fun - we did a dog sled ride, visited a Saami home, reindeer safari, etc. The sauna in the log cabin was great and we used it multiple times a day to warm back up! The 'resort' is not at all resort-y and was lovely.

There is very little light pollution and the displays were spectacular. I'm hoping to go again once our kids are big enough to handle the weather...

Hope this might help - wish you the best of luck.

@WoolyMammoth55

the Aurora activity relates to solar flares, and these are measurably higher during winter and spring equinoxes.

FYI not quite, the frequency of Solar Flares is tied in with the 11 year solar cycle.

The reason for the higher frequency of aurora being seen on Earth around the equinoxes is believed to be connected with the change of the relationship between the Earth and Sun's magnetic field (specifically relative orientation) as the Earth goes around it's orbit.

The physics gets fancy quite quickly but here's a link:

earthsky.org/sun/aurora-season-auroras-equinox-connection/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20there%20is%20an%20aurora,observed%20and%20recorded%20by%20scientists.

Northern lights viewed from Caithness, far North of Scotland. There have been 3 or 4 spectacular displays in the last week - all visible and worth seeing by eye too. Book a nice wee cottage off the beaten track and you've every chance of seeing them from the back door. October, November and January are pretty good usually here.

Also the aurora watch app is very good. Alerts are usually spot on.

Thank you so much to everyone who has posted, especially for all the very detailed and precise information regarding the best times and places, need to monitor the weather, importance of proximity to the equinoxes.

Also some very valuable commets about locations and the variety accommodation offered. The generosity of people willing to share their experiences and to take time to pass on their own knowledge in answer to my initial post is really impressive. Where else could you find such excellent, well-informed holiday advice? It beats Trip Advisor hands down!
We need to settle down now to some thorough research, and to try to find a "slot" which seems to have very good probability of seeing the Lights, plus activities that will keep us all happy and occupied even if we dont. Also of course, ease of travel, fitting into the holiday time available - and cost!

I've seen them in Shetland, in October. The tip - use the night option when asking a photo - I thought that they just weren't there.... They were, I just needed a long exposure on the camera

Thank you @Crispwinterday . I'm looking at it! Was everyone in couples? I'd be travelling alone.

It's a pleasure, lovely to relive the memories.

In our group there was one other couple and a family with a couple of secondary school age children. It's definitely a trip you could do on your own though, the guide took care to include everyone and the evenings are busy being out and about.

We will be in Scotland over February half term. Any chance of seeing them then and any tips as to best tours/guides?

@XelaM you can sign up for aurora watch alerts.

There's no guarantee, my friend spent a fortune on a trip to Iceland for her partner's special birthday purely to see it, it didn't happen

So I downloaded the AuroraWatch UK app, but I'm embarrassed to say ai'm too stupid to understand it. It says "No significant activity" right now, but ai'm guessing it's because it's 11am? Then it shows a map but I can't seem to be able to get a close-up of the map to understand exactly where the last activity was.

I'm*

It means there's nothing much happening now. You can get emails.alerts when there was a high probability of seeing aurora. I'm either in the wrong place or it's cloudy.

Not a huge amount to do there, but my brother lives in the Faroe Islands and they are seen frequently there

Following!