The northern lights entice travellers from all over the world to the polar regions. During winter, when the nights are long, tourists from all over the world flock to the polar regions to catch the magical dance of lights. The locals say the lights are always there, but the long winter nights and clear skies will make for a better chance of catching them lights. Since the aurora is a result of the solar flares from the sun, one’s chances of catching a spectacular burst of northern lights increases with the spike in solar activity.
2024/2025 is when the solar activity is at the peak of its 11-year cycle. Eyeing the chance to catch an experience of a lifetime, I started planning for this trip to chase the aurora back in 2022. From redeeming of flights with miles, booking of transits, hotels and tours, the entire planning process to catch the aurora in Iceland and Tromsø took about 1.5 years. Here’s a Singaporean perspective of the pre-trip preparation that transpired in the 2 years.
Timing – Is there a “Best” time for Aurora?
We can be said to have been in the best time to catch the aurora. Just recently, the scientists have confirmed that the sun has reached solar maximum. This means that not only will the auroras show up more frequently, they will also appear more intensely. The current solar maximum will last till the end of 2025, and we will have to wait for another 11 years for the next one to arrive.
Even when the auroras are showing up strong, they still couldn’t be seen in the day. The sun is simply too overpowering. Therefore, many people prefer to catch the auroras during winter. That will be Oct – Mar for the northern hemisphere, and Apr – Aug in the southern hemisphere. In fact, deep in winter, places like Tromsø, Norway which is within the arctic circle, experiences the polar night, where the sun doesn’t rise for a few months. This meant a literal aurora buffet, since one has the chance to catch the northern lights at any time of the day.
That said, the winter near the poles are harsh. For those who prefer to hunt for auroras in milder weather, or would like to spend some time (in daylight) sightseeing, visiting the aurora hunting cities in Oct or Mar would be more ideal. In fact, I chose to visit Iceland and Tromsø during the spring equinox in March. With equal lengths of day and night, there was a balance between hunting aurora and spending the day exploring the cities. Conversely, the autumn equinox in September would also be a good choice to hunt auroras.
The downside though, as I’d mentioned in my aurora travelogue, was that the aurora tours in early and late winter would start later than usual. Starting at about 7pm, you would most likely return to your hotels at around 1 to 2am. That sort of created a domino effect on your sightseeing in the day. Especially if you have a day tour planned at 8am the next day!
Another thing to note: Early spring in Iceland is also the rainy season. I didn’t know that and spent a full week there with cloudy skies shrouding the aurora when they were bursting above me! However, the weather turned out to be really great over at Tromsø in Norway!
Tour Overview
With my eyes set on the spring equinox, the tour planning started proper. The idea was to tour Iceland and catch the auroras on the way. After the week-long tour around Iceland, we would fly to the aurora capital of Tromsø, Norway, where we would focus on going on aurora hunting tours. Thereafter, we went to Vienna, Austria for a night, before catching a flight back to Singapore.
Flight Plan
As there’s no non-stop flights from Singapore to Reykjavik, Iceland, we had to plan for a transfer. The first option was to make a transfer in Europe. With many flights plying Singapore and Europe and from Europe to Iceland, we were spoilt for choice.
Considering that some European countries, especially their aviation employees love to go on strike, we zoomed in on a safe choice like Copenhagen. Copenhagen Airport is compact and easy to navigate around. Many airlines fly to Copenhagen Airport, so if the airline of our choice goes on strike, we would still be able to make it out of Copenhagen and complete our journey. We had done a flight transfer over there in the past too. As such, Copenhagen Airport became the ideal choice for our onward journey to Iceland.
Singapore Airlines flies to Copenhagen via a 13-hour red eye flight SQ352. We arrived in Copenhagen at 7.15am, and transferred to Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) SK595 that departed Copenhagen 8.15am. Thanks to Copenhagen being a modestly sized airport, and that we had made our flight booking on a single ticket, the 1 hour transfer time was just enough for us.
