Hunting the Northern Lights: Tromso and Alta (Norway)

[ADLhighflyer]

A few weeks ago, I got back from another amazing holiday – this time from the destinations of Tromso and Alta in Northern Norway. The aim of this trip: to try and view the Northern Lights again, whist enjoying the amazing scenery that Northern Norway has to offer!

Planning for this trip started way back in August/September of 2024 with a view to travelling with mum to Norway so she could view the lights and enjoy the scenery as much as I had done in my last visit there back in Nov 2022. She had seen my pictures from that trip and demanded (well, politely requested!) that she must go there to try and have the same northern light success.

The toughest part of the planning was to work out how long and where to stay to maximise the tours and other activities we wanted, and after a bit of searching, found and booked via a Travel Agent an awesome deal of Business Class Melbourne-Tromso return flying Singapore Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines. We ultimately decided on 6 nights in Tromso, followed by 4 nights in Alta, then another 2 in Tromso before flying home. Internal Norway flights were booked with Scandinavian Airlines direct.

Amazing Highlights of the trip included

• Various Northern Lights hunts in the hopes of spotting the lights
• Reindeer Feeding and Sledding
• Snowmobiling to the tri-country border where borders of Norway, Finland and Sweden all meet
• Viewing Tromso from the top Fjellheisen Mountain via Cable Car
• Scenic Tour of the islands of Senja and Kvaløya
• Snowshoeing to a Frozen Waterfall
• Quad biking, with the hope of seeing the lights enroute
• Day trip to the North Cape: the most northern point in continental Europe
• Snowshoeing and Ice Fishing with the (faint) hope of catching lunch
• Day Trip to see the Lyngen Alps

This trip had everything possible you could hope for, with memories to last a lifetime. Please sit back, grab a cuppa and enjoy the journey over the next few weeks

As a side note, like my previous trip report I’ll be keeping a Northern Lights Scorecard where I planned on going out light spotting. Will I see them, or not…. That is the question!

NB: Previous Northern Light Hunting Trip Reports from Iceland, Norway and Germany in Nov/Dec 2017 Here and Rovaniemi, Tromso and Iceland Nov 2022 Here

 

[ADLhighflyer]

THE PLANNED ITINERARY

15/03 MEL-SIN-CPH (SQ), CPH-TOS (SK)

22/03 TOS-OSL-ALF (SK)

26/03 ALF-TOS (SK)

28/03 TOS-OSL-CPH (SK), CPH-SIN-MEL (SQ)

 

[VPS]

Following with excitement

 

[Gladstone Tim]

Following along. Interested in the cost of the SQ fare.

 

[Seat0B]

I’m also very interested in your TR

 

[burmans]

Following, we tried to see the Northern Lights in Tromso January last year but the weather didn’t oblige!

 

[Dmac59]

Following with interest.

 

[SydneySwan]

Planning a trip to Norway later this year so very keenly following.

 

[ADLhighflyer]

Following with excitement

Following along. Interested in the cost of the SQ fare.

I’m also very interested in your TR

Following with interest.

Planning a trip to Norway later this year so very keenly following.

Looking forward to sharing this with you all!

Following, we tried to see the Northern Lights in Tromso January last year but the weather didn’t oblige!

Tromso weather can be very hit and miss - it certainly wasn't on the kind side for when we arrived!

 

[ADLhighflyer]

THE PLANNING

Planning of this trip took a little while to get sorted, as the hardest part was trying to figure out when to go, and also the dates to pick.

Given one of the key criteria was to hopefully see the Northen Lights, planning started around the equinox which was on March 20th, and from there trying to work out the best combination of dates for the trip that was ultimately booked.

The Long Haul Flights in some ways were easier, given the variety of options from Melbourne (or from elsewhere in Australia if required to pre-position) – Europe. I vaguely remembered SAS offered flights, codesharing on Singapore Airlines (this was before the change from Star Alliance to SkyTeam). Believe it or not, we eventually were able to lock in flights MEL-SIN-CPH-TOS, and TOS-OSL-CPH-SIN-MEL with the MEL-SIN-CPH legs booked with Singapore Airlines (SK Flight Numbers) for $6000 each return – all confirmed in Business Class (SQ Legs) and SAS Plus (SK Legs) and is well worth considering for any trip up into Scandinavia. For us, this was a bargain! Stopovers in Singapore were approx. 3hrs each way, with Copenhagen only 1hr on the way over, and 90mins on the return.

Also to add into the mix, was that various tours in both Tromso and Alta were filling up and the price of accommodation was going upwards 6 months out (we think due to an event in Tromso), and the famous Finnmark Race (Europe’s longest Dog Sled Race) that finished in Alta that day we arrived.

Long story short, we ultimately booked accommodation at the following as these best worked with out plans in terms of availability, cost and space:

• 2 bedroom apartment at Skaret by Vander in Tromso
• Scandic Alta
• Comfort Hotel Xpress in Tromso

Furthermore, dates were chosen around specific tours that were considered “must do” as some of these didn’t run everyday (Snowmobiling, North Cape), and also had to allow time at the end of the trip for anything that had to change mid trip as a backup.

Internal Flights were another problem that was worked around. Flights from Tromso – Alta are direct, but generally either run in the late afternoon on a Dash 8 (Wideroe), or very late (9pm/10pm or so) on SAS/Norwegian. Instead, we booked a 6am flight Tromso – Oslo with a connecting flight to Alta that would arrive around 12pm in SAS’s Premium Economy “SAS Plus” that would give us lounge access. Return flight was easier to book Alta-Tromso direct as that left at 0730 and arrived in Tromso some 40mins later leaving the entire day to do whatever we pleased. Given the short flight, the cheapest fare was booked.

Of course, nothing ever runs smoothly and just after booking the Tromso-Alta flight SAS sent us a schedule change which meant out flights from Tromso-Oslo-Alta (0615-1210) would ultimately change to 1040-1855 with a 4 hour layover in Oslo. Thankfully had the lounge access, so it wasn’t all bad – at least we were getting there on the day we had planned on (a later flight ex Tromso was offered, but chose to take the earlier one in case of delays).

So in the end, we managed to book a holiday which ensured the following:

• Business Class return flights to Tromso and back
• Maximised Day Trip availability for what we wanted
• Maximised opportunities to see the lights
• Booked accommodation at very reasonable rates
• Worked internal flights around the busy schedule
• And somehow left time spare as a backup

Exhausted reading this? I am already – and this trip hasn’t even started yet!


Now to let the real fun begin!