Northern lights: when, where and how many nights you need

The northern lights are the only trip where the main character is not a place but a strip of night. It changes the whole plan: there is nothing to do during the day, which is why the trip is planned backwards, starting with the night.

First, an honest warning: they cannot be guaranteed. The lights depend on solar activity and on cloud, and no serious plan promises them. What you can do is maximise the chance.

Latitude and season

The further north, the more chances and the more dark nights. In the Arctic zone, late winter and early spring are the best balance: nights are still long and the days start to be mild. Further south, the season is shorter and darker, and therefore a bigger lottery.

The practical rule: choose the latitude first and the dates after. The other way round, your northern lights months run out.

How many nights

Three nights is the sensible minimum. Four or five improve the odds noticeably, because one cloudy night does not break the trip. A two night trip is a lottery: it can work, but it is a lottery.

And one more night than you fancy, with accommodation close to the observation spot, usually costs less than the disappointment of coming home without having seen anything.

Planning the night well

A northern lights outing is prepared like a mountain outing, not like a stroll:

• Leave an hour before the first possible light, so you are set up before it starts.
• Bring real warm clothes: layers, gloves and something for your head. The cold of a polar night feels much worse if you are dressed too thin.
• Silence and the seat: half an hour still, not talking, looking north, is the most discreet way to ruin the night.
• And forget the list of plan Bs: with cloud cover, the alternative is another day, not another activity.

The day is not wasted time

Three or four early starts in a row take their toll and the trip turns grey. Which is why the plan has to fill the daylight hours: excursions, thermal baths, day routes, a long museum. The structure that works is one observation night, a slow day and one more observation night.

It is exactly the opposite of what happens by inertia, which is filling everything and ending up seeing the lights from a hotel window.

If you do not see them

And it will happen. You do not see them, or you see them for ten minutes on one night of five. A northern lights plan that only contains northern lights is a plan with a single chance. If the trip has a second reading, some hot springs, a small town, some tundra wildlife, the disappointment of the night is compensated.