What exactly is the aurora? And what is it about seeing the northern lights that feels so magical, drawing people from all over the world to chase them?
To me just a month ago, chasing the northern lights felt like a distant dream—never mind setting foot inside the Arctic Circle, a phrase that sounded practically like outer space. I would look at those dreamy photos online and think, “Someday, I have to see this with my own eyes,” but I had never set any foreseeable date. And then, incredibly, it all came rushing into my life.It was only when this seemingly unreachable, beautiful wish suddenly came true that I realized our dreams may be just one step away—all we have to do is open our arms and hold them tight.
They say, “If you see the northern lights, you’ll be happy for the rest of your life.” I think that’s because the moment you see them is surely one of those heart-stirring, unforgettable moments of happiness you carry with you forever.
Going to Sweden to see the northern lightswas the most epic spur-of-the-moment trip I had ever taken—just how epic was it? (Very epic!) After all, only two months earlier, I had fought off altitude sickness and reached Everest Base Camp in Tibet at 5,200 meters. Now I was actually planning to venture into the Arctic Circle at 68° north and face the unknown at -30°C. Pushing my limits like this twice in two short months was unbelievable even to me! And on top of that,I made the decision just ten days before departure—so physically and mentally, I was completely unprepared.
I was clearly panicking. As an island girl who had only ever lived in temperatures as low as -5°C,I simply couldn’t imagine what it would feel like for my skin to experience a world more than 40°C colder than a Taiwanese winter.Would it be like those childhood rumors, where you twist your ears and noseand give them a lickand they just fall off? Then there was the money. As a law-abiding unemployed citizen who had quit her job and was holed up at home while her bank account drained away like a breached reservoir, deciding whether to fling this much money into the sky was hardly easy. I agonized over it for an entire day… but only that one day.
Making the final decision took a burst of impulse. This time, I let intuition lead me—and that intuition came from values I had built over many years.
Do you habitually pile up reasons to say no, or bravely say yes? Do you value money more, or living in the moment?
In the end, my answer was to go all in without looking back. If we keep the door shut, how can we ever feel the temperature of the world? We fear too much and unconsciously place too many limits on ourselves. Only action can give us the answer!
(The honest version:In the end, my answer was to go all in without looking back. After all, I could just close my eyes while swiping my credit card.)
Over ten frantic days, I booked accommodation, two flights, and bought gear capable of surviving subzero temperatures.Apart from the one certainty—“enter the Arctic Circle and see the northern lights”—I packed for 12 days with no itinerary whatsoever and once again set off on another European leg workout.
My 12-day trip to Sweden required nearly four days of flying round-trip from Taipei to Istanbul to Stockholm. I chose to spend three days and three nights over New Year in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital, then fly into the Arctic Circle and stay there for five days, before returning to Stockholm for one final night to say goodbye to the journey.
We arrived in Stockholm with no particular agenda, and many attractions and shops were closed for the New Year holiday anyway. Since there was “nothing we absolutely had to see,” we simplysurvived on theGlobal Wifi devicewe had arranged in Taiwan(Exclusive reader offer: apply through the link for 5% off Global Wifi.)We relied on it for research and navigation, thentraveled in the footsteps of the locals. Perhaps because we had no itinerary and therefore no expectations, it was easier to delight in a row of tiny animated window displays, feel warmed by a chance encounter with fellow Taiwanese travelers, or be left speechless by breathtaking places whose photos we had never seen beforehand.
Countless unforgettable surprises from the journey, distilled into a few short phrases—
this is not a Sweden travel guide. You won’t find directions or a breakdown of what I spent. This is simply a record of the moments that moved me most deeply along the way.
(→ For independent planning and budgeting for a northern lights trip to Sweden, see this article.)
Arriving in Sweden after a full 24 hours aboard Turkish Airlines
During our layover in Istanbul, Turkey, we were lucky enough to encounter the country’s first snowfall of the year. Despite the biting wind, we excitedly stepped outside the plane to walk in the snow. What we didn’t know was that snow would greet us every day from then on—and Stockholm wasn’t even as cold as Turkey had been that day.
