Enjoy the Ultimate Northern Lights Holiday

Mar 4
08:23

2015

Lisa Jeeves

Lisa Jeeves

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For those chasing the Aurora Borealis, a dedicated Northern Lights holiday will ensure they can enjoy the very best experience possible.

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A dedicated Northern Lights holiday is an event in and of itself. Both of the most popular destinations for this type of popular winter break – Sweden and Iceland – offer plenty of scenic natural beauty and enough to see and do to make the investment worthwhile. It is virtually impossible for anyone to come off one of these holidays feeling anything but exhilarated.

Of course,Enjoy the Ultimate Northern Lights Holiday Articles the main point of this type of break is, without question, to catch a glimpse of the famed Aurora Borealis. And since this phenomenon is well known for being elusive and appearing at random, travellers need to afford themselves the most optimal opportunities to achieve a sighting.

Those who intend to visit the Arctic Circle with the intention of chasing the lights are best served embarking on a dedicated small group organised tour, with local guides and infrastructure in place to assure the very best experience. The following information will offer a brief overview.

Where to Go

The first step towards ensuring a Northern Lights holiday is successful is to choose the right geographical latitude. The fact that this natural phenomenon is exclusive to polar latitudes is no secret, but what many people may not know is that there is a specific region – known as the 'auroral oval' – where the likelihood of seeing the lights increases exponentially. Despite this fact, merely pinpointing the oval doesn't make the task any easier, as this area is nearly twice as wide and twice as removed from the Earth's magnetic pole as midnight is from midday!

As such, it is easier to merely make reference to some of the areas where auroras are more common. These include Iceland, Swedish Lapland, Greenland and Svalbard, as well as areas to the extreme north of the United States, Russia and Canada. Of these, Sweden and Iceland are by far the most popular and easily accessible destinations for a successful Northern Lights holiday – and both have a huge number of other attractions as well, making for a diverse and fulfilling experience.

When to Go

Accurate timing is another of the main components behind a successful Northern Lights holiday, and another reason package tours are so successful. It is not enough to simply plan it for 'winter', as this season is rather broad in scope. It may be easier to think in terms of aiming for October or March (the tail-end months of the cold season) as the ideal time for a break of this type. November through February are also suitable months, but late spring and summer are not recommended, as skies are bright 24 hours a day, thereby eliminating any chance of aurora viewing.