I think the hardest part of any journey is getting past the thick wall of assumptions we tend to put in our own way. Before I decided to make a mad dash to Sweden to see the Northern Lights, I was like most people: I thought it was a distant dream, had absolutely no idea where to begin planning, and assumed it must cost a fortune. It was only after I actually set off that I realized I had been the one holding myself back. Whether you make a dream come true can hinge on a single, mysterious decision.
So I’ve put together the basic itinerary and budget for my independent trip to see the Northern Lights in Sweden and visit Stockholm.Chasing the Northern Lights is nowhere near as difficult as you imagine!
A sneak peek at the trip highlights >>A Northern Light Appeared Out of Nowhere! Welcoming 2016 in Sweden’s Arctic Circle
After I returned to Taiwan, my friends seemed to have been dazzled by all those shimmering auroras and started asking about my itinerary and costs. Perhaps seeing me head off to watch the Northern Lights despite my empty pockets and steadily shrinking bank balance made them think I’d won the lottery! “Northern Europe” and “the Northern Lights” both sound synonymous with “expensive,” so “chasing the Northern Lights in Northern Europe” naturally sounds doubly expensive. One young reader even asked whether a trip like this would cost NT$300,000, so I figured I needed to clear things up (just kidding)—I probably couldn’t scrape together that much money even if I tried! *sob*After all, it somehow feels as though seeing the Northern Lights ought to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and budget is often the yardstick we use to measure the distance between ourselves and our dreams. But the Northern Lights in Sweden are much, much closer than you think!
That said, this was an independently planned trip, and everyone has different standards and preferences when it comes to travel. Your budget will also vary according to your choices, so I’ll list the basic planning and costs for chasing the Northern Lights, along with the extra options I chose, for reference:
If all you want is to head straight to Sweden’s Arctic Circle to see the Northern Lights, with eight days of leave,NT$50,000 is enoughto cover round-trip transportation from Taiwan and four days and three nights of accommodation in the Arctic Circle!I’m not joking, and you don’t need any special skills. NT$50,000 really is enough to make your aurora dream come true. Don’t you feel like packing your bags already?
As for me, I spent three extra days in Stockholm and stayed one night in a dome-shaped snow igloo in Kiruna, making the trip twelve days in total. I chose some distinctive accommodation, ate at several Swedish restaurants, and generally lived in Sweden without being especially frugal. Even if you copied my entire itinerary and shopping, you would still spend less than NT$90,000.
Only ten days passed between deciding to see the Northern Lights and boarding the plane with my luggage. It felt utterly frantic and crazy at the time, but the things I had to arrange were really no different from any other trip.Once transportation, accommodation, and internet access are sorted out, there’s little else to worry about. Ten days was tight, yet still more than enough. One thing is certain: talking yourself hoarse and dreaming all you like can’t compare with simply making up your mind and doing it.All it takes is one burst of impulse and determination. If I could pull it off in ten days, chasing the Northern Lights is no dream!
Geography and Route Planning
Whenever I start planning a trip to a new country, I always open a map first to see what the country looks like. A map also makes it easier to picture the distances and relative positions of different places. That’s why I saytravel is like walking through a geography textbook! Geographically speaking, Sweden is about 12 times the size of Taiwan and lies in northern Europe. Forests cover 64% of the country, while most of its population is concentrated in the south. Nearly the entire western side hugs Norway, the east and south face the sea, and the northeast borders Finland. This means northern Sweden is actually surrounded by land belonging to Norway and Finland and is not Europe’s northernmost landmass.
The capital, Stockholm, is in southeastern Sweden and consequently has a relatively warmer climate. The part of northern Sweden within the Arctic Circle is known as Lapland. Its largest city is Kiruna, which has a domestic airport and a railway station.Abisko National Park, a renowned destination for viewing the Northern Lights, is also in Lapland. It has a railway station and lies quite close to Norway.