We applied the same principle for our return trip. Since there was no direct flight from Tromsø to Singapore, we had to pick a place to be our transit point. It turned out that EVA Air had a great flight timing out of Vienna, Austria. Although we would need to transit at Taipei, we got the chance to try out their B787 and B777 Business Class, while also spending a day at Vienna.
In between Iceland and Tromsø, we took SAS that transits via Oslo. Similarly, we hopped on Turkish Airlines to make our way to Vienna in the final leg of our tour. (But as I had explained in my Turkish Airlines travelogue, we were forced to take the airline because… Austrian Airlines – our original flight of choice – went on strike.)
With our points of transfer confirmed, we proceeded to book our air tickets.
Trip Overview
Singapore to Copenhagen, Denmark (SIN – CPH)
Flight Number: SQ352
Aircraft Type / Registration: A350 / 9V-SJB
Departure (ETD/ATD): 0030hrs / 0052hrs
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 0635hrs (CET) / 0708hrs (CET)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 13h 5m / 13h 16m
Seat: 15K (Long haul JCL)
Meal Service (Supper): 0138hrs
Lights Off: 0225hrs
Copenhagen, Denmark to Keflavik, Iceland (CPH – KEF)
Flight Number: SK595
Aircraft Type / Registration: A320neo / SE-ROU
Class: Premium Economy (SAS Plus)
Departure (ETD/ATD): 0830hrs (CET) / 0833hrs (CET)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 1040hrs (GMT) / 1035hrs (GMT)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 3h 10m / 3h 2m
Seat: 1D
Meal Service (Snack): 0905h (25 min)
9 days in Iceland, including a 7-day round Iceland tour, and a day exploring Reykjavik.
Keflavik, Iceland to Oslo, Norway (KEF – OSL)
Flight Number: SK4788
Aircraft Type / Registration: A320 neo / SE-ROF
Class: Economy
Departure (ETD/ATD): 1045hrs (GMT) / 1059hrs (GMT)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 1425hrs (CET) / 1418hrs (CET)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 2h 40m / 2h 19m
Seat: 15A
Meal Service: Coffee and tea service
Oslo, Norway to Tromsø, Norway (OSL – TOS)
Flight Number: SK4434
Aircraft Type / Registration: A320 neo / OY-KAR
Class: Economy
Departure (ETD/ATD): 1930hrs (CET) / 1957hrs (CET)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 2130hrs (CET) / 2132hrs (CET)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 2h 0m / 1h 35m
Seat: 12D
Meal Service: Coffee and tea service
6 days in Tromsø, with 2 aurora tours, a husky sledding tour and a full day exploring Tromsø.
Tromsø, Norway to Oslo, Norway (TOS – OSL)
Flight Number: TK8285 (SK4409) (Bought on Turkish Airlines, operated by Scandinavian Airlines)
Aircraft Type / Registration: A320neo / SE-ROX
Class: Economy
Departure (ETD/ATD): 0845hrs (CET) / 0854hrs (CET)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 1045hrs (CET) / 1035hrs (CET)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 2h 0m / 1h 45m
Seat: 11D
Meal Service: Coffee and tea service
Oslo, Norway to Istanbul, Turkey (OSL – IST)
Flight Number: TK1752
Aircraft Type / Registration: A321 / TJ-JSO
Class: Economy
Departure (ETD/ATD): 1150hrs (CET) / 1152hrs (CET)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 1755hrs (GMT+3) / 1727hrs (GMT+3)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 4h 5m / 3h 35m
Seat: 24B
Meal Service: Lunch
Istanbul, Turkey to Vienna, Austria (IST – VIE)
Flight Number: TK1889
Aircraft Type / Registration: A321 / TJ-JSY
Class: Economy
Departure (ETD/ATD): 2130hrs (GMT+3) / 2144hrs (GMT+3)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 2150hrs (CET) / 2144hrs (CET)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 2h 20m / 2h 00m
Seat: 20C
Meal Service: Dinner
1 day exploring Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, Austria to Taipei (VIE – TPE)
Flight Number: BR66
Aircraft Type / Registration: 787-9 / B-17881
Class: Business
Departure (ETD/ATD): 1235hrs (CET) / 1222hrs (CET)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 0715hrs (GMT+8) / 0613hrs (GMT+8)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 11h 40m / 10h 51m
Seat: 2K
Meal Service: Lunch, Breakfast
Taipei to Singapore (TPE – SIN)
Flight Number: BR215
Aircraft Type / Registration: 787-9 / B-16733
Class: Business
Departure (ETD/ATD): 0925hrs (CET) / 1350hrs (CET)
Arrival (ETA/ATA): 1022hrs (GMT+8) / 1440hrs (GMT+8)
Duration (Estimated/Actual): 4h 25m / 4h 18m
Seat: 5K
Meal Service: Breakfast
Process for booking the flights
While the booking of SAS flights were straightforward – we simply bought the tickets when we thought the price was low enough – it wasn’t the same for the SQ and EVA flights, as we were redeeming them with miles.
