Northern Lights

[Filligen]

I live in the UK and have always wanted to see the northen lights but I want to know where is the best place to see them from?
I'm a little scared of paying a lot of money on the trip of a life time only to be disappointed because I didn't get to seem them.
Is there a place that has the best view point or somewhere where you can be pretty sure you'll see them??

Thanks for the help
Filligen

[graham08]

Yeah I was wondering that, are the northern lights show throughout the year or is it just a specific time like winter?
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[LittleAdventurer]

The best conditions are really dark, really cold and clear skies. I saw them in Northern Finland, I guess the further north you go the more your chances increase. I believe the "chances" of seeing the lights come in 4 or 6 yearly cycles. I worked in Finland for a couple of months and only saw them properly once (swirling all over), but saw them faintly several times. You would need to go in winter - the countries where you can see them generally have 24 hours daylight in summer so no chance there. I guess Iceland would be a good choice? Easy to get to, cheaper than any other option and there's lots to do so the trip would be worth it even if you didn't see anything.

[graham08]

It seems that Iceland sounds like a safe bet - plenty to do of course, and they only come in 4 or 6 yearly cycles you say? Does anyone know when the next one is due, may have to change my holiday plans :p
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[jennychic]

Are the northern lights the green one or the purple one? I can't seem to differentiate
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[Winston]

The northern nights are colourful, maybe red, green, yellow... or the blend of several colors.

[Bendie]

The most common northern lights are green, I saw them several times when I was living in northern part of Sweden, but unfortunately I never saw any different colors. You can see northern lights relatively often in all Scandinavia in the winter, but I wouldn't pay for a trip only to see them. I was pretty close to the polar circle and the good northern lights were there usually several times in one week and then nothing for a month.
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[peacock]

The main "rules" are :

- Further North the better

- Deeper into Winter the better (December / Jan )

- Clear skies

Bit more info and some nice photos / video here:

http://nordic-travel.blogspot.com/2008/01/northern-lights.html

From the UK, Iceland is perhaps the most accessible, just had a quick look at Isango and a 3 hour tour hunting the northern lights from Reykjavik is €40. No guarantee of course.
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[malc350]

I've been wondering the same thing!

[whatawonderfulworld]

Hello,

two winters I spent in Alaska and in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Whitehorse is a really good place to see the beautiful Northern Lights !! Like peacock wrote, December / January is the best time too.

"Only" to see the Northern Lights, people are flying around the world. Especially at this time are so many people from Japan in Whitehorse ...

Greetings from Montréal, Juergen
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[haaki]

Hi,

If you would like to see the Northern Lights, I would go as far north as possible. I Norway you can get far north of the arctic circle, so if you go in winter it will be dark and great opportunities to see the Aurora Borealis.

Personally I would go to Tromso, or even better, Spitsbergen! If you spend some days there you will for sure see the Northern Lights. Just be prepared that otherwise it will be darkness all the time during the winter months..
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[ColinM]

The Northern lights are caused by sunspot activity, and so they are not related to anything here on earth. That means they can happen any time, day or night, summer or winter. That said, you can only really see them when it's dark out. When you see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) are usually happening at the same time.

In a nut shell, the sun has what we call 'sun spots' which send particles into space. These particles travel through space as what we call a 'solar wind'. As these particles pass over the earth, they are drawn into our atmosphere by the magnetic poles. When these particles collide with molecules in our atmosphere, electrons are given off and energy is released in the form of light. Sun spots happen in cycles and right now we are at a very low point in the cycle. This will change, and there are web sites that track sun spot activity. Generally, 3-4 days after you have intense sun spot activity, you can expect an increase in Northern Lights activity.

The best places to see the Northern Lights are around the north pole. Specifically, you want to be under the Van Allen Belt which sits down from the poles a bit. You won't see the lights at the north pole. The Van Allen Belt is essentially where the particles enter our atmosphere. In the real world, places like Scandinavia, Alaska, and Churchill Canada are great places to see the lights. It's best to travel in the winter because there are long hours of darkness in the northern latitudes, and the cold generally means you will have clear skies to see the lights. Fairbanks, Alaska is a popular place due to it's location, ease of access and infrastructure. Churchill, Manitoba, Canada is another. There are adventure travel companies that run trips to these places specifically to see the lights. They are very popular with the Japanese who think that seeing the lights on your honeymoon is a very good thing.

For tours: Natural Habitat runs tours to see the lights in Churchill www.nathab.com Noble Caledonia works with them.
Northern Lights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_aurora
Van Allen Belt : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt

Cheers!
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Colin McNulty has worked as a Natural History Guide and Professional Photographer for over 18 years. He now operates an Adventure Travel site where he offers natural history expeditions to remote destinations around the world. For more information on photography and exciting destinations, visit http://www.rosmaru.com

[Insureplc]

This has got me thinkin!!

What an amazing thing to go and see, as said above you can't go just to see the Northern Lights because you would be gutted if they didn't occur! But I am going to look into visiting Iceland, somewhere very different for me as I have done a lot of Europe but no-where in Scandinavia.

Extra pair of socks and a vest I think!

Have any mum's been to Iceland? Sorry, couldn't resist!

Seriously, if anyone has gone, please let us know what else to do in Iceland!!
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[Stefann]

I will probably go to Sweden and Norway to see them...my girlfriend, she lived in Denmark for about a year and has seen them too...but it was not proper one, just sign of it and we would like to see it properly....we wrere even thinking to take one of those scandinavian cruises, might be nice experience.

[Stefann]

I have done some research regarding to cruises in Scandinavia and I found this http://www.ewaterways.com/cruise/norway/ and they cruise around Norway and Iceland but now the question is what are the chances that we would see the Northern Lights.
And now another dilema is that I have seen they also do cruises around Canada and I would love to go there but my girlfriend wanted to cruise around Scandinavia