Northern Lights on a Budget Europe Trip

When electrically charged particles collide, bright, dancing colours appear in the sky in the poles of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. We know for a fact that seeing the Northern lights or Aurora Borealis is on 90% of everyone’s bucket list. After only ever seeing them in pictures or in movies, it’s something most of us have only ever dreamed of witnessing. (Except for those who are lucky enough to live really far north or south of the equator

Here are some tips to help make your dreams a reality.

Image Source : Tankavaara Gold Village - Booking.com

1. You have to go to the right place. Aurora are not visible in countries close to the equator. The further away from the equator (extremely north or extremely south) the better. The countries that most commonly put on an array of lights are Finland, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Canada and Sweden. Countries that you can occasionally see the Aurora (if you’re lucky) include Scotland, Ireland, Estonia, Denmark and even Tasmania (in this case would be called the Southern lights or Aurora Australis). We spent a week in Lapland, Finland over Christmas last year and saw the most magical array of dancing green and purple lights in the sky almost every night!

2. You have to go in the right season. The most likely time you will be able to see the Northern lights is in Winter, when the days are shorter and the nights are longer, and when there are no clouds covering them. If you are in the right place in the right time, the lights will be visibly dancing in the sky every night the circumstances are right. It will be the most incredible thing your eyes have witnessed and you’ll drop on your knees into the snow in awe.

3. Stay for long enough to ensure you don’t miss out on them! Damn Daniel, the lights appeared as soon as we left! Do your research and find out the odds of the lights appearing for example- 1 in 4 days- stay for at least 5. Make sense? Kapish.

4. You won’t be able to photograph the Northern lights without a professional camera. Due to the nature of the Aurora, you will not be able to capture the light or colours on an iPhone or such, just like you can’t photograph the stars or the moon unless you have a camera with manual focus and a tripod. For this reason we have not included any of our own photos of the lights as we didn’t get any, ours all turned out black. Just great. You’ll have to just take our word that we did actually see them!

5. What to pack: When you’re travelling in winter you obviously want to carry the warmest items of clothes you have, but you also want to pack as light as possible. A good goose down jacket is a great investment when travelling in such cold weather as it will keep you warm and you wont have to wear much else with it. They are extremely light and can be folded into very small spaces as well. Invest in some pure cotton breathable thermals as well that are thin and light enough to carry and wear under everything else to give you that extra layer of warmth. Travelling in the snow can be tricky, especially if you’ve got a wheeley suitcase. You might want to opt for a back pack that you can carry as often it will be impossible for wheels to turn through snow on the ground. Waterproof pants are also great as you can wear them over your thermals and jump around in the snow without getting wet like the child at heart that you are.

Our story

For Aiden’s 21st birthday present, I decided to book 6 nights at Tankavaara Gold Village over Christmas in Lapland, Finland. Now this is typically the home of Santa Claus and the furthest north point of Finland which I didn’t realise would be so damn difficult to get to at the time! After researching the best places to view northern lights (finding Lapland as one of the top answers) I went ahead and booked the most affordable accomadation I could find on Booking.com, which turned out to be the most beautiful and exciting place we’d ever stayed at. In the heart of Lapland, Tankavaara Gold Village is a little camp site (more like snow resort) where you stay in a wooden cabin with a gorgeous fireplace to keep you warm from the -20 degree winter outside.

Image Source: Tankavaara Gold Village - Booking.com

Activities include reindeer feeding, dog sled riding, gold panning and of course, seeking the northern lights. Snow came up to our knees, no ground was to be seen, only knee deep snow and trees covered in white as far as the eye could see. The most intricite snowflakes fell from the sky onto our coats (which coming from Australia is a very exciting thing) and each morning opening the door of our warm wooden cabin, felt like we were opening the door to heaven, and it got better and better each day. We spent most of our time in the cozy room staying warm and gazing out the window at the Winter wonderland outside. We bought enough food to last us the week as the nearest shop was about 20k’s away, and it all stayed fresh when we left it in the “freezer” that was just outside. Although the grocery shop cost us about £60 for the week, it saved us a lot on buying meals at the little restaurant at the camp site (which only ever seemed to have reindeer meat in stock).

Image source- Tankavaara Gold Village

To get to Tankavaara took us 2 days in total. We flew from Stockholm (using skyscanner as our saviour) to Helsinki, where we stayed a night in a hostel before getting up early to get about 4 trains (one of them was an overnight train) and 2 busses all the way up to the top of Finland, in the Northern artctic circle. Our Eurail pass covered most of this journey which was a life saver because Finland’s public transport is more expensive than you can imagine. We never would’ve been able to afford it without the Eurail. Just the bus from the train station to Tankavaara cost us over £40 each so you can imagine the price of the trains that we took from Helsinki.

Overall it was a journey that we are so happy we made, another one to tick off the bucket list!