While in Reykjavik, Iceland, we knew we needed to go search for the Northern Lights, and it took us a couple of attempts to find them.

What are the Northern Lights?

The Northern Lights (and the Southern Lights) are a phenomenon that occur in large part due to Earth’s magnetic field. You might also know them by the name “aurora”.

As you might suspect already, explosions on the sun are the driving force. These explosions are quite massive, which is easy to overlook given the size of the sun. Some of these explosions can be as large as 10 earths. Recall that the sun can fit somewhere in the range of 1 million earths, so it’s a very small explosion for the sun but it’s massive for us.

Auroras occur when energy from the solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field, funneling electrons down magnetic field lines toward the poles. This energy can take as long as 48 hours to reach us. Earth’s atmosphere is mostly comprised of nitrogen and oxygen, which are the gases that interact with these electrons in the upper atmosphere. This interaction causes the gases to glow in different colors. These are visible to the naked eye as long strands that almost dance in the sky.

The light show doesn’t remain stationary in the sky. No two people will get the same photo of the aurora because it’s always changing.

When is the best time to see them?

The auroras actually can be present at any time of the day but you’re not going to see them when the sun is present. Auroras simply aren’t strong enough to be noticeable during daytime. In fact, you need to wait until the dead of night to see them. That can mean not seeing them until +/- 1 hour from midnight (11PM to 1AM). There also needs to be no cloud coverage as the lights occur far above the clouds.

The sun also operates on an 11-year solar cycle and goes through periods of high solar activity (maximum) and low solar activity (minimum). The last solar minimum was in December 2019, which means the next minimum should be around 2030-2031. We’ve already passed solar maximum, roughly in late 2024, and thus solar activity will be diminishing until it reaches the solar minimum.

Even at a solar minimum, you can still see auroras in the sky. They might not be as vibrant as during the maximum because solar activity is below average.

Where are some popular places to see the Northern Lights in Iceland?

Of course, to be able to see the Northern Lights, you need to be near the Arctic Circle. That means just a handful of countries that can easily see the auroras in the Northern Hemisphere: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, Russia, United States (Alaska), and Canada. In reality, Iceland is just a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, but auroras are still visible there.

For this post, we’ll limit our discussion to popular places to view the Lights in Iceland. Some people take a boat out into the water at night to see them from the ocean. The benefit of doing that would be to be able to move someplace where the cloud coverage is acceptable. But what about the rest of us?

Around Reykjavik, there are a couple of popular spots:

• Between Reykjavik and Keflavik (the airport)
• Near to Þingvellir National Park

Outside of Reykjavik, there are some other options for you:

• Snæfellsnes Peninsula along the west coast
• Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon on the southwest end of the island
• Lake Mývatn or Goðafoss in the north

You want somewhere away from the lights of civilization during a period of clear weather so you have the best chance of seeing the auroras in the night sky.

Wherever you go, bring warm shoes! You might be forced to stand in the snow if in the winter. You want to be outside enjoying the lights, not in the car trying to warm your feet.

It’s important to remain flexible

Tour companies like to “guarantee” that you’ll see the Northern Lights. The odds of seeing them on any given night are high enough that they feel comfortable making that promise. But a guarantee doesn’t actually mean you will see them. It just means if you don’t see them one night, you can rebook to see them for free on a different night.

Whether you choose to use a tour company, maximize your actual odds of seeing the lights by attempting to see them from the first night you’re in town.

That’s what we did on our first night, using Iceland Everywhere Tours (not sponsored). Other tour companies send large buses out to pick up dozens of passengers, but this company instead focuses more on small groups. The smaller vehicle not only gives more of a personal experience, but it can also drive to locations that buses cannot.

During the first night, they were still operating on winter hours (pick up around 8:45PM), but true darkness didn’t occur until closer to 10:45PM, so we had some time to kill waiting around.

Out until past 1AM, we never ended up seeing the auroras that evening. If you want “odds” on this happening, it was our driver’s first night this year (meaning in 3 months) of not seeing any aurora. There was another driver of a different van (same company) who missed it one other time this year. In other words, it’s common but it’s hard to get a true statistical probability (unclear how many nights they did tours). They also proactively cancel tours when the weather doesn’t permit viewing.

We were in Iceland for 5 nights, and the first was a failure. They let us know to not reschedule for the next night because the weather would force another date anyways. I didn’t want to stay up late on the third night because I would be driving for hours on the next morning (Golden Circle). Thus, I settled on the fourth night–and that was similarly canceled due to weather. Our last night in town had to be it if we were going to see it. Can you see why it’s important to remain flexible?

