Chasing the Aurora

I can’t remember when the desire to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) first came about but I was certainly pretty young. Over the years I’ve made a few attempts to try and realise that ambition. First was in my mid-twenties when I had a four days in Iceland just after New Year. But it was constant cloud and snow whilst I was there – I never saw the sky never mind anything else. Then, when we had our year of travelling, we were in New Zealand for the start of the season, so we kept an eye on the reports for the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis), but to no avail. In Autumn 2023, we took a cruise up the Norwegian coast and into the Arctic Circle. We thought that this must be the time, despite again being early into the season. Well, it was and it wasn’t. We did see the Aurora, but to the naked eye it just looked like a misty cloud. There was no movement or ‘dancing’ and there was only colour when you took a photograph. So whilst those photographs did look amazing, I was left pretty underwhelmed. Was that all anyone saw in reality and it was just cameras that made it look so magical?

My parents had spent a week in Lapland in 2014 and had an amazing time. They assured me that they were able to see the movement and colours with their own eyes, their camera just intensified the visual. So when we found out that there was supposed to be a peak in solar activity between the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2026, we thought we should try again. So, we spent months looking at potential destinations and types of holiday, from trying to be as low-cost as possible to splashing out. What we found was that even the cheapest option was not actually that cheap, so we decided to do it properly and book a trip quite similar to what my parents had experienced years earlier. Radka saw Inari as a destination on Instagram and when we looked into it further, it ticked all the boxes. It was well into the Arctic Circle; it was a quiet area with a combination of wide open spaces (a frozen lake) and forests; and it offered a range of outdoors activities. Also, it was far from places such as Rovaniemi, which is apparently very touristy and more marketed for families with its ‘Santa’s Village’, so Inari seemed like it would be a more authentic destination. So, rather nervously, as it was the most we’d ever spent on a holiday, we booked a week in Inari at the Wilderness Hotel Inari. If you would like to read about our experiences and find out if we did manage to see the Aurora, then please click here.