One of the biggest things on my bucket list has been to head somewhere in the world to see the famous Aurora Borealis a.k.a. the Northern Lights. The greens, blues and reds swirling through the sky have always fascinated me and seeing it with my own eyes would really be something special. Couple this with a long standing desire to visit to Iceland and so my recent TUI booking to head out to Reykjavik this December for 4 nights is hopefully going to tick many of the boxes!
Due to the position of Earth relative to the sun in December the Northern hemisphere experiences significantly less daylight than the southern hemisphere. And I mean a lot less daylight – just 4 to 6 hours per day! Additionally it’s seriously cold with temperatures sitting around zero degrees C and down to minus 10 degrees with wind chill. Needless to say I’m planning to wrap up warm with all of my skiing gear packed in the suitcase!
There’s a reason why Iceland is known as the “Land of Fire and Ice” and this is due to the extremities of both the weather and the natural geological formations / geothermal activity. It goes without saying then that to head to Iceland you need to immerse yourself in the environment and with that there’s a number of things I’m looking to do whilst out there including visiting geysers, hot springs and of course exploring Reykjavik itself. Another great reason to visit Reykjavik are the people who are well known to be both welcoming and friendly so I’m very much looking forward to talking to some of the locals.
Hopefully there’ll be some good weather and clear skies in the next few weeks and this trip will be everything Sarah and I are hoping for it to be!
Have you been to Reykjavik and can share some tips? Please to us know in the comments below.
Reykjavik is stunning, we loved it there! Unfortunately we didn’t see the northern lights due to the weather conditions. Our tip would be to hire a car so you can get around a lot easier and also use http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/ it’s a northern lights forecast.
Hi Jake,
That’s really unfortunate that you didn’t get to see the Northern Lights on your trip – a good excuse to go back again I guess (after a few years of saving – not cheap, right!?). We ended up going out on our first night in the city and not seeing the light but then on the second night we went out again and saw it along with shooting stars from the Geminid Meteor shower which was incredible. Great tip on the website though – we found that one whilst out there and it proved really useful!
Nick