Getting to Sweden means spending a very, very long time inside an airplane cabin. You can do plenty of things, butone thing you absolutely should not do is choose a movie about people freezing to death in an icy wilderness—like Everest.。
I never imagined I would ring in the New Year in Sweden
When I first checked the flights, I didn’t pay much attention to the dates. It wasn’t until just before booking that I suddenly realized I might be chasing midnight and 2016 around from inside an airplane. I had no idea how many years I’d age if I celebrated New Year several times in one day, so I moved my flight forward and arrived in Stockholm on 2015/12/31. At first, we wandered into a lively outdoor celebration, only to notice that everyone around us appeared Eastern European or Arab. Seeing no local faces made us wonder whether we had come to the wrong event, so we decided to leave and go elsewhere. After later reading about the New Year’s incidents in Germany, I was even more grateful that we had trusted our instincts.
We climbed the highest little hill in the city center and watched fireworks erupt all around us. Groups of Swedes held up their glasses and counted down with friends in words we couldn’t understand. Sweden was seven hours behind Taiwan, but I stillfelt deeply grateful to have made it safely through 2015and to be waiting in Sweden for the northern lights to welcome 2016.
Wandering through my beloved Old Town a thousand times
One of the few places I had written down before the trip was the “Old Town,” a district of buildings preserved intact since the 17th century. I had really wanted to come, and after arriving, I walked around it over and over again. Almost every time we visited, the shops were closed, but I simply loved wandering aimlessly among the old buildings. Even window-shopping, admiring one carefully arranged display after another, made me incredibly happy.
Even an outdoor skating rink could keep me watching forever
Passing Kungsträdgården near the Old Town, we discovered that it had somehow become a huge ice-skating rink. It didn’t matter whether you could skate; all you had to do was enjoy yourself. I sank into the atmosphere, listening to the music and watching everyone happily race back and forth across the ice…and fall over. So I came back again the following evening. Just watching made me smile without realizing it. How could happiness have such powerful magic?
Having a drink at ICE BAR with Taiwanese friends we happened to meet on the street
Picking up a cocktail in a glass made of ice from a table made of ice, then chatting while sitting on an ice chair or leaning against an ice wall—being inside ICE BAR, a bar built entirely from ice, was already something special. Even cooler was how we struck up a conversation with a group of Taiwanese people who had been evacuated from a fast-food restaurant earlier when an alarm went off, and then spent our Stockholm ICE BAR NIGHT together.
>> The story of the dazzling ICE BAR and an encounter that broke the ice:Stockholm’s ICEBAR: Breaking the Ice over Drinks with Taiwanese Strangers Brought Together by Fate
Jogging through the snow into a hidden forest
I changed into my running clothes and got ready for a morning jog when it suddenly began snowing outside. It was freezing—should I run or not? I decided to give it a try. If it got too cold, I could always run back… Snowflakes drifted straight into my face. Snow! It was snow! I was actually running through the snow!As an island girl, how many chances would I ever have in my life to jog through the snow like this?A huge smile spread across my face as I ran toward the falling snow, as delighted as a child splashing through puddles.
I happened to ask a couple who were also out running to take a photo for me, and while I was at it, I asked them to recommend a route. That was how I ended up running into this extraordinarily beautiful forest trail, with snow, trees, and a railway. The next day, I brought my travel companions back with me.The best scenery isn’t found in guidebooks. It’s found on foot.
>> The story of this beautiful chance encounter:Thank You to the Me Who Didn’t Give Up and Let Me Discover a Hidden Forest in the City
The record shop that opened just for us
One of my travel companions was a vinyl lover, so we made a special trip to PetSounds, which had been ranked among the world’s ten best record shops. To our disappointment, the door was firmly locked for the New Year holiday and would remain so until after we left. But then the story took a dramatic turn. A man named Marty happened to come in to work during the holiday. We approached him, asked about the shop, and got talking. Somehow, “We’re terribly sorry, but we’re closed” turned into “Come in and have a look! Just you.” Marty, a British guitarist who had his own band and had released 60 records, personally introduced us to music he recommended and even let us buy the records we liked!
A palace brushed by sunset on Drottningholm
I had no particular desire to visit palaces or museums, but an international student living locally recommended that Drottningholm Palace was worth seeing. The very first glimpse of it took my breath away. During winter, when the days are short and the nights long, the sun barely rises at all—but the colors of the sky tell you everything, revealing a beautiful purplish-red sunset at around three in the afternoon.