The Northern Lights were the clear purpose of this trip to Sweden, with a few days in Stockholm added on the side. The first thing I fixed in place was the aurora-chasing portion: four days and three nights in Abisko National Park. I then used the available round-trip flights between Taiwan and Stockholm, plus transportation schedules between Stockholm and the Arctic Circle, to determine the dates and number of days in each destination.
The rough itinerary for twelve days—eight of them actually spent in Sweden—was:
2015/12/30–2015/12/31 Evening flight from Taipei to Stockholm, Sweden, with a connection in Istanbul, Turkey
2016/1/1–2016/1/3 Stockholm’s Old Town and city center
2016/1/4 Fly from Stockholm to Kiruna in the Arctic Circle
2016/1/5–2016/1/7 Join Lapland Trip’s Arctic adventure in Abisko National Park
2016/1/8 Noon flight from Kiruna back to Stockholm
2016/1/9–2016/1/10 Afternoon flight from Stockholm back to Taipei, with a connection in Istanbul, Turkey
Whether you need a detailed sightseeing plan depends on your personal habits. This time, I casually borrowed just one Sweden guidebook from the library, but it spent almost the entire twelve-day trip sitting inside my suitcase, contributing only to my arm-strength training. I went with the flow and followed local recommendations, carrying a Wi-Fi device so I could check maps whenever necessary.Once I let go of the guidebook framework of “must-see” places, there was no disappointment or regret. Instead, everything became an unexpected discovery, leaving me content and delighted.。
Things to Know Before Visiting Sweden
Language:Although Sweden has its own language, Swedish,Swedes generally speak exceptionally good English. Ask a bus driver for directions and they’ll answer your question in fluent English; practically anyone can chat with you in English. There is absolutely no need to worry about a language barrier when traveling independently in Sweden.
Currency exchange:Banks in Taiwan let you exchange New Taiwan dollars directly for Swedish kronor. I exchanged mine in advance usingBank of Taiwan’s online currency-exchange service, but credit cards are actually accepted almost everywhere in Sweden. I think markets may be the only places that don’t take them. When I calculated everything from my credit-card statement after returning home, I found that the card exchange rate had actually been better (cash exchanged in Taiwan at 1:4, versus roughly 1:3.87 by credit card at the time). Unless you exchange cash while the rate is low, if you have a card whose rewards exceed the foreign transaction fee—mine was a Yuanta Diamond Card, offering 2.2% cashback on overseas purchases, which directly offset the 1.5% foreign transaction fee—I wholeheartedly recommend swiping that credit card away。
Transportation Planning
Flights to Sweden may actually be the cheapest among the world’s seven best destinations for seeing the Northern Lights.
Because my plans were so last-minute, though, I first tried my usual fare-comparison websiteSkyscannerbut couldn’t find any cheap round-trip flights to Sweden. The lowest fares were still nearly NT$40,000. Even after searching several different flight-comparison sites, the best I found was an incredibly cheap China Airlines promotion at under NT$20,000 round trip. Heartbreakingly, my dates were so completely sold out that even business class was gone, making my resolve waver for a moment!
In the end, I charged straight into a Lion Travel branch to ask about fares and foundTurkish Airlines, which spared me from eating dirt for quite so long. So when comparing prices, be sure to try multiple channels. Lion Travel’s prices fluctuate slightly each day because of taxes.My round-trip ticket from Taipei to Stockholm came to NT$25,666(the fare was actually about the same when purchased directly from the Turkish Airlines website). That beautiful price instantly cemented my decision to go. Turkish Airlines had only launched its direct Taipei–Turkey route the previous year, and its fares seemed consistently affordable, with an extensive European network. After flying with them, I found both the meals and service excellent value. Following Vietnam Airlines, which carried me on my first trip to Europe, Turkish Airlines became my new favorite. It truly is a high-value choice I can recommend!
Once the flight from Taipei to Sweden was sorted out, the next step wastransportation from Stockholm to the Arctic Circle.
