10 Best Places to See the Northern Lights, from Alaska to Lapland

The northern lights glow brightest in a ring around the top of the world, the auroral zone centred near 67° north. Every place on this list sits under or close to that ring, from Fairbanks in Alaska to Tromsø in Norway and Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula. Pick one, go between late autumn and early spring, and give yourself several dark nights.

What causes the northern lights

The aurora borealis appears when fast-moving particles from the Sun, carried by the solar wind, are steered by Earth's magnetic field into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with oxygen and nitrogen and make them glow. Most auroras shine about 100 km up; Norwegian scientist Carl Størmer, measuring them with cameras from 1911, found none below 70 km.

• Green is the most common colour, from oxygen at middle altitudes (557.7 nm).
• Red, also from oxygen but higher up (630 nm), is faint and shows mainly during strong solar activity.
• Blue and purple, from nitrogen at the lowest altitudes, appear in the most intense displays.

Activity follows the Sun's 11-year cycle, and large storms are most common at the peak and in the following few years. Storms also seem to happen more often around the equinoxes in March and September. The Kp index, from 0 to 9, measures geomagnetic activity: Kp 3 is fairly quiet, while Kp 9 is a major storm that pushes the lights far south. The camera often records stronger colours than the eye sees, especially in faint displays.

Ten best places: Alaska, the Atlantic islands and Canada

1. Alaska

Fairbanks, about 315 km south of the Arctic Circle by road, is the classic aurora base in the United States: near the city the lights are visible on average more than 200 nights a year, outside the summer months of midnight sun. It is also cold, with January averaging about −22 °C. Anchorage, Fairbanks, Denali. More in Fodor's Alaska Travel Guide.

2. The Faroe Islands

The 18 main Faroe Islands lie at about 62° N, roughly midway between Iceland and Norway, and form a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Their oceanic climate is mild, windy and cloudy, with around 210 days of rain or snow a year, so aurora watching here is about grabbing clear spells. Vágar Airport has flights with Atlantic Airways and SAS, and Smyril Line ferries sail from Hirtshals in Denmark. See Fodor's Denmark Travel Guide.

3. Scotland

On strong nights the aurora reaches the north of Scotland. Good dark spots include the coast near Aberdeen, the Isle of Skye, the Northern Highlands, and Dunnet Head. Dunnet Head in Caithness, 17 km west of John o' Groats, is the northernmost point of mainland Britain, reached by the B855, the most northerly road on the British mainland.

4. Canada

Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories, sits at 62° N on the north shore of Great Slave Lake and draws aurora travellers from around the world. It is served by Air Canada and WestJet, and has had a permanent road link only since the Deh Cho Bridge opened in 2012. Whitehorse in Yukon, northern Manitoba and the far north of Ontario offer more Canadian options. For the Rockies, see Richard Gottardo’s Aurora Photographs and Jasper Time-Lapse.

5. Greenland

Kulusuk, a settlement of about 240 people on an island off south-east Greenland, has an airport built by the US military in 1956 for a Distant Early Warning radar station. Icelandair flies there from Reykjavík, and Air Greenland connects it to Tasiilaq on Ammassalik Island, the main town of the region. The bright nights of the Arctic summer hide the aurora, so plan a Greenland aurora trip between autumn and early spring.

Ten best places: Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia

6. Finland

Finnish Lapland is built for aurora travel. Bases include Luosto, Ivalo in Inari municipality, Nellim on Lake Inari, and Utsjoki, Finland's northernmost municipality and the only one with a Sámi majority, where the polar night lasts 51 days from 26 November to 15 January. Kakslauttanen, near Saariselkä about 30 km south of Ivalo, is famous for glass igloos: see Kakslauttanen’s Glass Igloos: A Room Facing the Sky.

7. Iceland

All of Iceland lies close to the auroral zone, so even Reykjavík can see displays when the city lights are left behind. A favourite escape is Þingvellir National Park, about 40 km northeast of the capital, where Iceland's parliament, the Alþingi, first met in 930. The park sits in the rift valley where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004.

8. Norway

Tromsø, at 69°39′ N and more than 300 km north of the Arctic Circle, is Norway's aurora capital. The sun stays below the horizon from about 26 November to 15 January, and a cable car climbs 420 m to Storsteinen for views over the city and the Arctic Cathedral of 1965. Alta and the wider Finnmark region, the Svalbard archipelago and voyages along the Norwegian coast offer further choices; see also The Arctic Light: Lofoten’s Long Spring Twilight.

9. Sweden

Abisko, in Swedish Lapland about 195 km north of the Arctic Circle, is a tiny village on the shore of Lake Torneträsk at the edge of Abisko National Park, founded in 1909. A chairlift climbs Mount Nuolja for aurora viewing above the valley, the Kungsleden trail starts at the STF Abisko Turiststation, and daily SJ trains between Stockholm and Narvik stop right in the village.

10. Northern Russia

Murmansk, on Kola Bay at 68°58′ N, is the largest city in the world north of the Arctic Circle. Thanks to the North Atlantic Current its port stays ice-free all year, even though the polar night lasts from 2 December to 10 January. The old icebreaker Lenin is a museum ship in the harbour, and the wider Kola Peninsula offers dark tundra skies away from the city.

Tips for seeing the aurora

• Season: the midnight sun hides the aurora in high summer; Tromsø, for example, has no aurora viewing from late April to mid-August.
• Time: stay at least three or four nights to improve your odds against cloud.
• Darkness: get away from street lights and check both the aurora forecast and the cloud forecast; see exploring weather and aurora data layers.
• Photography: use a tripod, a wide lens and exposures of several seconds; Mike Taylor’s aurora photography shows what is possible.

Dress for serious cold: in Fairbanks or Lapland, a clear winter night can easily drop to −20 °C or colder.

Related reading

• Kakslauttanen’s Glass Igloos: A Room with a Sky View
• Aurora from Norway, Alaska and Orbit
• Nate Bolt’s San Francisco-to-Paris Flight Time-Lapse
• Snowboarding and Freestyle in Finnish Lapland
• More: aurora borealis

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