The Arctic Circle: a snow-white world that completely overturned everything I knew
Before our plane landed at Kiruna Airport inside the Swedish Arctic Circle, the panoramic view below was an endless landscape wrapped in snow, with none of the familiar green in sight. Everywhere we went was white. A temperature of -24°C welcomed us, and each day grew colder than the last.Everything here seemed disconnected from the outside world. More than twenty years of life experience were completely useless here.I wore heavy winter gear unlike anything I had ever needed in Taiwan and stepped across deep, soft snow that swallowed my feet if I wasn’t careful. The sun did not appear until after ten and vanished completely by three. The sky remained painted in the beautiful colors of sunrise and sunset all day.Every glance was beautiful, and every breath was a victory over my own limits.。
Staying in an Eskimo snow house
The image of a domed igloo in my mind belonged in the Arctic Circle’s endless white landscape. Of course, in modern society, people actually live in what we call “houses,” and those adorable domed snow houses have become a tourist experience. Our choice of airfare meant arriving inside the Arctic Circle a day early, so I booked this unusual accommodation on AirB&B and spent an unforgettable night sleeping inside a -5°C refrigerator.
>> The complete story of my emotional journey:Turns Out Being an Eskimo Isn’t Easy Either: Spending a Night in a Domed Igloo
The main event—and, of course, the most unforgettable part—was our northern lights journey
This trip to Sweden was entirely, completely about seeing the northern lights. Following the arrangements of theLapland Northern Lights Hidden Wonderland Tour,we traveled farther north than Kiruna to Abisko National Park, an even better place to see the aurora. During our four-day, three-night stay and itinerary, we were lucky enough to watch the northern lights dance every night, yet each time was just as thrilling. Shivering as we set up our ice-cold cameras, pressing the shutters with frozen hands, then rubbing our fingers and hopping around to warm ourselves back up, we still couldn’t stop marveling at the incredible aurora and sharing the moment with the companions beside us.
(Our northern lights companions from those days, photographed by Frank, Taiwan’s unofficial representative in Abisko and a master photographer.)
Yet the most spectacular aurora explosion happened unexpectedly while we were building a snowman late at night. The unplanned northern lights were even more magnificent, making the experience all the more unforgettable.
>> A moving story beneath the northern lights:No Matter How Cold It Gets, See Three Nights of Northern Lights in Abisko, Sweden’s Arctic Circle
Embraced by the fjords of Narvik, Norway
I hadn’t expected to visit Norway at all. It was actually included in the itinerary, but I had done absolutely no homework for this trip. I figured I would leave everything to theLapland Northern Lights Hidden Wonderland Tour,so when we drove across the border, I was so pleasantly surprised that my excitement went through the roof!
On the other side of that invisible national border was yet another place filled with different cultures, food, and scenery. Standing inside the Norwegian fjords from my geography textbook and gazing at a harbor kept ice-free by warm ocean currents,travel constantly reminds me just how little I know.Every day we open our eyes, we humbly learn from the world.
>> Jump across the border for a story from a small Norwegian town:Oops—I Somehow Went from Sweden to Norway and Found the Fjords from My Geography Textbook in Narvik
ICE HOTEL, where every room is a work of design
If an ice palace is this beautiful, I volunteer to be banished to one. (You’d have to be capable of marrying into a royal palace first.) Ice is originally transparent and colorless, but in the hands of talented designers, it becomes one breathtaking work of art after another. Every one of these rooms is available to stay in, but with prices that high, we settled for visiting and taking photos—which was still so much fun that we never wanted to leave.
>> More photos and information about the 2016 edition of ICE HOTEL:So Beautiful Everyone Wants into the Ice Palace: Lying in Sweden’s Arctic ICE HOTEL, Built Entirely from Ice
Spending a night in an airplane hotel
For our final night back in Stockholm, why not stay right beside the airport…inside an airplane? Sweden has no shortage of quirky accommodation. The polar charm of ICE HOTEL and the igloo goes without saying, but even airplanes, mail ships, and prisons can be turned into places to stay—and they’re all hostels at prices ordinary travelers can afford.All it takes is one small idea transformed into reality—that is the spirit of designing everyday life.。
>> Read about this comfortable airplane:Boarding an Airplane Hotel to Visit the Sandman!