To reach Abisko, one option is tofly to Kiruna Airport, then purchase an airport transfer to Abisko from your guesthouse host. A one-way flight from Stockholm to Kiruna usually costs about NT$2,000 to just over NT$3,000. Since these are low-cost flights, booking earlier generally means paying less.With baggage included, a round trip costs roughly NT$5,000–6,000. The flight takes about one and a half hours, followed by a little over an hour in the airport shuttle,so you can arrive in around three hours altogether。
Another option is totake the train directly from Stockholm to Abisko station, an 18-hour overnight journey. A seat costs 595 Swedish kronor one way (about NT$2,400), and sleeping berths are also available (600–749 kronor one way). You can budget under NT$6,000 for a round trip, and the guesthouse is only a three-minute walk from the station.
I didn’t know the train was an option when planning the trip, so I booked a Norwegian Air round trip for a little over NT$9,000. Taking the train would let you enjoy the scenery outside, experience a European sleeper train, and save the cost of one night’s accommodation, making it a genuinely attractive option. Of course, if flights and trains cost about the same on your dates,I strongly recommend using a different mode of transportation in each direction. Seeing the Arctic Circle’s snowy landscape from ground level and from the sky offers two very different views.
>> For train tickets, visit theofficial Swedish railway website>> Recommended flight-comparison websitesSkyscanner
Add it all up, andjust over NT$30,000 covers transportation all the way from Taipei to Sweden’s Arctic Circle. No wonder it is ranked among the best places to see the Northern Lights!
Accommodation and activities are introduced next in two sections: the Northern Lights and Stockholm.
Abisko Accommodation and Activities
Within Sweden’s Arctic Circle, the standout destination has to beAbisko National Park. Because this area lies farther north (well, duh) and has little light pollution, it is a popular base for viewing the Northern Lights.It is said that “if you stay three nights, you’ll see the aurora on two”, so of course you should stay at least three nights. We were incredibly lucky and saw it on all three!
For our three nights in Abisko, we stayed at Abisko Guesthouse(2018.8 update: I later heard that the guesthouse owner had developed many greedy and unreasonable practices in recent years—for example, assigning arbitrary room types regardless of what guests booked, refunding only half the fee when too few people signed up for their tours and the tours were canceled, or aggressively pushing the tours they wanted to sell by falsely claiming that other tours were full. I therefore no longer recommend staying here.)，Not only was it the best-value accommodation in the Abisko area, it was just a three-minute walk from Abisko station. There was a supermarket directly opposite where guests could buy ingredients and cook for themselves to save on food, and the guesthouse offered a variety of polar tours that could be booked on-site. The owner, Klas, was also very kind. More importantly, there was even aTaiwanese representative stationed in Abisko—Frank, a master aurora photographer who had studied and lived in Sweden for eight years (his title is so long I can’t finish typing it). Hearing the comforting sound of Taiwanese Mandarin in the polar wilderness could not have been more reassuring!(2018.8 update: Because Frank disagreed with Abisko Guesthouse’s conduct, he also moved his office to Abisko Mountain Lodge.)
(Thanks to famously kind-hearted Frank for providing the photo at the upper right.)
Abisko Guesthouse offered a wide range of room types, making it easy to choose according to your preferences and budget. Its cheapest single room cost 795 kronor per night (about NT$3,100; this was the price in early 2016. Prices may change each year, so refer to the official rates)，Who knew that three nights in the Arctic Circle could cost less than NT$10,000!
>> Official Abisko Guesthouse website >> Booking information and reviews on Booking.com
(2018.8 update: Abisko Guesthouse’s accommodation prices have also risen outrageously in recent years. The cheapest option is now a shared room at Abisko.net. Other accommodation options in Abisko are listed below.)
– Abisko Mountain Lodge(The hotel includes breakfast; guests staying in cabins can cook.)
– Abisko.net(Shared kitchen and free sauna.)
– Abisko Turiststation STF(Farther away, but with an excellent setting; the only hotel, hostel, and cabins located inside Abisko National Park!)
– Bjorkliden Hotell Fjället(Farther away, 10 kilometers from Abisko, but next to a ski resort, with views of frozen Lake Torneträsk and beautiful scenery.)