If at all possible, if you’re attempting to see the Northern Lights, do not schedule a flight for first thing in the morning. You’ll appreciate it if you need to stay up late that evening unplanned.

What camera settings are best to capture the Northern Lights?

There are two options for you to take photos of the Northern Lights. You can either use your cell phone or an actual camera. If you use your phone, the automatic settings can be enough to take beautiful pictures of the aurora. Just make sure your flash setting is off. As you might see below, you can get some great pictures from just your cell phone. No big purchase is necessary to bring home the memories. This photo was from my Apple iPhone 15 Pro.

What about if you want to use a camera? We’d recommend the following equipment:

• Your preferred camera
• A tripod
• A low-light camera lens
• An intervalometer

On top of that, you’ll want to set your ISO fairly high (between 800 and 3200), aperture between f/2.8 and f/5.6, and shutter speed as long as possible.

I brought my camera and tripod but (newbie mistake) didn’t have a low-light camera lens. That rendered my camera practically useless. However, the tour operator brought his own camera setup and took some of the photos below. This is a similar shot to the one I took with my cell phone, but you can see more of the purple in the aurora. It also lights up the sky more.

Thus, you could “get by” with your cell phone, but you’re going to have a hard time getting people in your photo if you want to also be in it. Here’s an example of taking a photo with someone else in it taken with a cell phone (thanks for volunteering, Jenn). Notice how blurry she appears, and I wasn’t even attempting to take a picture of her face.

Meanwhile, here is the picture with the proper camera setup.

Bottom line: if you want to just take pictures of the Northern Lights and not of people, you’re fine just bringing your phone. If you want pictures that include you in them, you’ll need a better camera than just your phone alone. There are some phone apps that can change some of the settings manually to simulate real camera features, but we just used the default camera app.

Is there anything to know when bringing children?

On our attempts and judging from other bus tours that passed by, there simply are not many children on these tours. That’s not to say that it’s a bad activity for the kids. It’s potentially a once-in-a-lifetime experience and children probably haven’t yet built up that expectation and drive to go see it.

Additionally, these tours happen late at night. For the most part, you need to wait until 11PM to have the hopes of seeing anything unless you’re here in the dead of winter (and even then, it still might require you waiting until 10PM). Then, after you start at 11PM, you’re going to be out until 1AM. I think it’s safe to say that most children are going to have trouble staying up that late.

If you choose to use a tour company, we’d recommend picking a smaller company. You’re more likely to find a driver who is willing to accommodate the little ones. Also, don’t feel bad if your little one has trouble staying awake. This is the real reason parents don’t bring their children–they might fall asleep and stay asleep despite your attempts at waking them. Look at Char in the photo below. She just couldn’t stay awake and refused our attempts. We have no idea if she saw anything, but she was there at least!

You might need to go into and out of the vehicle frequently during the excursion. It’s cold outside (around -3°C) but warmer in the car. Use it to your advantage and don’t be ashamed–plenty of adults on our excursion were doing it too.

Closing thoughts

Seeing the Northern Lights is on the “bucket list” for many and is one of the big drivers of people wanting to come to Iceland. It’s important to remain flexible as much as possible to give yourself the best chance of seeing them during your visit. We’d recommend starting with the day you arrive and give yourself some wiggle room in case you aren’t successful. That means not scheduling an early-morning flight out (in case it needs to be the night before you depart) and not doing other late-night activities.

You don’t need to take an organized tour but consider the following:

• Are you comfortable driving late at night where there are potentially no road markers, especially if covered with snow?
• Can you stay awake late at night to drive, even if you need to do it multiple nights in a row?
• Do you know where to go to find breaks in cloud cover and away from other light sources?

People have been injured watching the auroras (not realizing they’re standing on a road and a passing car hits them). For that reason and all the above, we went with a tour company and thought it was money well-spent.

Of course, you could just go to Principal Skinner’s kitchen and see it there.

Have fun hunting for the Northern Lights!

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Springtime in the Land of Fire and Ice
• A Nice Time at the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse LAX
• Simple But Effective: Virgin Atlantic 787-9 Upper Class LAX-LHR
• Sofitel London Heathrow: Great for LHR Terminal 5
• Now With a Nice Kids Area: British Airways Galleries South
• The Reykjavik EDITION: Simple Luxury But Not Perfect
• The Steakhouse (Steikhúsið): A Great Spot in Reykjavik
• Northern Lights in Iceland: What to Know and How to Find (this post)