Important Tips for Seeing the Northern Lights

There are a number of things that you should keep in mind when planning on seeing the Northern Lights.Mark, a resident of Lulea, Northern Sweden shares a few important tips for seeing the Northern lights that people that aren’t from an aurora spotting area won’t necessarily know. Join his Northern LIght Lulea group on Facebook for more suggestions.

 

 

How to See the Northern Lights: Advice from Luleå

Stand outside at midnight in Lapland and the aurora explains itself. What the brochures leave out is everything that happens before the sky performs: the kit, the cold, the camera settings and the road home. Mark lives in Luleå in northern Sweden and has spent enough nights watching the lights to know the practical side, so the advice below is his, with a little added context for anyone who has never travelled this far north. You can join his Northern Light Lulea group on Facebook for more suggestions.

Wait until you arrive to buy your cold-weather gear

Start with the body. Extra-thick socks, something for your head, a scarf and mittens rather than gloves — mittens keep your fingers warmer because they share the heat between them. Specialist clothing designed for conditions up by the Arctic Circle, which is how far north you will be, is rarely cheap at home.

The better move is to buy when you land. Local charity shops, the Red Cross among them, sell winter clothing donated by people who actually live here, which means it was made for these conditions. Such clothing has no use being forwarded to Africa or Asia, so it is resold locally instead. A decent second-hand thermal jacket runs from about €15 to €40, and gloves or headwear cost a couple of euros. The same shops sell ice skates and ski equipment for roughly €8 to €20. It may not be as well maintained as rental gear, but for beginners it is more than adequate and cheaper than renting.

Heat packs, the kind you hold inside your mittens, are worth asking about at your host or hotel; staff will know where to find them. Dress warmly because the alternative is worse than it sounds: once you have fulfilled the dream of seeing the aurora, you do not want the other memory to be of how frozen you were, or to have retreated indoors and watched the best of it through a window.

Carry something hot to drink

A thermos of something warm is worth the space in your bag. Chocolate, tea and coffee all work. If you are watching the lights in Sweden, look for Glögg, a traditional drink sold in local supermarkets: a kind of wine served warm with raisins and almonds. It sounds strange and is very warming, and it tastes good.

Learn the camera before you leave

If a new camera is on the horizon, buy it before the trip rather than during it. Better quality means better memories. The way to look at it is simple: if you are spending thousands to travel this far, a little extra to do justice to the photographs is not waste but one of the best investments you can make beforehand. Bring a tripod too, even though it takes up room and adds weight. Aurora photographs can be taken without one, but almost every spectacular shot you have seen was made with a tripod. The difference is that large.

Spend 10 to 30 minutes learning your camera's manual settings in advance; fumbling with them on the night, stressed and cold, is no fun. Broadly speaking, keep the ISO between 600 and 1200 and the aperture as low as possible. With a 1.8 lens you may need no more than half a second to two seconds of exposure. Canon and Nikon both sell inexpensive 50 mm low-aperture lenses, and adding a wide-angle to one of those is a much cheaper shortcut than buying an expensive lens outright. Most cameras have a standard aperture of 3.5, in which case expect exposures of 2 to 20 seconds.

Go out before the aurora starts and practise focusing. One shortcut: take a shot in auto, then, without moving the lens, switch auto off, go to manual and experiment with aperture and exposure.

You do not have to leave the city

People who have never seen the aurora like to insist that you must be far from any town lights. That is a myth, or a lie, depending on your view. A darker spot helps when the lights are weak, but weak auroras will not become strong just because you drove somewhere with no other light around; they stay weak. When they are intense, and they do not need to be very intense, you can see them from a city centre.

Make yourself visible on winter roads

Of all the advice here, this matters most: wear something reflective. Everyone has heard about the 24-hour darkness of the far north, but it is easy to forget what that means in practice. You are hard for traffic to see. Many roads this far north are poorly lit or not lit at all, and drivers need to spot you while you are walking.

Winter adds ice and snow, sometimes hard-packed even after clearing, so a driver cannot brake suddenly when you appear. For hitchhikers the problem is the same from the other side: a driver may want to stop but will not see you in time, and carrying on is the only safe option.

Getting to northern Sweden

Since Mark lives there, the routes below are the ones he knows best.

Norwegian Air

This low-cost airline flies to Luleå and offers free wifi on board, friendly staff and modern aircraft. One caveat from experience: a baggage handle was broken during transport, through no fault of weight, age or brand, and the compensation process was infuriating and ended without payment.

SAS

SAS is not as cheap as Norwegian, but it is nowhere near as expensive as it once was, and it retains the service standards of a premium airline. When a friend arrived with damaged baggage, customer service replaced it on the spot with a new high-quality bag, and he had a range of models to choose from. You usually get what you pay for, and here the price has come down while the service has not.

Swedish Railway Network

The Swedish Railway Network, SJ, is another good way north, with a range of tickets to choose from.

Drive Back

If you hold an International Driver's Licence, look at Drive Back, where you can find cars to drive from one place to another for their owners. Many rental companies use the same system, though they do not always make it easy to find.

Where to go

Luleå, where Mark lives, sees some pretty intense auroras. His own recommendation, though, is Abisko: Lonely Planet voted it the best place on the planet to see the lights. He has written a separate post with tips for seeing the auroras in Northern Sweden, and it is worth reading before you book.

Other remarkable places to watch include Tromsø in Norway, Iceland, Finland, Fairbanks in Alaska and the Yukon in Canada.

The short version

• Thick socks, a hat, a scarf and mittens, bought cheaply on arrival.
• A thermos, with Glögg if you are in Sweden.
• A good camera, a tripod and half an hour spent learning the manual settings.
• Something reflective for walking after dark.

Do those things and the rest comes down to weather and luck. Enjoy the hunt.