– Abisko guesthouse(Consider this one if all the places above are fully booked.)
The accommodation list comes from Lapland Trip. For detailed Abisko planning information, see Laplandtrip QA
Beside Abisko Guesthouse is a lake with no light pollution, making it an excellent place to watch the Northern Lights. It is only a ten-minute walk away, and you may have the chance to see the aurora there(2018.8 update: Abisko Mountain Lodge, Abisko.net, and the Guesthouse are all very close together, so guests staying at the first two can also walk to the lake). But if you want truly spectacular aurora photos, I highlyrecommend joiningFrank’s aurora photography tour. He checks the expected aurora activity in advance, then drives everyone to suitable locations for viewing and photographing it. He can alsoteach you in Chinese how to adjust your camera settings for the best aurora photographs—even portraits beneath the Northern Lights(if I had to listen to camera terminology in English, I’d probably roll around clutching my head in the snow). Professional equipment and the tripod essential for aurora photography are available to borrow, so you don’t necessarily have to haul one thousands of kilometers and sacrifice precious luggage weight. Thanks to Frank, I returned without any regrets about my aurora photos from those few days! (The three-hour aurora photography tour was priced at 995 kronor per person in 2016/1; this was the price in early 2016. Prices may vary by year and season, so check the official website for the latest rates.)
[ What I really want to recommend is his frozen beard. It’s unbelievably cool! ]
For an aurora trip from Taiwan to Sweden with three nights in the Arctic Circle,we have now covered flights, transportation, accommodation, and one aurora photography activity—and the total is still under NT$50,000!It was only after taking this trip that I began to believe:“Where there’s a will, anyone can dash off to see the Northern Lights!”」
During these four days in Abisko, there were many other activities found only in polar regions or with a distinctly Swedish flavor, including snowmobiling, aurora-viewing reindeer BBQs, whale watching, and moose spotting. Abisko Guesthouse ran its own tours and could also book activities offered by other companies, such as ice fishing, ice climbing, or dog sledding—all things I really wanted to try. You could arrange everything entirely according to your interests, making this ahighly flexible, semi-independent way to travel. Of course, if you have some ideas of your own but would like professional advice, you can also ask the remarkably fluent Chinese speaker (huh?) fromLapland Trip Arctic Adventures, Frank, to help plan your trip.
>> For activities and prices, see the official Abisko Guesthouse website>> VisitLapland Trip Arctic Adventuresfor more information
For my polar itinerary in Abisko, I was lucky enough to securea media spot arranged by Lapland Trip Arctic Adventures. It felt like hitting the jackpot and gave this aurora-chasing trip the final push it needed.Frank arranged the following four-day, three-night itinerary for us:
Day 1: Pick-up at Kiruna Airport >Aurora reindeer BBQ(including a snowmobile ride to the lakeside to see the Northern Lights)
Day 2:Day trip to Narvik, Norway > Aurora photography tour
Day 3: We had originally booked snowmobiling in the morning and an aurora snowmobile tour at night, but the temperature fell below -30°C and it was too cold for the tours to operate. Instead, they took us hiking in Abisko National Park.
Day 4:Visit the Ice Hotel> Transfer to Kiruna Airport
We highly recommend every activity above. Based on the prices currently listed on the official website, they cost about 3,935 kronor in total (roughly NT$15,000; this was the price in early 2016. Prices may change each year, so check the official website for the latest rates), excluding airport transfers. That buys you an incredibly full itinerary!
(Thanks to famously kind-hearted Frank for providing the photo.)
Kiruna Accommodation and Transportation
We took a flight that arrived in Kiruna one day early and stayed overnight. Buses and taxis run between Kiruna Airport and the town center. The bus costs 100 kronor each way; with three or more people sharing a taxi, the price is about the same.
Accommodation in Kiruna can likewise be found on booking websites. The two travel companions who arrived in Kiruna with me stayed atHotell Kebne in town, where a night cost about NT$2,000 per person and the quality was quite good.