Especially for Singapore Airlines, their Business Class tickets open for redemption 355 days in advance, and are snapped up within a matter of minutes. Add on the fact that a one way Business Class ticket from Singapore to Europe cost 103,500 miles, which would require a fair amount of time to earn.
EVA Air’s flight redemption was even more tedious than SQ’s. Although their flights don’t get snapped up in a day, one has to call Eva Air customer service to manually redeem the flight. Our EVA flight home cost 75,000 miles. That brought the total miles needed to 178,500. So you can understand why we needed to start planning our trip 2 years in advance, right? We had to start earning them miles!
The redeemed flights didn’t come free. We still had to pay for taxes and fuel surcharges. These miscellaneous fees came up to SGD 81.70 for our Singapore Airlines flight, and Euro 131.87 for EVA Air’s. At around USD 200 in total, this was a great price to pay for flying Business Class on 2 of the most reputable airlines in the world!
Find out more about booking and redeeming air tickets on EVA Air website.
Packing for Adventure
One thing that looms on the minds of everyone embarking on such an epic tour was how and what to pack. Here, I try to cover important and often overlooked aspects of packing for the event.
Clothes and Footwear – Geared up for Exploring the Outdoors
Our trip took place in late winter / early spring. However, since Iceland and Tromsø were both in and around the Arctic circle, the weather forecast still warranted thick winter clothing.
For Iceland, March is a wet season. Therefore, we had to pack water resistant clothing. It was so cold that thermal wear, including thermal pants, is recommended. And as I shared in my Iceland trip report, west Iceland was super windy. I was glad that my jacket was also wind resistant.
The season transition and wet weather also meant that the ground would be covered in slippery ice. I had specially bought “glacier friendly boots” on my earlier trip to Japan. Even that was insufficient at times. Crampons are recommended for those without those anti-slip shoes or if they want extra assurance (slipping on icy roads is no joke!). I also saw people using hiking sticks, which were good for the climbs up the mountains, like we did when we explored Hundafoss on Day 2 and climbed the dormant volcano Grábrók on Day 6 of our Iceland tour.
The weather in Tromsø, Norway was just as cold, but without the rain. Simple winter clothing worked for day trips around the town. For the aurora tours, organisers like Pukka Travels provided thermal wear to help us cope with the bitter winter nights. Of course, their tour package was more expensive. However, the simpler tours also provided warm drinks and built campfires onsite. Worse came to worse, it was easy to snuck onto the heated van to escape from the cold. Therefore, there isn’t much to pack in particular for Tromsø, other than the typical winter wear.
Summary: You might want to pack crampons and hiking sticks.
food for the body – and Mind
For Asians, it is really essential to pack extra food, as food in Iceland is far below the standard found in our part of the world. For us, we packed instant noodles and a portable electric pot. They helped us tide through nights when we skipped the expensive (but bland) dinners.