Experiencing Swedish culture through fish soup, cinnamon buns, and a Viking restaurant
Besides the fish soup everyone enthusiastically recommended, cinnamon buns and the Viking restaurant were authentic local specialties I only discovered through recommendations after arriving in Sweden. With no itinerary to follow, every meal could become an entire afternoon or evening’s activity. We sat down over dish after dish made with Swedish ingredients and cooking methods, quietly observing the people who lived in this city,and savoring the flavor of everyday life in Sweden.。
>> A Viking restaurant in Stockholm:Blending in at Stockholm’s Viking Restaurant, AIFUR RESTAURANT & BAR, and Playing Pirate for a Night
Falling in love with the warm candlelight that brightens the dark nights
The sun closes early, just like Swedish shops. Yet while walking through the long winter nights, I found the streets brilliantly lit. Shop-window lights stayed on, and beautiful light decorations hung in the windows of every home. Swedes don’t seem fond of switching on the main ceiling light; instead, they use lots of candles and small lamps to fill every corner of a room with light. Walking along Swedish streets, I loved looking up at everyone’s windows. I finally understood why ikea always has an enormous section devoted to lamps and candles—and I fell in love with the romance of living this way.
Even though I had already left that silent, snow-white world a week earlier, as I lay in my warm bed in Taipei—and 15°C in a Taipei winter really does feel warm—I could close my eyes and still see this journey through Sweden, where the northern lights welcomed 2016 with their blessings. I believe these unique and dazzling scenes from my life will continue replaying before my eyes for years to come.
On that trip three years earlier—85 Days and 16 Countries of Legging It Around Europe—I had skipped every Nordic country because I was worried about the colder weather, the bulky clothes I would need to carry, and the high cost of living. I quietly decided that one day I would take another European leg workout through all five Nordic countries. Since then, however, Europe had not appeared in any of my near-term travel plans. After my trips to Tibet and Kyoto at the end of 2015, I genuinely believed my next journey would not come until the Nagoya Women’s Marathon in March. I had even carefully wiped down my suitcase and put it away in the closet. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would suddenly cut the line and return to Europe. Of the promised five countries, only Sweden appeared. And chasing the northern lights had always been one of those “Ah, someday I absolutely have to see them…but who knows which day?” dreams. Then, out of nowhere, an aurora came streaking into my life, and I fulfilled that dream at the age of 28!
Things will not always go according to plan, but never forget to believe in yourself.
Travel has taught me that every good thing is possible—but if we want the chance to encounter those good things, it all begins with the first step we take ourselves.
| Follow My European Leg Workout | Chasing the Northern Lights in Sweden series: (Travel dates: 2015/12/30–2016/1/10)
● An Aurora Came Out of Nowhere! Welcoming an Extraordinary 2016 in Sweden’s Arctic Circle
● Grab Your Bags and Go: Leaving in Ten Days to Chase the Northern Lights in Sweden’s Arctic Circle! Proof That Independent Planning Isn’t a Dream
● Turns Out Being an Eskimo Isn’t Easy Either: Spending a Night in a Domed Igloo
● My Snow-Weary Tale of Entering Sweden’s Subzero World—A Polar Survival Guide to My Winter Clothing and Gear
● No Matter How Cold It Gets, See Three Nights of Northern Lights in Abisko, Sweden’s Arctic Circle
● Blending in at Stockholm’s Viking Restaurant, AIFUR RESTAURANT & BAR, and Playing Pirate for a Night
● Oops—I Somehow Went from Sweden to Norway and Found the Fjords from My Geography Textbook in Narvik
● So Beautiful Everyone Wants into the Ice Palace: Lying in Sweden’s Arctic ICE HOTEL, Built Entirely from Ice
● Stockholm’s ICEBAR: Breaking the Ice over Drinks with Taiwanese Strangers Brought Together by Fate
● Thank You to the Me Who Didn’t Give Up and Let Running Lead Me to Stockholm’s Hidden Urban Forest
● A Plane That Only Takes You to the Land of Nod: Jumbo Stay, the Unique Hostel Beside Stockholm Airport
