travelheinz_austria

We are an Austrian travel loving couple. At one point my wife and me set up a bucket list. What to do until we might become a proper family. One thing we put into that list was, seeing the Northern Lights once. So we searched for the best opportunity to spot the Lights and on Facebook we came a cross the NYT article about surfing the Arctic under Northern Lights. After reading it, things developed pretty fast and we found us sitting in an airplane going up to the North of Norway. We rented a camper van from Arctic Campers. We got a small, fully prepared for winter driving camper van. The car had 4 wheel drive and spiked tires. Absolutely essential the parking heater, which worked spotless and kept us by even -18 degrees Celsius always in comfort. We drove from Tromso towards the Lyngen Alps. A massive mountain area close to the Finnish border. Already in the first night we have seen Northern Lights. We slept close the a place called Skibotn, recommended by one of the camper rental guys. They also introduce us into their guide, which was very helpful. I tried to take pictures of the lights but I did not thought about bringing a tripod, which is absolutely necessary to capture the Aurora. I placed my camera onto the campers roof. Which worked out more or less, but the wind had still some impact on my pictures. The second night we drove back to Tromso for doing some sightseeing in the day time. We can strongly recommend to try the cable car. You will have an amazing few from up there, even if you have at this time in the year just kind of a twilight. We also went into the Polaria, great place to find out about the nature in this part of the Arctic region. But after the first night, we totally got into the Northern Light hunting fever. After the sky became pitch black, we drove out of the city again, so we have no city lights taking the few. Also this time we followed the guide made by the camper rental company. We drove all the way on a mountain top close to Rekvik. This place was amazing but also defiantly 3 to 4 degrees colder then down in the Fjords. Some minutes after our arriving a massive Northern Lights show up and after watching it for 2 hours, we prepared our dinner under the lights. During the night a small guided group showed up, all have been photographers. Everybody taking the same picture, which made us laugh somehow. One of the guys came over and had a look to our camper and said, that he might do that kind of traveling up here next time. On our last day we made a pre booked whale safari. In the morning the wind became rather strong and I became sea sick from the first minute on board. But according to my wife, we had some encounters with Orcas and Humpback whales, not far from the coast. We spent our last night in the camper close to Whale Safari place. I needed some time to recover but according to my wife, also this night some Northern Lights appeared on the night sky. We returned the camper this morning and now we have another night in a Hotel in the center of Tromso. After 3 days in a camper, a warm shower is not that bad. We are staying in the City Living Hotel. Room and facilities are ok and for Norwegian Standard I guess the price worth. So lets see what the day will bring...

We have been very happy with renting a camper van and I promised Henning from Arctic Campers (www.arcticcampers.no) to write a review about our tour with the camper. But I also want to let you guys know that the region of Tromso is absolutely worth visiting, also in Winter. And who ever wants to see the Northen Lights, Tromso is definitely the place to be. But avoid to stay in the city, you have a lot of street lamps which takes the intensity of the Aurora Borealis. When we are home I will ad some pictures to this post!

FuryFluffy

Thank you for the trip report, I'm looking for your pictures. I'll note down the name Tromso for my future trip. Glad you caught the Northern Light, and saw some whales.