This trip to Sweden was entirely about chasing the Northern Lights. I kept saying I would just go with the flow while exploring Sweden, but“I came here to see the Northern Lights”was a thought I simply couldn’t shake. How heartbreaking would it be if I didn’t see them?
Standing in a frozen world at -38°C, caught between anticipation and the fear of disappointment, I stared into the pitch-black sky, desperately trying to see whether the fabled Northern Lights were hiding behind the darkness. Suddenly, a green wave appeared overhead, growing from dim to bright as it swept across the sky and danced freely, shifting its shape. Every second offered a version that seemed utterly unique.
(Cover photo taken and provided by aurora photographer Frank)
After“barely surviving” a night in a snow hut where it felt like -30°C, we returned to central Kiruna for the next part of the journey—and the main reason this Sweden trip had come together: a four-day, three-night adventure into a secluded aurora-viewing region. We were heading even farther north than Kiruna, to Abisko National Park, an even better place to see the Northern Lights.
At the snow-hut camp the night before, a long camera exposure had allowed me to see that mysterious green glow in the sky for the first time. For a while, I thought that was simply what the Northern Lights looked like: grayish to the naked eye and almost indistinguishable from clouds. But the British couples we met at camp all told me, “Abisko is the best place to see the Northern Lights. You can watch them shift between green, red, and purple without even using a camera.” What? The Northern Lights came in that many colors? That made me even more excited about Abisko!
[ Trying to write the C in Creya in the polar snow. Look how energetic and playful I still was then! ]
Whenever people talk about popular destinations for chasing the Northern Lights, Norway, Iceland, and Yellowknife in Canada usually come to mind. There seems to be far less information in Taiwan about seeing the aurora in Sweden. This time, I was lucky enough to join an aurora-viewing itinerary arranged byFrank of Lapland Trip’s Arctic wilderness tour, which introduced me to Abisko National Park inside the Swedish Arctic Circle. Thanks to its stable weather, it is famous for the claim that“stay for three days and you’ll see the Northern Lights on two,” while flights from Taiwan and local prices are both relatively affordable. Abisko itself is a beautiful national park, with different natural scenery to enjoy in every season. Along with all sorts of polar and ice activities, you can visit the unique ICE HOTEL or take a day trip to nearby Norway. It reallyoffers excellent value for money, and I started enthusiastically recommending it to all my friends as soon as I got home.
>> For a detailed itinerary and budget, seeGrab Your Bags and Go: Chasing the Northern Lights in the Swedish Arctic Circle Just Ten Days Later! Planning It Yourself Isn’t Just a Dream
[ The emotion of standing beneath the Northern Lights is something everyone should experience once ]
So of course we had to stay here for three nights to make sure we saw them!
It was already dark when we arrived in Abisko, though we weren’t actually that late. January nights fall absurdly early in the Arctic Circle—but that also means many more hours when the Northern Lights are clearly visible. Before leaving, I had seen experienced travelers online recommend certain hours as the best time to see them. But the locals here, who get their fill of the aurora night after night, told us, “There is no fixed time when the Northern Lights appear, and there certainly isn’t a particular hour when you’re most likely to see them. As long as the weather is good, they can appear at any time of day—even in daylight!」
「The colder the weather, the easier it is to see the Northern Lights.” That was what our taxi driver from the airport told us, because colder weather usually means fewer clouds. To be lucky enough to see the aurora, in addition toa high aurora index and little light pollution, the sky absolutely has to be clear. Otherwise, even if the aurora index is sky-high, it makes NO difference if the lights are all dancing wildly behind the clouds. We happened to arrive during the coldest days the Swedish Arctic Circle had experienced so far that winter, with temperatures ranging from -24°C to -38°C.We were shivering from the cold and losing our minds over the beauty. But no matter how cold it got, I think the Northern Lights were worth waiting three days and three nights for!
[ A whole wall covered in gorgeous aurora photos—my excitement was through the roof ]
Although we spent every night in Abisko, the sheer variety of activities meant that we experienced the Northern Lights in a completely different way on each of our three nights, each with its own special character.
1st NIGHT: Northern Lights and Reindeer BBQ
After dropping off our luggage and checking into Abisko Guesthouse, our first activity was a Northern Lights and reindeer BBQ. Ever since arriving in Sweden, I had kept hearing thatreindeer meat is a Swedish specialty—absolutely delicious and something you have to try. I just hadn’t found the opportunity yet. I never expected to taste it as soon as we reached Abisko, especially cooked usingthe most traditional methods of the Indigenous Sámi (Sápmi) people of northern Europe.
