Planning For A Northern Lights Experience

Things To Consider Planning For A Northern Lights Experience

We found lots of things to consider when planning for a Northern Lights experience.  The Northern Lights (or Aurora Borealis) provide an outstanding visual light show in the sky.  It was on our travel wish list for a long time.

We considered different options for trips to experience the Northern Lights beauty.  And even had some failed early options.  But we finally booked a Viking Cruises trip to Norway in January to chase this experience.  After we booked our trip, we did the research to ensure we had the best Northern Lights adventure.  This guide will help you start planning too!

What Are The Northern Lights

The Northern Lights have always fascinated people.  Early civilizations created fanciful myths to explain this colourful phenomenon.  The Vikings believed the Northern Lights were the reflections of the Valkyries’ armour as they led the warriors to Odin. The Inuit Indigenous people of Canada believed the Northern Lights represented the souls of departed loved ones sending messages of love and guidance.  The Romans associated the Northern Lights with Aurora, the goddess of dawn.  A Finnish legend talks about the Northern Lights as a fire fox sprinting across the sky.  For others, the Northern Lights guided departed souls to the afterlife.

But after many years of study, there exists a pretty good scientific explanation for the Northern Lights.  The sun creates a solar wind of energized particles that bombards our atmosphere.  When these particles hit the magnetic field of Earth, they are deflected towards the magnetic North and South poles.  When the particles connect with oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, they gain energy and create vibrant colours in the sky.  

The dominant colour in the Northern Lights is green.  Red, pink, purple and blue are much less prevalent.  The colour depends on the composition of gases, the altitude where the aurora occurs, the density of the atmosphere and the level in the sun’s energized particles. 

Knowing more about the Northern Lights helped our planning for a Northern Lights experience.

Options For When And Where To Go

The first thing we had to consider was where to go to see the Northern Lights.  The Northern Lights typically extend from 60 to 75 degrees latitude.  This includes places like Iceland, Finland, Russia, Alaska, northern parts of Sweden, Norway, southern Greenland and even at home in Canada.  Similarly, the Southern Lights were visible in Antarctica, New Zealand, Tasmania and Australia.  

A trip for the Northern Lights should be planned between September and April.  But the winter months are the best time.  The Southern Lights are best viewed from March through September.

The strength of the geomagnetic disturbances are measure on the Kp index which ranges from 0 to 9.  Higher values indicate more significant geomagnetic disturbances and higher probability of seeing the Northern Lights.  

The Northern Lights move further south during powerful periods of solar wind (geomagnetic storms) and were sometimes visible out of the normal geographic range and seasonal pattern.  We learned that solar activity also followed an 11-year cycle. For the current cycle, 2025 was predicted to be the solar maximum with some great peaks of increased solar activity.  Certainly during 2024 we saw many reported Northern Light experiences in mosts unusual spots.  We were happy to plan our trip for early 2025.

Several times on our travels we hoped we were lucky and would experience the beautiful light display.  We explored Iceland in August and just missed the first Northern Lights by weeks.  Our cruise to Antarctica was in late February.  Many nights we headed out on the pitch black deck at night.  We saw stunning night skies but never the Southern Lights.

We knew that Canada was a great spot for Northern Lights.  We planned a trip to a remote lodge outside Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.  When we went to pay our deposit, we learned that the resort had filed for Bankruptcy.  After much research, we found another resort experience around Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory.  Availability was limited and by the time our reservation was confirmed but downgraded accommodations, we planned a luxury Caribbean vacation instead.  Our final thought on a Canadian Northern Lights experience was to visit Churchill in Manitoba for polar bears and time this for Northern Lights too.  But that big, expensive trip was still on the travel planning board.

With Northern Lights still high on our travel wish list, we then explored options in Northern Europe.  And were excited when we finally found the right trip for us. Actually booking a Northern Lights experience took us a long time.

Our Booked Plan To See The Northern Lights With Viking Cruises

We looked at the different options for taking a cruise in Norway to see Northern Lights.  There were several cruise lines which travelled north in the winter.  We were excited when we found the 12 night cruise with Viking Cruises up along the Norway Coast.  This long trip offered lots of time in the far north to maximize our chance for a successful trip.

The Viking “In Search of Northern Lights” cruise sailed several times over the winter.  We looked at the cruise dates and the lunar calendar to pick the best cruise dates.  We wanted to have as little moonlight during our cruise as possible to improve our Northern Light viewing potential.

Our cruise starts with a return visit to Bergen in Norway.  We planned to arrive just a few days before our cruise to get over some jet lag.

We cruise along the Norway coast for 9 days crossing the Arctic Circle and finishing far north in Alta.  Having crossed the Antarctic circle with SilverSea Cruises on our cruise to Antarctica, we were excited to cross yet another significant geographic point.  With a port day in Narvik and 2 overnight stops in both Alta and Tromso we knew we had lots of opportunities to see the Northern Lights.

Our cruise finishes with a return visit to Amsterdam before crossing the rough winter North Sea to London.  We visited London many times but sadly we could not stay after our cruise to enjoy London in the winter.

With our trip booked, we started detailed planning for a Northern Lights experience.

Planning For A Northern Lights Experience In The Cold And The Dark

Pretty much all Northern Lights trips required preparing for winter weather.  We live in Canada so are used to cold temperatures and have cold weather gear.  When we planned our packing for our cruise to Antarctica, we took stock of our winter gear and added some extra cold weather gear.  But we still had a few pieces of winter gear to purchase for this trip.

