Northern Lights in Sweden

In December 2017, I traveled to Sweden in what was a dream-come-true type of trip. Spending time in Stockholm and Abisko, I left Sweden questioning how long I'd have to wait until I could go back. Long fascinated with the Scandinavian society (I remember reading a book when I was 11 about "cultural norms in Sweden") I found myself feeling calm, safe and sure while I was there. I'll elaborate on this in a future post (probably titled "why I'm moving to Sweden...) but for now, read on for a trip report and how to if you want to travel above the arctic circle and try your luck seeing the Northern Lights in Sweden. 

Abisko is a town of 150 people that lies 200km north of the arctic circle. It's about an hour and a half from the nearest airport, in Kiruna, Sweden, and you can reach Kiruna via Stockholm or Olso on Scandinavian or Norwegian Airlines. Flights are generally inexpensive, around 200 USD return. From Kiruna, you can arrange a transfer (tip: pre-book this, there are not many seats available and there are only a handful of transfers per day). The transfer costs around 50 USD, one way. Alternatively, there's a bus or a train that will take you into Abisko, although neither are direct options and in the depths of December, when I was there, this wasn't an appealing option. 

Once in Abisko, there are a couple of hotels to stay in and a hostel. We opted for the hostel under the assumption that no matter where we stayed, we'd be somewhat "roughing it" and figured we'd save the nicer places for Stockholm. Through any of your accommodation choices, you can arrange activities and northern lights tours, however, these fill up very fast, so I advise planning this out well in advanced. I learned that my normal "go with the flow" travel style doesn't fit well with Sweden as a few of the things we were interested in were full by the time we went to book. This left us to resorting to awkward and desperate measures, including messaging our transfer driver on Tinder asking if he would drive us to Norway, among another things. Spoiler alert: he didn't have a car but he advised us on how to get there via train, very nice guy!

In terms of the Northern Lights, you don't need to arrange a tour to see them, as when they are visable, they light up the sky above the entire town. The decision to participate in a tour should depend on if you personally have a professional camera + tripod or not, because if so, you can absolutely just walk around the town of Abisko and see the lights in all their glory and snap as many photos as you want.

For those of you without professional gear, Lights Over Lapland is an incredible company that hosts photography and wildlife tours nightly. We opted for the "wilderness" tour, which included a snowmobile ride out into the forest. Once we got to a clearing, our guide, Chris, gave each of us a camera and tripod to set up where we wanted and instructed us on how to best capture the auroras in our pictures. It was a bit cloudy this night, but we still managed to see the lights for about 45 minutes. Chris was great about going around to everyone and making sure that we felt comfortable with the equipment and were happy with the photos. When it got unbearably cold, we were able to step into the tent where there was a fire going and warm up with some lingonberry juice. So Swedish. 

I learned that Abisko is considered the best place in the world to see the auroras because they have an 80% visibility rating. This is due to Abisko being surrounded by mountains which help to break up the cloud coverage, creating a micro-climate. It can be snowing heavily in Kiruna, for example, and be perfectly clear in Abisko at the same time. We stayed three nights and saw the Northern Lights 2 of 3, so I can attest to this first hand. 

The last night in Abisko, we opted to a private tour. We learned of the guide through a girl at our hostel, who said she paid him around 130 USD to drive her around "chasing" the aurora. It was thanks to our guide, Tim, that we were able to watch the aurora from the frozen lake for more than two hours, as he knew it would be a great place to go, since it was far enough from the town that conditions were pitch black. That night we has perfect sky conditions and saw countless shooting stars thanks to a meteor shower that was happening. Tim also pointed out the milky way and a number of constellations to us as we stood there admiring the dancing lights. 

If seeing the Northern Lights has always been on your travel bucket list, I can't reccomend a visit to Abisko, Sweden enough. Not only is it fairly straightforward to arrange, you have the best chance to see them there than anywhere else in the world. While in Abisko, I learned that some people chase the lights for years without any luck, which makes me appreciate my trip to the northern part of Sweden even more.