But then again, Iceland prohibits visitors from bringing food and dairy items – be it fresh or processed – from outside of the European Economic Area. So Singaporean favourites like bak kwa would be out of the question. That said, we also made use of our spare time before the tour to shop at the local supermarket for dried food like biscuits.
As for Tromsø, the food was generally nice, albeit expensive. However, there are always the trusty McDonald’s and Burger King.
Summary: You might want to pack instant noodles and a portable cooking pot.
necessities to Maintain Modern conveniences while out Exploring Nature
As our round Iceland tour involved staying in lodgings, we had expected the amenities to be limited. Dental kits and personal toiletries is a must. Most lodgings provide shower gel and shampoo, but we still brought a bottle of head and body wash just in case.
Additionally, we brought clothes hangers and a hanger to hang the hangers. Unfortunately, some lodgings didn’t even have places for us to use our hangers. In hindsight, we should have brought 3M hooks for our hangers that could be easily removed at the end of our stay.
Last but not least, a travel adaptor. Both Norway and Iceland use the type F and C power plugs. They are those with 2 round pins. None of the accommodations had international power sockets in their rooms. Travel adaptors are therefore an essential for our aurora adventure. Do check that your travel adaptors have safety fuse, since the wiring in rural Iceland may be old. Pack more, or bring a power extension, as the wall sockets in the lodgings are limited and not necessarily by the bedside.
Summary: Pack dental kits, personal toiletries like facial cleaner, and type F travel adaptors. You may consider packing clothes hangers and power extension.
Arranging for transport
Reykjavik Airport Transfer
The nearest airport to Reykjavik is Keflavik Airport, which is about an hour’s drive away. Other than driving, one could take the airport shuttle – Flybus. The tickets could be bought online, or via the self service kiosks at the Flybus counter. If you ask me, just buy the tickets at Keflavik Airport.
The Flybus counter is just right opposite the exit of the Arrival Hall. Keflavik Airport is small, so by “opposite”, I meant a few steps away. Their buses are frequent (once every half an hour) and there is no seat reservation. People just board and take whatever seats available. The bus may even leave earlier (or later), depending on when the bus is full. In other words, if the bus is full, there’s always the next bus. So there’s no urgency to purchase the tickets beforehand.
The Flybus would arrive at Reykjavik’s BSI Terminal, which is like the central bus station in Reykjavik. From there, one could take feeder buses to all parts of the city. They also have both manual and self-service counters to purchase the tickets. From what I observed, the buses were frequent. It was indeed intimidating at first arriving at such a big station. However, the staff was helpful and provided directions for us to catch the bus.
Side note: BSI Terminal is also where many sightseeing tour buses depart. One could also purchase tour packages there and hop onto the buses right away. Read more about my one-day sightseeing in Reykjavik.
Flybus tickets cost ISK 7,300 (USD 52) / pax two ways, and could be purchased online via websites like Viator, Klook and Pelago. The one-way ticket from BSI Terminal to our hotel cost ISK 1,100 (USD 7.80) per pax.
Although we took the Flybus and city bus when from the airport to our hotel, we took the taxi to the BSI Terminal to catch the Flybus, since our flight was too early for the public transport. The taxi ride cost us 2,820kr (20 USD).
Tromsø Airport Transfer
Tromsø Airport is like Keflavik’s – small and compact. We were literally steps away from the baggage carousel and the shuttle bus stop.
Our option to Tromsø downtown was via the Airport Express by Best Arctic. A one way ticket cost NOK 125 (USD 12). The airport shuttle’s tickets could be bought online. We just needed to show the driver the QR code (that was sent together with the confirmation email) during boarding. We could also choose to pay on the spot via credit card too. Between both methods, I would still pre-book the tickets so that I could have confirmed seats on the bus. This was especially important, as we arrived late at night and was catching the last bus.
Alternatively, one could catch the public buses. For the latter, the bus stops are on the main road beyond the airport’s car park. The buses run both towards Tromsø town centre, as well as the outskirts in the opposite direction.