(August 2018 update: I heard that Abisko GuestHouse’s BBQ tour was found to have used expired ingredients, so I no longer recommend joining this activity. You can simply walk to the lakeside yourself to see the Northern Lights.)
[ Abisko Guesthouse’s Northern Lights and reindeer BBQ ]
I had originally imagined that we would be standing out in the freezing snow, tongs in hand, flipping slices of meat over a grill. But when we arrived at the meeting point,the BBQ was actually held inside a semi-open wooden hut behind Abisko Guesthouse. Everyone gathered around the warm fire, sipping sweet-and-tart hot tea made with Sweden’s famous lingonberries. As for the actual cooking, Abisko Guesthouse owner Klas handled absolutely everything. All we had to do was sit back and enjoy the live cooking show! Every so often, Klas would step outside to check for the Northern Lights, and afterwe finished eating, he drove everyone to a nearby lakeside spot to wait for the aurora。
[ The little BBQ hut in the polar wilderness was wonderfully warm ]
[ Basically teppanyaki-style service ]
[ Once the enormous iron pan was hot, butter went in to melt → the reindeer meat was added and stir-fried until separated → assorted vegetables went in → milk and salt were added and everything was tossed together (a huge amount of salt—the flavors in the Arctic run rather salty) → and the incredibly delicious reindeer BBQ was ready. Sweden limits the number of reindeer that may be slaughtered each year to maintain ecological balance. ]
[ After the BBQ, we even had marshmallows for dessert. The fork was telescopic, like a teacher’s pointer—so clever and convenient that I desperately wanted to bring one back to Taiwan! (For what, exactly?) ]
Klas checked outside several times during the BBQ but never returned with any aurora news, and I couldn’t help feeling a little worried. Maybe tonight just wasn’t a good night for the Northern Lights? But after we finished our reindeer BBQ feast, returned to our rooms for warm clothing and camera gear, and came back out to meet, we spotted a faint green glow in the sky not far away. Klas shouted, “The Northern Lights are here! Everyone, hurry!” We all scrambled onto the adorable snowmobile sleds and set off for a lakeside spot near the guesthouse with no light pollution.We were wildly excited, and riding in the thrilling little sled felt just like an amusement-park ride. All seven Taiwanese girls laughed and screamed the whole way. The ride lasted less than five minutes, but our anticipation made it unforgettable.
[ Two snowmobile sleds setting off to chase the Northern Lights! ]
The aurora here really was different from what we had seen at the snow-hut camp the previous night. It was so bright and distinct that we could see it clearly with the naked eye.An arc like a rainbow bridge stretched across the horizon, radiating a shade of green I had never seen in the sky in my entire life and overturning more than twenty years of lived experience. It was so, so beautiful—and constantly changing. Sometimes both ends gradually faded; sometimes it became a sword of light; sometimes it vanished altogether.
Standing beneath the Northern Lights, I was profoundly awestruck by this unbelievable display of the universe’s power.The world is so vast, filled with so many forms we have never understood or witnessed with our own eyes, and we were incredibly lucky to catch this fleeting brilliance and share every moment of something that would never appear in exactly the same form again.
>> Northern Lights BBQ itinerary informationSee #8 Aurora BBQ on the official Abisko Guesthouse website
1st NIGHT PLUS: A Surprise Aurora While Playing in the Snow at Midnight
We ended our first night’s aurora BBQ feeling completely satisfied, but every night in the Arctic Circle felt too precious to waste on sleep. Even though the heating indoors was irresistibly cozy, several of my more energetic travel companions and I decided to head outside and play in the snow: squeezing jam onto it to make shaved ice, rolling around, and building a snowman. It wasCC Hsieh Hsin-Hsuan’sfirst time seeing snow, and she was especially excited to complete everything on the list.
[ Add jam and you have an unlimited supply of Arctic shaved ice ]
[ Building a snowman is actually really hard ]
Just as we finished building our snowman in a sweat—it is incredibly difficult to build one with this soft, powdery snow, and yes, we really were sweating—and began taking turns posing for photos, someone cried, “The Northern Lights!” A vast aurora spilled across the sky directly above us. Green and purple light erupted in a spectacular display, impossibly close, as though we could touch it simply by reaching up. Even the surrounding streetlights from nearby homes couldn’t overpower its intensity. It seemed ready to envelop us completely.If this had been an alien beam coming to abduct us, I would have gone willingly. (Just kidding.)
