One of the most important points on my bucket-list has been seeing the Northern lights. Therefore I started researching the facts (what/where/when/etc) many years ago, and 2014 needed to be THE year due to numerous reasons. Together with 3 other friends, we rented a house near Tromso which turned out to be the perfect place for our adventures. In theory, we could have seen the Northern lights in 7 nights out of 10 but I also read stories from people who didn’t see anything within a month. Therefore we were worried and excited at the same time…

But we already got lucky on our second night! The forecast predicted very high activity for that day – and that promise was kept. We drove to a dark valley without any light pollution from a nearby city and what we saw was amazing. Of course I saw pictures and videos of the Aurora borealis before but none of these did justice to this experience. Even now, it’s hard to describe that spectacle – therefore I let the pictures speak for themselves.

And even more pictures of beautiful Nord-Norge:

Recommendations

Where to stay: In Tromso, we stayed the first night in a great hostel called Bed & Books. The rooms were lovely decorated, the kitchen and the bathrooms super clean and fully equipped! So thumbs up for one of the best hotels I’ve stayed so far! Afterwards, we rented a small house named Holemark Farm about 20 min by car outside Tromso – and had the most amazing hosts ever! Thanks for an unforgettable stay and a very memorable norwegian night 🙂

What to do: Besides staying up all night and watching the Northern light, I can really recommend doing dog sledding – yourself! Nearly all tour operators in Tromso and its surroundings only offer passive dog sledding where you just sit on the sled while a guide is harnessing the dogs. Active Tromso offers the possibility to drive a sledge yourself – and it turned out to be way more exhausting than I thought since you need to help the dogs actively by pushing the sled on steep parts of the route. It was a wonderful and memorable experience I don’t want to have missed!

Useful Apps: Very useful information is provided by an app called Aurora Forecast. It offers accurate information on the aurora activity level and the space weather.