Best Of

Sam - I looked at all stats . Problem with areas near the water is that they tend to get clouds. Also did an analysis of temperatures. Warmest place to see the northern lights- Iceland. But- high probability of clouds. Arctic circle / Lapland in Europe- clouds and ridiculously low temperatures. Fairbanks hit the sweet spot, as well as stats for the time of the year and region that we are going to . Plus the tour has northern light spotters that will wake you up anytime they appear. We realize we may not see them ….. but it won’t be - 23 degrees like it was on our friends’s northern lights in Finland tour. That is a bit too much for me. You may find other stats. It is all a crap shoot and without guarantees.

BKMD - thanks for that map!!!!!!!

My husband and I are just back from a Northern Lights trip to the Yukon where we saw the Aurora Borealis 4 nights out of our one week stay. The March 2026 Tauck cruises are sure to be spectacular but there are indeed lots of other options. I am far from being an expert but wanted to share a few of our experiences and tips:

1) In case you didn’t already know, the bright aurora colors you see in photos are rarely seen with the “naked” eye. You need a very intense aurora to experience that, such as a KP index of 7 or higher, from what I have read. The vast majority of time, you will see white hazy shapes or possibly light green/pink.

2) The Aurora app as mentioned by OurTravels34 is not considered to be accurate by experts, however I thought it was accurate within 48 hours of the date of interest. It also gives information on expected cloud cover and a link to the NOAA prediction map mentioned by BKMD.

3) Another fun link, especially for archival information, is spaceweatherlive.com https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/auroral-activity/top-50-geomagnetic-storms/year/2024.html
I thought it was interesting that the top 4 strongest auroras in 2024 were in May and October.

4) Like MotherOfPoodles, we thought about all the places we could go to see the Aurora. We thought about distance from home, financial investment and effort involved in case we did not see the Aurora, and types of accommodations, including nightly “aurora chasing” vs a wilderness lodge or cruise. We thought about what other kinds of activities we would like to do there during the day. Most importantly, being from California, we thought about the cold!

5) I wish I had learned more about my iphone 16 Pro before I went on this trip. I did figure out the night mode for photos but could never get any decent night videos. I wanted to remember how the lights flowed and changed.

6) We were provided with a winter clothing package which included a very warm coat and boots, and also gloves, but it is not easy to take photos with an iphone wearing even the gloves that are tech -enabled. I should have searched for a better solution. Hand warmers helped and I kept extras in my pockets.

7) On our first night, the KP was 5 but the cloud cover was too thick to see anything. Around 3 am, I could see stars and knew the clouds had thinned. I spotted some faint green on the horizon which grew to a great show despite about a 50% cloud cover.

8) On another night we had perfectly clear skies and a KP of 4, which gave us spectacular photos. What we saw with our eyes was a sky filled with light green swirls and my husband says he saw pinks, but the photos showed vivid greens, pinks and purples.