A return ticket cost NOK 200 (USD 17.80); NOK 125 (USD 12) for one way ticket.
Read more about my one-day sightseeing in Tromsø.
Vienna Airport Transfer
Going to downtown Vienna from its Airport was an easy affair. The City Airport Shuttle runs from the airport to Landstraße, where we could transfer to the local subway. The train ride was a mere 16 minutes and was comfortable to ride on. The entire experience was very similar to those of Bangkok / Singapore / Kuala Lumpur or the east Asian cities. The tickets could be purchased via the vending machines at the station, and the stations were clean and easy to navigate around.
Read more about my one-day sightseeing in Vienna.
Sign up for Aurorasaurus
Prior to arriving in Iceland, I was using Iceland and Norway’s meteorological websites to stay up to date on the aurora flares. However, the websites, being the meteorological websites they were, were massive, contained a lot of unrelated information and were massive to navigate around. Additionally, while they gave information on the aurora’s intensity, they were lacking in local conditions like cloud cover that would affect our chances of seeing the northern lights.
It was while in Iceland that I discovered Aurorasaurus. It was a community based website, which relied on sighting reports from its users. All I needed to do was to sign up for an account and indicate our location. Whenever there was an uptick in aurora sightings in the vicinity, the system would send an email notification. Call it a psychological effect. Prior to signing up Aurorasaurus, I was constantly looking up and wondering if I would see the aurora. Thereafter, I could concentrate on my tours and being in the present, and only needed to start making plans to catch the aurora when I received the notifications.
Of course, my luck in Iceland was totally off. The notifications were far and few, and even when they came in, I could see nothing with the cloud cover. When in Tromsø, however, the notifications kept ticking and I was sure to see something at night. And of course, I returned the favour by also contributing to details of my aurora sightings.
Finding Tour Packages
The greatest hurdle of the trip was finding the right tour package. Iceland is both small enough for easy short trips, and yet chock full of sights to stretch a visitor’s time limits. At the end of the day, it boils down to how long the entire holiday would be, and whether you ever intend to return to Iceland.
7-Day Complete Iceland by Arctic Adventures
Even a round-Iceland tour came with many options. There were whirlwind tours that lasted 6 days, or those that took 10 days via a more leisurely pace. We opted for the 7 day tour, which consisted of a variety of sights and activities:
- Visit waterfalls. Dozens of them, in fact.
- Ice caving (converted to glacier hiking in summer)
- Soak in hot pools (options of Blue Lagoon (which is now destroyed in the latest volcanic eruption) and Vok Baths in north Iceland)
- Whale watching
- Climb dormant volcano Grábrók
- Snæfellsjökull Peninsula
The 7-Day tour is a combo of the 6-Day Around Iceland Adventure tour and the Snaefellsnes Peninsula small group tour. At the end of the 6th day, we were dropped off at Borgarnes where we would stay for the night and join a separate tour the next day.
One thing to note was that most tours only allowed travellers to bring 1 suitcase and 1 carry-on with them. Some even stated the maximum dimensions allowed for the suitcases. They also warned that oversized luggage would have to be stored in their offices, of which they would charge fees for safekeeping. While this was a rule stricter than flying, I found that the driver/guide didn’t go all the way out to check our suitcase sizes.
All our suitcases were stored in a trailer behind the van. If they could all go in, there would be no issues. Some of my tour mates brought 76-inches suitcases and they were fine. That said, it meant that every morning, we had to ensure that we packed all our essentials in our carry-ons. After all, it would be difficult to have to open up the trailer and unload our suitcases only to fish out something we had left in the suitcases.
Aurora Tours
Booking tours at Tromsø was a more straightforward affair, since our objective was clear – catch the northern lights. We had planned to stay in Tromsø for 5 nights. The aurora tours were booked for the 3rd and 4th nights. Since the tours guarantee a make up tour if we failed to see the aurora, the 5th night was set aside for the make up tour. Or a 3rd aurora tour. The itinerary was kept flexible for all possibilities.
