Want to See the Northern Lights? Here’s the Ultimate Strategy for Success
Plus our number one tip to maximize your Northern Lights chances!
Ever wondered what it's like to see the Northern Lights up close?
Between the two of us, we've caught the Northern Lights show eight out of 10 nights during our Arctic expeditions.
Not too shabby, right?
(Especially if you hear the horror stories of people traveling all that way and not seeing the lights at all or only seeing them through their phones… 🥲)
The first Aurora sightings were enjoyed by Hannah and her friends when they traveled to Kiruna during her year abroad in 2022. Because this trip was a highlight of her time in Sweden, Hannah wanted to share the joys of the Arctic Circle with Mike a.s.a.p.
And lucky for us, we struck aurora gold again when we traveled there at the start of 2023 (four out of five nights!).
What made these trips such a big success on the Aurora front and how can you maximize the chances of seeing the lights yourself?
In this blog we’re sharing our strategy and the results we got (including those pretty pictures along the way, of course).
Stick around until the end to find out our ultimate tip so you can enjoy an Aurora-filled adventure yourself!
Seeing the Northern Lights is a game of luck
You need solar activity to be high and the sky to be clear.
And if you were expecting the same instant gratification as today’s society, tough luck. You can’t force these natural elements to gift you the Northern Lights the moment you step into the freezing cold.
You can, however, maximize your chances by frequently going outside, scanning for green in the sky, and hoping that the winds have changed (literally).
So that’s what we did.
Hannah set a timer for every 30 minutes, and when it chimed, we'd brave the cold to check for any signs, only to retreat indoors and start the toe-warming process all over again.
Perhaps you agree with Mike that this doesn’t sound like the most fun routine. Especially since it can get up to -15 to -20 degrees outside. You have to (grudgingly) get out from under your cosy blanket, fully wrap up in your ski pants, fleece jumper, coat, scarf, gloves, and hat, and then willingly step out into the Arctic snow.
Then, once you’ve concluded that the sky is full of clouds or lacking a pretty green glow, you go back inside, peel off all the layers, and repeat the whole process in another 30 minutes 🙃
But, even Mike eventually agreed, that it’s 100% worth it.
How about using apps?
You want the geomagnetic activity (solar wind speed and solar wind density) to be as high as possible for Aurora spotting.
You can monitor this through Northern Lights apps like Aurora, which is the one we used.
In the app you can see the solar winds and cloud coverage, as well as the KP forecast for the evening and upcoming days.
Here are screenshots from this morning, aka not so promising to see the Northern Lights at 10AM in Amsterdam 😉
But, this was the forecast a week before we set off to Kiruna (we were there from the 19th until the 24th):
So according to the stats, our first three nights would be quite promising!
Let’s find out if they were 👀
Our Northern Lights travel log
By using Hannah’s technique and monitoring the KP forecast, we went out onto the frozen lake outside of our cabin at Camp Alta and gazed at the sky.
And we already got lucky during our first night!
Unfortunately, however, they weren’t as strong as the original forecast and we could mostly see them through our phones (you can also see that there are clouds blocking the Aurora). Mike wasn’t convinced yet, but luckily we still had 4 more nights in Swedish Lapland.
On the second night, the intensity increased and we clearly saw them with the naked eye!
Unfortunately, the combination of the solar winds and the clouds wasn’t in our favour on the third night, so we weren’t able to see anything.
As you might have noticed, the first and third night didn’t live up to the Aurora forecast. Is there any hope for the final two nights even though the computer said no?
Well.
Maybe.
Okay.
Yes.
Definitely!
The fourth night was the best night of our stay.
We were treated by a true spectacle in the skies for over an hour. The Northern Lights started showing relatively mild in the beginning, but after 15 minutes we could see it dancing before our eyes. A truly magical experience that we will only recommend about 5000 more times in our life.
After standing in the cold for almost 2 hours, we decided to warm up in the wood-stoked sauna. After feeling our fingers again and getting a bit too hot, we had two cooling down methods: either jumping in the ice-cold water from inside the sauna or stepping out to into fresh Arctic air.
This evening we took the second option and gazed at the Northern Lights in our swimsuits. Even when we went back into the sauna for another round, we were able to see the Northern Lights through the window from inside the sauna.
Bucket list moment, check! ✅
On our fifth and final night, there was little activity once again. But honestly, after the display of the night before, we were more than satisfied with our track record.
And now, it’s time for our biggest piece of advice to maximize your chances at seeing the Northern Lights.
We hope you’re ready.
The ultimate tip for an Aurora-filled adventure
Book an accommodation in the middle of nowhere.
Okay it doesn’t have be the middle of nowhere (even though that does sound super adventurous), but your accommodation needs to be far away from a city.
In our example:
Camp Alta is 30-45 minutes outside of Kiruna, and as a result, Camp Alta is 30-45 minutes away from Aurora’s worst enemy - light pollution.
By being isolated from light sources, you can enjoy the aurora displays outside of your doorstep. And the barrier to checking quickly and frequently is way lower. You don’t need to drive 45 minutes through the snow to find out that there isn’t any solar activity and you don’t need to take an expensive tour guide to Abisko without a guarantee that you’ll see it there at all.
Even though Mike didn’t love getting out of bed every 30 minutes (which he also didn’t always do as Hannah frequently went by herself 🙃), it did result in many Northern Lights sightings for us.
More aurora opportunities = more aurora sightings.
That’s why you travel all the way to Lapland in the first place, because you want to be in the right place at the right time.
And that’s why the middle of nowhere is the place to be.
Closing thoughts
Unfortunately, you cannot control the solar winds or the amount of clouds.
But, you can control where you stay and how often you venture out to a viewing spot.
Even if it is -20 degrees.
Because who would want to spend all that money, to travel all that way, and end up missing out on those mesmerizing lights because of a less-than-optimal location?
Not us.
And if you also want to see the Northern Lights - don’t let it be you!
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