Wanderlust: The Northern Lights / Aurora Borealis

I have spent a lot of time travelling throughout Iceland and Scandinavia but it’s always during summertime – so I have never seen the Northern Lights!  Known as the Aurora Borealis in northern latitudes, it is a natural light display in the sky caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. They occur most frequently in a belt of radius 2500 km centered on the magnetic north pole. This so-called auroral zone extends over northern Scandinavia, Iceland, the southern tip of Greenland and continuing over northern Canada, Alaska and along the northern coast of Siberia. Whilst I have always associated the Northern Lights with wintertime, they are actually present all year round – it’s just that we can’t see them during the light nights of summer.

One day I will get to experience this amazing phenomenon and cross it off my travel bucket list!