Most of the Northern Lights we saw during our three nights in Abisko appeared “in the sky ahead of us.” This was the only time they came so incredibly close, directly overhead. They streamed and drifted rapidly for ten minutes before an entirely different aurora appeared.It was an unexpected surprise, breathtakingly beautiful. The four of us stood beneath the sky, capable of little more than staring open-mouthed and repeatedly gasping, “Wow.” We had no tripod at all, and in our panic we set the camera on the roof of a nearby car, capturing a few photographs that still sweep me back into the memory. This was unquestionably my most unforgettable night beneath the Northern Lights.Perhaps an unexpected aurora is even more spectacular—and leaves an emotion that is even harder to erase.
2nd NIGHT: Northern Lights Photography Tour
The advantage of seeing the Northern Lights on our very first night was that we felt no pressure over the following days. We could relax completely, but the photography tour on our second night still amazed us. Apparently, the Northern Lights never get old, no matter how many times you see them!
Our Northern Lights photography tour was led by Frank, a lovely young man from Taiwan. He holds a PhD in neuroscience and had lived in Sweden for eight years, but beneath the Northern Lights of Abisko, he decided to give himself a different kind of life: chasing the aurora every day and using his camera to move more people with Abisko’s beauty. Even after living here for more than six months, he still kept saying, “It’s so beautiful! Doesn’t it make you want to stay forever?” You could tell that he genuinely loved this place—and the choice he had made.
With Frank leading the way, we drove into a secluded forest completely free of light pollution.Frank taught us how to configure our cameras for the best aurora photographs. If someone had no tripod, was running out of memory-card space, or didn’t have a good enough camera, professional equipment was available to use as well。
[ He also took professional group photos of us beneath the Northern Lights ](Photo taken and provided by aurora photographer Frank)
The moment we entered the forest, we could already make out a faint green glow in the sky. Thanks to the previous day’s experience, the Northern Lights now felt a little familiar, and we could identify them easily. The aurora was bright again that night. I must have been extraordinarily lucky to arrive in the Arctic Circle during several nights of spectacular auroral activity. With Frank’s guidance, our success rate with the camera was even higher, and because we had the forest area entirely to ourselves, we could move around and take photos freely with far fewer distractions.
That night was even colder. Although we were fully equipped in insulated jackets and snow pants, we kept touching the camera’s freezing metal body and stood with our feet planted in the snow for dozens of minutes at a time. Our hands and feet hurt so badly that it felt as though they might need to be amputated, yet the beauty of the aurora still filled me with excitement.Even as we shivered while setting up our icy cameras, pressed the shutter with half-frozen hands, then rubbed our fingers and hopped around to warm ourselves back up, we couldn’t stop marveling with one another at how incredible the Northern Lights were.
Fortunately,Frank had also set up a tent here and lit a fire so we could warm ourselves whenever we needed. It brought our stiff fingers and toes back to normal and warmed our chilled batteries so they would keep behaving and doing their jobs. While everyone else was still resting inside the tent, those of us from the previous night’s snowman-building lunatic squad remained outside, trying to photograph the tent. We hoped to find a beautiful foreground that would add more depth to our aurora shots, though our limbs were already approaching their limit and hurt beyond belief. Then the green light behind us suddenly surged into the sky, filling the heavens and covering the space overhead once again. We hurriedly called everyone out of the tent for photos, but one look was enough. We already felt completely fulfilled by that moment. We decided to abandon the photographs and save our fingers, retreating into the tent until our bodies became functional again.In such a harsh environment, we realized how very little we truly needed. Contentment and gratitude were enough to make life feel complete.
>> Northern Lights photography tour informationPlease see Frank’s Lapland Trip Arctic wilderness tour fan page
[ The moment the aurora exploded across the sky—when no lens could ever feel wide enough ]
[ The Northern Lights spilling across the entire snowy landscape. This was our lifesaving tent ]
3rd NIGHT: Abisko National Park Tourist Centre
On our final night in the Arctic Circle,Frank had originally arranged a fun Northern Lights snowmobile tour for us, but it was canceled because temperatures that night were approaching -38°C. The combination of the extreme cold and the snowmobile’s speed would have been more than our bodies could withstand. But this was our last chance to see the Northern Lights! Who knew when the next opportunity would come?I refused to spend the night indoors. Even if we only went to the nearby lake, I wanted to spend a little more time with this land.
And so the lunatic squad set out once again. We decided to walk toward the Tourist Centre we had passed during our morning hike in Abisko National Park. We put on all our gear, hoisted our tripods, and headed there on foot. Google Maps said it would take half an hour, but shuffling forward one heavy step at a time in our enormous spacesuits, we needed almost an hour before finally finding this adorable red tent. There was quite a lot of light pollution around us, yet we could still see green beams emerging through the darkness. Incredibly,we were lucky enough to see the Northern Lights again on our third day! And honestly, no matter how many times you see them, they never get old!
