While we have been running the aurora info service the last couple of years from South Finland, our northern lights holidays would not be very successful down there. So we decided to setup a brand new northern HQ. This is where our aurora tours will be based.
We eventually found a suitable location after a very long and thorough search. Our Northern HQ is located on the most Northern road in Finland, between the towns of Utsjoki and Nuorgam (officially the most northern town in Finland and the whole EU), making us the most northern dedicated aurora company in the EU. Did you expect anything less from us 😉
We chose this location for our northern HQ very carefully, and most importantly, from an aurora chasers perspective (not a money/profit perspective). We had the entire area of Norway, Sweden and Finland to choose our HQ location, and it was not an easy task. We compiled lists of good northern lights locations, great northern lights locations and AWESOME northern lights locations all over Scandinavia. We eventually settled for the AWESOME location, despite it being much more work for us as it is off the beaten track, but it is the best place in the EU for northern lights, so it is well worth the extra work!
We had a very strict list of criteria that had to be met, in order for you to have the absolute best chances of seeing the Northern Lights, but not only that, the location had to meet (or exceed) many other things on our list.
The first and most important criteria of course, was that it had to be very far North to maximise our chances of seeing auroras. The Northern Lights are so called because they are attracted to the North magnetic pole of the Earth. Obviously the closer you can get to the North Pole, your chances of seeing the Northern Lights are boosted incredibly. It doesn’t come much further north than the northern most point in the EU. There is also a small stretch of Norway between us and the Arctic sea, known as the Finnmark region of Norway, which we also drive to chasing the lights. So we actually go beyond the northern most point of the EU.
But don’t take our word for it (that you have to be far north to improve your aurora chances). Have a look at these graphs (called magnetograms) from the geophysical institute. Both graphs are for the entire month of January 2014, the top graph is from Northern Lapland and the bottom one from Southern Lapland:
Northern Lapland
Southern Lapland
Each large spike represents a night of high geomagnetic (aurora) activity. Look how many large spikes are on the top graph compared to the bottom graph. At the end of January in Northern Lapland, there was a large spike every night for 10 days straight, indicating there was likely northern lights shows for 10 nights straight!
Also, quite important is that we have just come out of a Solar Maximum period and are now heading towards a Solar Minimum period. The sun will become quieter and geomagnetic storms will become less frequent. So auroras will not be travelling to southern and middle latitudes of Lapland as much as they have been in the last couple of years. But because we are so far north, we can see auroras when the activity is really low (even level kp0!) so being in solar min shouldn’t affect us much at this high latitude (70° north). We can confidently say that because according to historical geomagnetic data we were studying when we were choosing locations, the last solar minimum period didn’t seem to affect this location at all. There was still significant activity right through the solar min part of the solar cycle.
The second major criteria is that it had to be away from the typical tourist areas, away from cities and away from light pollution. There is no better feeling standing in the wilderness watching the northern lights. As we have been aurora chasers ourselves for many years, we have been doing exactly that alone in the nature. We really want you to experience that feeling, because it is something quite special. If your not out in the wilderness watching the northern lights, your going to lose some of that experience. Likewise if your with a huge group of people or your near a major town/city, you lose something. It’s difficult to put into words. This place is one of the most sparsely populated regions of Lapland. It is a great unspoilt wilderness.
The third most important criteria was cost. We wanted to have a low price for our aurora holidays to make coming to Lapland and witnessing the Northern Lights here more accessible and budget friendly. Finland is very cheap compared to Norway, as we are located in Finland we can keep our costs pretty low in comparison. The real beauty of our location is that on our side of the river, we are in Finland, if you throw a stone across the river, it lands in Norway. That is how close to Norway we are. So we have the beauty of both countries, at the lower cost of Finnish prices. When you go to the supermarket to buy groceries for your cottage, it is a Finnish supermarket, and although the prices are still a little higher than you are used to (if you are from outside Scandinavia), they aren’t silly prices.
We are directly in between 2 main airports, Ivalo airport in Finland and Kirkenes airport in Norway. We offer free collection and drop off to Ivalo airport, so we recommend you fly in to Ivalo airport. All the details of which flights and times to get are here.
The dedicated northern lights holiday in Finland was conceived by us. We are the original!
