Small Group Northern Lights Tour with Photos & Warm Snowsuit

GYG

Small Group Northern Lights Tour with Photos & Warm Snowsuit

★ 4.3(13 reviews)

• Pickup from your hotel
• Guide works in English
• Duration per the operator: 5 hours

from $229

See dates, price and what is included at the operator

Five hours of darkness, chased with a camera

This tour takes you out of Reykjavik for five hours on the hunt for the northern lights, with a small group and an expert guide who speaks English. It runs at night, as these tours must, and it is built around getting you to a dark sky away from the city’s glow. The operator, Ultimate Iceland, also runs under the name Aurora Experts, which tells you what they specialise in. Hotel pickup is part of the deal, so you are collected from your accommodation rather than making your own way to a meeting point. The tour is sold as a small group, which means the van or bus will not be packed to the doors. You will be handed a warm snowsuit for the evening, and the guide will take photos of you under the aurora if it shows. This is a tour for people who want the lights explained and documented, not just pointed at.

Photographs from the operator Ultimate Iceland / Aurora Experts. They show the listing, not your day.

What the 229 dollars covers

The entry price is from 229 USD, which puts this tour at the higher end of the northern lights market in Reykjavik. For that you get the five hours, the guide, the hotel pickup, the snowsuit, and the photography service. The guide’s job is to find clear skies and activity, and to handle the camera settings so you come away with images you can keep. The price is quoted in dollars, and at the exchange rate of 121.15 ISK per dollar that works out to roughly 27,700 ISK, though you will pay in the currency the operator lists. Nothing is added on the day. The places you visit on the itinerary do not charge admission or parking, so there are no gate fees to budget for. The operator offers free cancellation, which gives you some flexibility if the forecast looks poor or your plans change.

A small sample, read carefully

The rating here is 4.3 out of 5, which looks solid at a glance. But that score comes from only 13 reviews. That is a very small number, and it means the rating is not statistically meaningful in the way that a score from a thousand travellers would be. Thirteen people can all have a good night and give you a skewed picture, or a couple of bad experiences can drag the score down unfairly. In its category of 68 northern lights tours, this one ranks 36th by the number of reviews, which puts it right in the middle of the pack for how much evidence exists. It is not a tour with a long track record of customer feedback, so you are partly booking on the operator’s reputation and the promise of a small group rather than on a mountain of past travellers’ opinions.

Cold months, late nights

The northern lights season in Iceland runs through the dark half of the year, and the temperature chart above tells you what that means. From September through April, the average high in Reykjavik stays between 3 and 11 degrees Celsius (37 to 52 degrees Fahrenheit), and the lows drop to freezing or just below from November to February. The tour is five hours long and runs at night, so you will be outside in the coldest part of the day. A January evening will sit near the low of minus 2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit), and even a September night will be down around 6 degrees (43 degrees Fahrenheit). The warm snowsuit is not a luxury; it is the difference between enjoying the sky and shivering through it. The best months for aurora activity are the deepest winter ones, when the nights are longest, but those are also the coldest. Dress for the low end of the chart, not the high.

What happens once you are picked up

Your hotel pickup is the start of the evening. The guide collects you and the rest of the small group, and you head out of Reykjavik toward darker skies. The tour does not have a fixed destination; the guide reads the cloud cover and the aurora forecast and picks a spot that gives the best chance of a clear view. That means the evening can involve some driving, and the exact location is decided on the night. The snowsuit is provided so you can stand outside comfortably while the guide sets up the camera and takes your photos. The guide handles the photography, so you do not need your own tripod or camera skills. If the lights do not appear, the evening becomes a drive through the dark countryside with a guide who is watching the sky, and the free cancellation offer gives you an out before the tour if the forecast is hopeless.

Who should book this one

This tour suits travellers who want the northern lights explained and photographed without managing their own equipment or rental car. The small group and the English-speaking guide make it a comfortable choice for first-timers to Iceland who are not sure what they are looking at. The hotel pickup removes the hassle of finding a bus stop in the dark. It is not for anyone on a tight budget. At 229 USD it is the most expensive of the comparable options, and the premium is for the small group, the snowsuit, and the photos. If you only want to see the lights and care less about the extras, the Northern Lights Bus Tour with Hot Cocoa runs four hours from 83 USD and has a far larger base of nearly 15,000 reviews. This tour is also not suitable for wheelchair users, per the operator. For a shorter, cheaper evening with a bigger group, one of the other tours from Reykjavik will serve you better.

GYG

Small Group Northern Lights Tour with Photos & Warm Snowsuit

Dates, remaining places and the current version of what is included are at the operator. This page reflects the state of the catalogue, not the state of this morning.

from $229

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