Hunting for The Northern Lights
Seeing the Northern Lights in Iceland was absolutely breathtaking! They say you have a better chance of seeing the Lights in Norway than in Iceland, but I got lucky. I had just landed in Reykjavik on a Friday night, ready to go out hunting for the lights on this minibus tour I booked with Arctic Adventures. The minibus tour was convenient because they picked me right up from my hostel and drove us all out far away from the city into the countryside, where we’d have our best shot at spotting the lights.
The forecast for the night was pretty good with a KP of 5, marking solar activity relatively high, but the day had turned cloudy. We sat on the minibus for over an hour, looking outside at the dark and gloomy sky, waiting for a glimmer of color. It was almost midnight when someone spotted something. I looked out and saw a very faint ribbon of green dancing behind the clouds. Our tour guide ran outside and took a photograph to see if the lights would show up and came back to show us the colors. The lights had arrived at last!
Everyone ran out the bus, many of us setting up our tripods. I bought this one from Amazon Basics for $15 the day before I departed; for a cheap tripod, it did just the trick! It even came with a carrying bag. Pro tip: if your abroad university gives you a new email, you can get a new Amazon Prime account with it! My university also has an Amazon locker on campus, which guarantees next day delivery. Clutch! You can see in the photos I took that the lights were only visible in the small patches of clear sky in between clouds, which showed up as orange and pink in photographs interestingly enough.
The tour guide set up his camera and tripod and was able to take pictures of everyone with the lights to capture the memory. I think I did this pose in all 4 of the pictures he took of me because I was just so excited and happy that I couldn’t just stand there!