I had shared in my other post my experience with the 2 aurora tours. I was lucky enough to have found 2 packages with different tour experiences. It could be intimidating trying to make a decision based on the online reviews. After all, each package cost more than USD150. It was also the reason why we planned to stay in Tromsø for so many nights, even though catching the aurora in Tromsø is almost a given. If both tours were disappointing, we still had the chance to purchase a 3rd one last minute. But oh well, we had such a spectacular display of aurora on both nights, there was no need to activate our Plan B!
Our aurora tours:
- Polar northern light chase from Tromsø by minibus by Polar Adventures
- Northern Lights Minibus Chase by Pukka Travels
Day Tour in Tromsø – Dog Sledding, Ice Domes Guided Tour & Reindeer Visit by Norwegian Travel
We also planned for a day tour to experience Tromsø’s winter landscape. Among snowshoe hiking, snow mobile, reindeer sledding and husky sledding, we chose the latter. The tour took us out of Tromsø to Camp Tamok. Located in the mountains, we could experience the rugged snowscape of Norway while out sledding! We also got to taste the local reindeer stew and interacted with the huskies and the reindeers. We then rounded off the day trip exploring the winter-exclusive ice domes.
Getting Around Reykjavik
Most of the places of interest in Reykjavik are in the city’s downtown. If you are like me, who stayed in Hilton Reykjavik Nordica, which is located on the fringes of downtown, then you would need to take the public transport. To pay for the bus tickets, you would need the Klappið app. From there, you would pay for the tickets using your credit card. One person can also buy tickets for everyone travelling in the same group. One bug though, is that you need to have a local (or a European) sim card installed. The app didn’t work on my phone installed with an esim. Luckily, one of us had bought a physical European sim card and solved our transport woes!
A single bus trip costs around ISK 670 (from Hilton Reykjavik Nordica to Hallgrímskirkja) (USD 5).
Getting Around Tromsø
Tromsø is a small town that could be easily explored on foot. Many people walked across Tromsø Bridge to the Arctic Cathedral, even though the city buses ply both sides of the strait. We also took the city buses to the Northern Norwegian Science Center and Arctic University Museum of Norway in the northern and southern end of Tromsø, respectively. For that, we used the Troms Billet app, where we could buy the tickets online using our credit cards. One person could also buy tickets for everyone in the group using the app. No one actively checks the tickets on the buses, so it was purely an honour system.
The tickets are based on zones. If travelling within a single zone, the ticket cost NOK 44 and one can take unlimited rides within a 90 minute period. By entering the start and end points in the app, you would get the price and time limit for the tickets.
p/s: The Troms Billet app had been decommissioned and replaced by the Svipper app.
Getting Around in Vienna
Most of Vienna’s iconic sights are within its old town. However, if you are like me, who stayed near the airport instead of inside the city at Moxy Vienna Airport, or you visit some sights further out like Schloss Belvedere (Belvedere Palace), then you would need to take the metro, train or the trams. I used the WienMobil app to pay for the tickets on the public transport. For Vienna, a day ticket (EUR 5.80) would suffice for a trip into and around the city, for all transport modes.
Parting Words
Nobody believed me when I said I started planning for my aurora hunting trip 2 years in advance. Granted, I could have signed up for a tour package in Singapore with just half a year in advance and everything would be covered. However, that would take the joy out of planning, and exploring stuff out of the well trodden path.
My adventure took me across the North Sea from Iceland to Norway, in and out of the Arctic circle. There were downs when I just couldn’t see the northern lights for a week despite them flaring right over my head. Then there were the highs when I finally saw the magical parade of lights in the heavens. It was sure one item well ticked off the bucket list! I hope that my travelogues would inspire others and help you in your planning for your own aurora hunting trip. Till then, stay wanderlust!
All photos and videos were taken using Google Pixel 7 Pro, and edited with Google Photos and Snapseed