Before we did our cruise to Antarctica, we started hiking in full gear and we extended our walking time.  We even planned a winter trip north of Toronto and found even snowier conditions.  That winter hiking preparation helped us for Antarctica excursions.  And we plan the same kind of pre-trip workouts for this travel to Norway in winter.

We knew that taking pictures in extreme cold presented some challenges.  Batteries died faster in cold temperatures, so we always carried several fully charged spares.  We kept the camera and spare batteries as warm as possible in internal pockets closer to our bodies.  And we packed lots of special gloves perfect for cold camera work.

Most of our winter experiences are in the light of day.  But we knew that chasing the Northern Lights meant not just cold but dark as well.  We wanted some practice with our camera gear at night as preparation for this trip.  

Being ready for cold and dark conditions was just part of our planning for a Northern Lights experience.

Preparing For The Best Pictures

While the Northern Lights were visible with the naked eye, only shades of gray and white were typically seen.  But we knew we needed a camera to catch the vibrant colours.  In advance of our trip, we researched how to get the best pictures of the Northern Lights.

We always travelled with both our newer iPhones and a Canon EOS R6 MkII mirrorless camera.  Typically we use the iPhones for shots that are great within the range of this device.  The newer iPhones we have had good wide lenses and were particularly good with night photography.  

The Canon was generally our go-go camera for telephoto shots when outfitted with the Canon 100-400 mm lens.  On this trip, the Canon provides the ability to shoot in totally manual and record raw images.  This allowed us the ability to alter settings for the perfect Northern Lights photos.

Researching camera settings and watching YouTube videos got us some great tips:

1) Control Your Camera Settings

While you may get some great shots with a good camera set to auto mode, there are some settings that will improve the Northern Lights pics.  For the iPhone, this may require a separate camera app (e.g. Northern Lights Photo Taker, NightCap Camera, Night Camera and ProCamera).

Some things to change:

• The lens aperture (f-stop) should be opened as widely as possible to let in the most light — f/2.8 or wider is good
• Start at ISO setting 400-800 and then increase the ISO upward until your shot is bright enough.  Since we will be on a moving ship at times, we may need to move the ISO as high as 3200-6400 to  keep the shutter speeds shorter. 
• Use a higher exposure time.  Start with 10 seconds and experiment.  If the colours are moving, a shorter exposure time may get a better shot.  For wide-angle shots, try 20 seconds. 
• Set your camera to record in RAW.  This will allow more editing flexibility afterwards.  But this will use much more storage space so make sure you plan for that.

2) Stability

Bring a tripod or monopod to keep the camera steady.  And we will use a remote shutter to help keep the camera stable for the longer exposure shots we needed.  

3) Image Composition

A dark spot away from all ambient light increased the chance of great Northern Lights images.  But we wanted to plan for some foreground too.  This will provide a sense of proportion and makes for more interesting Northern Lights photos.  

We had the chance to practice with night photography before our trip.  But had no Northern Lights in the shots.  We will update our recommendation for taking the best shots after our trip.  But photography is an essential part of planning for a Northern Lights experience.

Picking The Right Spots To See The Northern Lights

We will be cruising north in Norway to see the Northern Lights at a time when there may be only 3-7 hours of daylight per day.   When we planned the trip, we assumed that with all this night light, we would see the Northern Lights from the ship if the sky conditions were right and the activity was strong.  We knew there were lots of dark spots on the ship to find for the perfect viewing location.  And we knew that Viking offered wake-up calls for Northern Lights sightings.

While we were tempted to just hope for Northern Lights when cruising, we booked several port excursions to maximize our opportunities for sightings.  These were expensive shore excursions but we knew this might be our one chance for an amazing experience.

In Alta, we booked a night excursion to Paeskatun.  This spot located high up in the Pæska Mountain will give us views over the valley of Alta, to the mountain plateau and towards the fjords.  In Tromso we have another night excursion booked for a dogsled ride to see the Northern Lights.  Both of these excursions will get us away from city lights.

We also booked a snowmobile excursion from Alta to an Igloo Hotel at Sorrisniva for the early afternoon.  While we may not see Northern Lights on this adventure, we were excited to visit another ice hotel.  Our first visit to Hotel de Glace in Quebec City showed us how fascinating ice hotels were.  

With such little daylight when docked in the northern towns in Norway, we know we may have other opportunities to see the Northern Lights.  We will certainly be looking for ways to get out of the town lights for much better viewing.

Ensuring we found the right spots was part of our planning for a Northern Lights experience.

Finished Planning For A Northern Lights Experience

We are so excited and ready for our coming trip.  We did the research and planning for a Northern Lights experience that will hopefully get us an amazing trip.

Our packing list is complete, camera gear is ready and we booked some great excursions to supplement the viewing we will get cruising in Norway for the Northern Lights. 

We will share on social media as we travel.  And provide a detailed trip blog post when we get back.   We knew that staying connected during this exciting trip was important. Experience taught us that cruise ship internet would not be sufficient and cruising north of the Arctic Circle made cruise ship satellite internet even worse. So we got a great Saily ESIM with Europe coverage including the UK. This ensured good ESIM internet coverage when travelling on this trip.

What did you consider when planning for a Northern Lights experience? 

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