I didn’t want to leave this starry sky. I couldn’t bear to close my eyes; I only wanted to stay a little longer. I think I had fallen in love with this place. I knew I would absolutely return to beautiful Abisko!
[ I had originally wanted to take running photos beneath the Northern Lights, but it was so cold that the instant I removed my snow boots, my feet froze stiff. Images of amputations from the Everest movie immediately flashed through my mind again (another reminder to choose your in-flight movies carefully). After struggling with the decision for three minutes, I put my boots back on and abandoned the idea. The locals said you could do something like that when it was only minus ten-something degrees. At this temperature, absolutely not…. ]
Abisko actually has many more viewing spots, including the Aurora Sky Station, the lake, and scenic locations throughout the national park. If you stay for more nights, there are countless places where you can try viewing the Northern Lights from different angles. For inspiration, seeFrank’s breathtaking aurora photography。
We were incredibly lucky to witness a beautiful feast of Northern Lights every night in the Arctic Circle. Thank you, aurora, for giving me such a fortunate beginning to 2016. Seeing the Northern Lights was no longer just a dream, and I was grateful that my first aurora experience took place in Abisko, Sweden, where the chances of seeing them are so high. The emotion of it all will surely remain one of the sweetest and most unforgettable memories of my life.
(Photo taken and provided by aurora photographer Frank)
Postscript: What exactly are the Northern Lights?
The beautiful aurora is actually a luminous phenomenon created when streams of charged particles emitted by the Sun reach Earth and collide with atoms in the atmosphere. Different colors appear because the particles collide with different atmospheric gases, including hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, neon, helium, and argon, causing them to emit light in different colors.
The video below offers a simple explanation of how the Northern Lights form
AuroraHow The Northern Lights Are Created!
Sharing Is AppreciatedPosted by Kaspars Daleckis Photography on Sunday, January 24, 2016
We traveled far north to Abisko inside the Swedish Arctic Circle and joined Lapland Trip’s four-day, three-night Arctic wilderness tour. I never imagined that on the very day we arrived, we would be able to look up from our accommodation and see vivid green Northern Lights clearly with our own eyes! Just now, while we were outside playing in the snow, we even saw enormous clusters of aurora rapidly changing…
Posted by Creya! Yes You Can – Travel Through Life on Tuesday, January 5, 2016
In temperatures below -30°C in the polar regions, we had to wear a full set of professional cold-weather gear. It was incredibly bulky, instantly transforming us into bears, and the cold made us hunch our bodies. After several days, our shoulders and necks were aching (opening a massage shop here would definitely be lucrative). But even after a whole morning of hiking under the weight of all that gear, we still refused to spend our free time indoors on the final night…
Posted by Creya! Yes You Can – Travel Through Life on Friday, January 8, 2016
✈ Travel dates: 2016/1/5 – 1/7
| Follow My European Footsteps | Chasing the Northern Lights in Sweden series: (Travel dates: 2015/12/30-2016/1/10)
● A Northern Light Came Out of Nowhere! Welcoming a Spectacular 2016 in the Swedish Arctic Circle
● Grab Your Bags and Go: Chasing the Northern Lights in the Swedish Arctic Circle Just Ten Days Later! Planning It Yourself Isn’t Just a Dream
● So Being an Eskimo Isn’t Easy Either: Spending a Night in an Igloo Snow Dome
● My Snowy Ordeal in Sweden’s Subzero World—A Polar Survival Guide: Notes on My Snow Gear and Equipment
● No Matter How Cold It Gets, Spend Three Nights Watching the Northern Lights in Abisko, Sweden
● Infiltrating Stockholm’s Viking Restaurant, AIFUR RESTAURANT & BAR, to Be a Pirate for One Night
● Oops—I Accidentally Went from Sweden to Norway: Discovering Textbook Fjords in the Town of Narvik
● So Beautiful We Rushed into the Ice Palace: Lying Inside Sweden’s Arctic ICE HOTEL, Built Entirely from Ice
● Stockholm’s ICEBAR: Breaking the Ice over Drinks with Fellow Taiwanese Met by a Wonderful Twist of Fate
● Thank You to the Me Who Didn’t Give Up: Discovering Stockholm’s Hidden Urban Forests Through Running
● A Plane That Only Takes You to Dreamland: Jumbo Stay, the Unique Hostel beside Stockholm Airport
