When should you book a northern lights tour in Rovaniemi?
Before you book a northern lights tour, you need to know the most fundamental basics of northern lights hunting: if you can’t see stars, you can’t see aurora and you can only predict aurora about 30 minutes to 2 hours in advance.
With this in mind, you need to be careful with what kind of tour you book if you are looking to book one in advance. There are many different tour offerings in Rovaniemi which have their own way of conducting northern lights tours. Some you can comfortably book ahead without much worry, some should only be booked last minute if the weather is looking good.
A lot of tours in Rovaniemi, primarily the cheaper offerings and bus tours, will go to the same private location every night near Rovaniemi no matter what the weather looks like. It could be cloudy all over Lapland with no hope of clear skies, they’ll still take you there, say “maybe we’ll get lucky” and hand you BBQ sausage. Tours like these don’t improve your chances of seeing the northern lights in any way. Never book these kind of tours in advance, they should only be booked when the weather is looking clear on the day. Even so, you might as well go to Arktikum park or other dark spots in Rovaniemi where you can spot the northern lights for free on clear nights, you just won’t get a BBQ sausage and a factory line souvenir photo that looks like something you’d buy after exiting a ride in Disneyland.
The ones you can comfortably book in advance are the ones that clearly state that they chase clear skies, have a long kilometre/time limit and have some kind of guarantee in place: they offer refunds in the event you don’t see northern lights with your eyes or on camera or they’re happy to be flexible with booking dates so that you can move to nights with clearer skies. Even so, it’s not always necessary to book these kind of tours in advance other than December or January where it can be busy.
You should always keep an eye on the weather apps to see what kind of cloud coverage is expected once you’re in Rovaniemi. Windy.com is the weather app that all aurora hunters in Finnish Lapland rely on to have a good idea of what the cloud coverage is looking like during the tour. You can see the locations where the sky should be clear and there’s also webcams to help verify the accuracy of these weather models. This should help you easily identify where you might be able to find clear skies that night and then help you decide what kind of aurora tour you can comfortably book on the day.
If you want to have an understanding of you’re chances of seeing aurora during your time in Rovaniemi, make sure to follow my Lapland Aurora Forecast alerts channel on WhatsApp. Here I give daily updates on where the weather models are saying you’ll have the best chance of seeing aurora and then I give updates if it looks like there’s a big aurora show on the way. You can also keep an eye on the aurora indicators at Lapland Aurora Forecast which lets you understand what kind of aurora conditions are expected into the near future. You can even just text me on WhatsApp at +358465944993 if you want any advice or tips about seeing northern lights during your trip and I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction!
If you’re looking to join a genuine aurora hunt guided by a professional photographer, book a tour with Rather Chilly! I want to see the northern lights as much as you do so I’ll make sure that we get wherever we need to go to see them!
@rather.chilly @aleksimonaghan
