How to See the Northern Lights in Sweden: A Local's Guide

How to See the Northern Lights in Sweden: A Local's Guide

Catching the aurora is partly planning and partly luck. The lights are fickle, the cloud cover does what it wants, and no forecast can promise a show. What you can do is stack the odds: be in the right latitude, follow the right forecasts, and give yourself several nights rather than one.

This guide comes from Mark, a Swede who lives in Luleå, above the Arctic Circle, and who has spent years chasing and photographing the aurora. These are the resources and places he actually uses.

Follow the forecasts before you book

The single most useful habit is to watch the aurora forecast for a few weeks before you travel. You will quickly learn how variable it is, and you will stop treating any one night as decisive.

Aurora Alerts by Soft Serve News posts regular updates for Sweden and the rest of the world, and links through to what Mark considers the best forecast site available: Soft Serve News. It has an easy phone app, and after trying most of the alternatives, it is the one he keeps coming back to.

For the science, the Space Weather Prediction Center publishes an aurora forecast model showing the intensity and location of the lights for each time window. It is less pretty than the apps and more useful for understanding why a night might work.

Groups worth joining

Facebook is still where local aurora watchers share sightings in real time. Mark runs Northern Lights in Luleå, a group full of photographs showing how intense the displays can be over the city.

Lights Over Lapland is run by Chad, whose company offers aurora tours and whose enthusiasm for the subject is obvious even online. Their trips are listed at visitlapland.com. For practical information about Abisko itself, follow STF Abisko Turiststation, the official page of the tourist station.

Why Abisko

Luleå gets strong auroras, and Mark's own photographs prove it. But his recommendation for a first aurora trip is Abisko, and he is not alone: Lonely Planet has rated it the best place on the planet to see the northern lights. The reasons are geography and weather. Abisko sits in a rain shadow, with clearer skies than much of the surrounding Arctic, and it is far from city light.

Abisko or Tromsø?

Tromsø in Norway is the obvious alternative, and Mark is upfront that he has never been. Even so, the trade-offs are clear.

• Cost: Tromsø runs on Norwegian prices and is considerably more expensive than Abisko.
• Size: Tromsø has around 70,000 residents. Abisko has about 50 permanent residents, plus roughly 100 people working there in tourism.
• Things to do: Tromsø wins on nightlife, clubs and restaurants. Abisko wins on nature, skiing, reading a book and waiting for the sky to move.
• Access: Tromsø has an airport nearby. Abisko does not, which is part of why it stays quiet.

Getting to Abisko

Fly to Kiruna and take the train to Abisko, or fly to Luleå and take a longer train journey. Luleå usually has the cheaper flights, and the route has a bonus: you can stop at Kyrkbyn, the church village that forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

There is a third option from the Norwegian side: take the train from Narvik to Kiruna. Abisko is roughly in the middle, shortly after you cross the Swedish border.

What else to do in a northern winter

Very few people travel this far north for the aurora alone, and the days are long. These are the winter activities Mark recommends.

Skiing

Wherever you are in northern Sweden, you are rarely more than an hour from a downhill slope. Abisko and neighbouring Björkliden both have good ones. Cross-country skiing is the gentler introduction: it feels closer to walking or jogging on skis than to alpine skiing, and the trails are everywhere.

Dog sledding

Several operators run dog-sled trips through the winter landscape. It is loud, fast and cold in a way that is hard to describe, and the huskies are the main event.

Ice hockey

An ice hockey match is a proper northern Swedish winter evening. Luleå has one of the best teams in the country. Mark does not follow the clubs and still loved the game he attended, because the seating is so close to the ice — at times you are two metres from the action, which makes for an intensity that football grounds cannot match.

The local pool and sauna

Every Swedish town has a swimming pool, and every pool has a sauna. Nearly all have a mixed steam sauna, while each changing room has its own hotter sauna. A visit to Sweden without a sauna is not really a visit to Sweden.

Ice skating on the sea

In winter, many coastal towns plough snow roads across the frozen sea for walking and skating. Because the water here has almost no salt — Mark drinks it in summer — the ice freezes smooth and fast.

Sweden is not only a winter country

The aurora gets the attention, but Sweden is also the land of the midnight sun, and summer is just as spectacular in its own way. Sunflowers grow two metres tall, hops are grown for beer, and the lakes warm up to around 25°C. If you fall in love with the north in winter, come back when the light never quite leaves.

More from Sweden: practical tips for aurora chasing, solo travel in northern Sweden in winter, Stockholm from sunset to moonlight, Sweden's first winery hotel, and Linköping as a day trip from Stockholm. For food, see the vegetarian guide to Sweden and 24 other countries.