Seeing the Northern Lights is on everyone’s bucket list. Whether you have an interest in science and astronomy, just think they’re pretty or worship them like a Norsk God.
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Northern Lights holidays are a lucrative trade and a valuable source of income for countries that extend into the Arctic Circle, like Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada and even Scotland; even though they can be seen as far south as Mexico.
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It’s definitely the mystery that surrounds them that makes people go on these pilgrimages though, a sense of adventure that just wouldn’t be the same if you were just sat with a telescope in the back garden.
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The best time to see the Northern Lights is when there is high sunspot activity, which is about every 11 years. Which is a long time to spend in an igloo, but they can be seen all year round if a decade out in the snowy wilderness doesn’t sound appealing.
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The Northern Lights can be seen all day every day if the conditions are right, meaning that if you can’t be bothered to work out when the next 11 year cycle will be you could always go during the Arctic winter when it’s almost permanently black, almost all the time, to improve your chances of a sighting.
The best place to see the Northern Lights is, technically, Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories, which has often been labeled as the ‘capital’ of Northern Lights experiences, having had the highest ratio of sightings.
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If you don’t want to risk an Arctic expedition with the chance of not even seeing the Northern Lights, then there are plenty of weekend tours to places which offer excursions for one day on Lights tours, meaning you can still enjoy your city break if you don’t see the greatest show on just off-Earth.
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