I chose to spend that night in a dome-shaped snow igloo. I found this unusual accommodation while searching Airbnb. It was in a campground about eight kilometers from Kiruna,and included round-trip transfers from town, a traditional Swedish dinner, breakfast, and the loan of a complete set of heavy-duty winter clothing. Although my room itself was a snow igloo, they also provided a warm cabin common room where I could use the bathroom and relax. Better still, there was anoutdoor hot tub in the snow and sauna facilities. The staff were also extremely friendly. If you ever get the chance, it is genuinely worth experiencing. At about NT$5,500 per night, I thought it was excellent value.
>> Airbnb listing for the winter-only Igloo
>> If this is your first Airbnb booking, you are also welcome to use myreferral linkor coupon codehfeichianto receive a discount of nearly NT$700.
Accommodation in Stockholm
Although prices in Northern Europe are high compared with other European countries, I didn’t find accommodation in Stockholm prohibitively expensive.If you are comfortable staying in hostels, around NT$600 per night can get you a place within 15 minutes of a station in the city center. I particularly wanted to stay in the Old Town, so I booked a bed in a 12-person room for a little over NT$800 per nightCastle House Inn. All these options can be found on hotel-booking or accommodation-comparison websites.
>> Recommended:Booking.com; or useHotelsCombinedto search your destination and compare each hotel’s prices across different booking sites
For two nights, I squeezed into an AirbnbChihthat my travel companion had already booked. The single room allowed one additional guest. Although it was farther from the city center, the price was only a little over NT$900 per person.If you want to keep your budget under control, there is no substitute for spending time searching and comparing!
>> Airbnb website. If this is your first Airbnb booking, you are also welcome to use myreferral linkor coupon codehfeichianto receive a discount of nearly NT$700.
After returning to Stockholm from the Arctic Circle, we had only one night before flying back to Taiwan, so we stayed near Stockholm Airport. I chosethe cheapest and most distinctive option among the area’s transit accommodation: an airplane Backpacker hostel. A bed in a four-person shared women’s room cost about NT$2,000 per night. Stockholm Airport is also famously suitable for spending the night as an airport sleeper, though, so whether you want a quirky stay or prefer to save money is entirely up to you!
>> Booking information and reviews on Booking.com
Wi-Fi: The Modern Traveler’s Lifeline
Our itinerary was very spontaneous. Since we hadn’t made detailed plans, many of the restaurants and attractions we visited—apart from places recommended by locals—came through my travel companion’sChihfriend who had previously lived in Sweden and sent us real-time recommendations over Line or Facebook. We approached everything with a very open-minded “Sure! Let’s take a look,” then checked the address, opened Google Maps, and headed off.Internet access was therefore our lifeline and gave us tremendous flexibility while traveling. As long as we followed Google Maps, there was nothing to worry about!
We arranged a portable Wi-Fi device in Taiwan before departure. This time,we used Global Wifi’s high-data plan for Sweden, which included 500MB of data per day. That was plenty even for a heavy user like me, checking in, uploading photos and videos, and sharing them in group chats. And after putting it through some serious real-world abuse,the signal was still excellent all the way up in the Arctic Circle!
>> An exclusive offer for readers: simply use thisdedicated link to order Global Wifi, and whatever promotion is currently available, you’ll receive an additional 5% discount
Food and Meals
Food in Sweden really isn’t cheap. It is rather likeeating brunch in Taipei, dining at an East District restaurant, and having a feast every single day. A fast-food meal costs about 65–90 kronor. Simple meals, light bites, or cheaper buffet restaurants cost around 90–150 kronor, while at more formal à la carte restaurants serving appetizers and main courses, mains generally cost 150–250 kronor. It all depends on what you order.
Swedish supermarkets also have self-service prepared-food counters, but when you do the math, they aren’t especially cheap either. If your accommodation has a kitchen, buying ingredients and cooking is naturally the best way to control your budget—or you could simply bring more instant noodles from Taiwan and live on those.
