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