Aurora watching

[mattbell]

I'm thinking it would be fun to spend a few days watching the aurora borealis. People who've seen it put it on par with total eclipses as far as being one of the most incredible nature-related experiences of their lives.

I've been doing some research into it and have found the following:

- The weather is not totally reliable and the *space* weather is also not totally reliable, so it's best to go for at least 4 days. You need no clouds + a certain aurora strength.
- Airfares have gone up a bit since last year. Roundtrip to Fairbanks is around $650, roundtrip to Reykjavik is around $1000.
- It's very cold. And dark. Duh.
- Reykjavik is more interesting than Fairbanks from a cultural perspective, but these still seems to be a decent bit of stuff to do in Fairbanks. However, I think, like Burning Man, part of the appeal of the trip is meeting the sort of people who would fly out to see an aurora instead of, say, Hawaii.

Hey, if any of you are interested in joining me, let me know. I'm planning on doing this sometime between this November and next March, and probably not in December-January, when it's the coldest and darkest.

Comments

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I went to Reykjavik for three days several years ago, in February. Given the fact that Iceland is right in the middle of the gulf stream, it's not that cold (the temperature I believe is often actually quite similar to New York), but it turns out to be very rainy and snowy and cloudy. I don't know whether there's any time period during the winter where you can reliably expect to have at least one non-cloudy day. I believe I did see the northern lights briefly when I was on the plane over Greenland or Canada, but given that I only saw it while briefly waking up in between some sleep, I'm not certain. I do have a picture I took with my camera, but it's totally black, because presumably the lights are not very bright, and airplane windows aren't the best. But that suggests that I did in fact see it and didn't just dream seeing it.

I really want to see it some time (again) though! I suspect Fairbanks or some other continental place will be more likely to be non-cloudy.

Do you expect to run into aurora-goers in these places? I suspect in Fairbanks you'll mainly just run into locals and university students (who I guess are locals), and in Reykjavik you'll run into locals and partiers, especially given the deals that Iceland Air has to increase tourism. Since there's not a specific moment to go, the way there is for an eclipse, there won't be that same communal vibe, I would guess.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Apparently aurora-watching is one of the biggest tourist draws for Fairbanks.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/travel/escapes/02Alaska.html

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have guessed that there was much of a tourist industry in Fairbanks, but it sounds like I'm wrong!

Although, it sounds like there's 7000 Japanese people a year (given ten charter flights of 350 people each, and 3500 people on commercial flights) - if they stay about 4 days each, then there's probably about 80 Japanese people in Fairbanks on any given day, though the number probably has substantial seasonal and weekly variation. I suspect you get 10 weekends with about 500 Japanese people there at a time, and the rest of the time you've got about 30-40 Japanese people at a time. I don't know if that's a large tourist community or not. I suppose it depends on the size of the town and the size of the university.