For one lunch, we bought a microwavable pie and rice pudding from a supermarket. The meal cost less than NT$100, and for women like us, it was both filling enough and quite tasty.
The Best Time to Visit
The Northern Lights can actually occur at any time, even during the day, so there is no single month or season for them. If you want to see them, your chances are better whenever it is dark and you are somewhere without light pollution. In Abisko, the odds improve from roughly November to April, when the winter sun obediently sets. Late December is polar-night season, so if you still want some daylight each day, you may wish to avoid that period. If you want to take part in other activities on the ice,February and March are more suitable times to visit. By then, both the snow at the ski resorts and the ice on the lakes are thick enough for more activities to open, while the daylight hours are also longer.However, this is also Abisko’s peak season, so it is advisable to book all accommodation and activities well in advance。
As for temperatures, it is impossible to predict them precisely. Our days in the Arctic Circle happened to be the coldest since winter began that year. Previously, temperatures had not dropped below -15°C, but while we were there they fell from -24°C to below -30°C. On the day we left, the weather warmed back up to -18°C, which suddenly felt positively hot (hey!). One curious certainty, though, is that Kiruna is colder than Abisko despite lying farther south. When we experienced -34°C in Abisko, Kiruna had already reached an utterly insane -40°C.
Abisko is also incredibly beautiful in summer. Looking at Frank’s photos, it was hard to imagine that the endless white landscape before us could become so lush, green, and colorful. Summer runs from May to October. The guesthouse owner, Klas, told us that the entire landscape usually changes from green to white within a single week in late September. It is an amazing sight, and itmade me want desperately to see Abisko’s different faces in every season!
As for the best time to visit other parts of Sweden, that depends on the kind of scenery you prefer. Most people avoid winter and visit during the warmer summer months. But although Stockholm was very cold in winter—the temperature during our stay ranged from about 1°C to -7°C—the romance of seeing adorable snow piled on rooftops or standing in the streets of the Old Town with your mouth wide open to catch each falling snowflake is something you simply cannot experience in summer.
As for chasing the Northern Lights in Sweden, I would say it is genuinely worth doing at least once in your life. Even if you have already seen the aurora, the country is worth exploring again and again to discover its changing appearance through all four seasons.
I feel fortunate that I took myself to face the challenges of the polar wilderness while I was still young and at my strongest. Sometimes, the more you think about a dream, the more afraid you become to pursue it. Doesn’t life occasionally call for exactly this kind of spontaneous, drop-everything-and-go impulse?
| Watch My European Legs Go | Chasing the Northern Lights in Sweden series: (Travel dates: 2015/12/30–2016/1/10)
● A Northern Light Appeared Out of Nowhere! Welcoming 2016 in Sweden’s Arctic Circle
● Grab Your Bags and Go: Setting Off in Ten Days to Chase the Northern Lights in Sweden’s Arctic Circle! Independent Planning Is No Dream
● Turns Out Being an Eskimo Isn’t Easy Either: A Night in an Igloo
● My Snow-Weary Adventures in Sweden’s Subzero World—A Polar Survival Guide: Notes on My Snow Clothing and Equipment
● No Matter How Cold It Gets, You Have to See Three Nights of Northern Lights in Abisko, Sweden’s Arctic Circle
● Infiltrating Stockholm’s Viking Restaurant, AIFUR RESTAURANT & BAR, to Be a Pirate for One Night
● Oops—I Accidentally Went from Sweden to Norway: Meeting a Geography-Textbook Fjord in the Town of Narvik
● So Beautiful We Rushed into the Ice Palace: Lying Inside Sweden’s Arctic Circle ICE HOTEL, Built Entirely from Ice
● Stockholm’s ICEBAR: Breaking the Ice over Drinks with Fellow Taiwanese Travelers Brought Together by a Curious Twist of Fate
● Thank You to the Me Who Didn’t Give Up, Letting Me Discover Stockholm’s Hidden Urban Forests Through Running
● A Plane That Only Flies You to Dreamland: Jumbo Stay, the Quirky Hostel Beside Stockholm Airport
