Tromsø Northern Lights Tours, Compared by Type

There are six ways to go out for the northern lights from Tromsø: a minibus chase, a big-bus chase, a fjord cruise, a camp evening with dinner, a private car for your own group, or a hire car you drive yourself. They split into two kinds. Chases drive to wherever the sky is clearest, occasionally all the way to Finland; cruises and camps stay in one place, warmer and calmer, and cannot leave a cloud behind. On the coast at Tromsø the cloud usually decides the night, so for a first tour we would book a chase. Our default is Arctic Breeze’s minibus chase: about six hours out, a thermal suit and professional photos included, from $139 a person in current promotion (usually $214), rated 4.8 from 7,015 reviews (checked October 2026).

Check dates for the minibus chase →

The six types in one table

On a phone, swipe the table sideways for the hours, groups and photos.

Prices, times, groups and inclusions from the GetYourGuide listings (checked October 2026); operators change prices by date, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote. The private minivan is priced per group, not per person.

The one question: can the tour move?

Tromsø is on the coast, and the coast is where the cloud comes in. Visit Tromsø’s description of a chase is the whole case for one: the guide assesses the weather, the cloud cover and the aurora activity, then goes where conditions look best, sometimes far outside the city and occasionally all the way to Finland. A cruise sails the fjords near the city and a camp sits in its own valley; on a clear night they are lovely, on a cloudy one they have nowhere to go.

So the forecast picks the type. On a doubtful night, or your only night, take a chase. On a night with a clear forecast, or a second evening after a chase has already found the lights, a cruise or a camp dinner is the warmer, calmer way to spend it.

Pick by the kind of night you want:

Prices and ratings from GetYourGuide (checked October 2026); operators change prices, so treat them as a guide, not a quote.

What an hour out costs

Divide the price by the hours and the types sort differently from the price tags. At the usual prices in October 2026, the long big-bus chase works out at roughly $13 an hour, the minibus and small-group chases at about $25 to $40, the cruises and camp dinners at about $40 to $64, and the hot-tub yacht at about $86. The private minivan is about $270 an hour for the whole vehicle, which is about $34 a person when eight share it. A cruise or a camp gives you fewer hours but more of them standing under the sky, since there is no long drive. Tour prices, per hour out has the full table.

Small group or big bus

The minibuses take up to 15 on the small-group chases; the big buses carry far more and have a toilet on board, which matters on a night of seven to nine hours. A small group gets off the vehicle quicker at each stop and fits into smaller lay-bys; a big bus costs less. Small group or big bus puts the group sizes, toilets and clothing side by side.

How far they drive

The longest chases cross the border. The E8 runs south from Tromsø, turns inland at Skibotn and reaches Kilpisjärvi in Finland after about 165 km by road; Visit Lyngenfjord gives about 120 km to Skibotn. Not every chase goes that far: the ones that say so in the listing are the small groups with no limit on time or distance and a few of the big buses. Do the tours go to Finland? has the route and which tours drive it.

Cruises and camps

The cruise choice runs from Rødne’s 2.5-hour catamaran with a free second chance to World Sea Explorers’ four hours on the 34-metre Stella Oceana, with a private hot-tub session for each booking group and reindeer stew. Cruise or chase compares them with the road. The camps are dinner evenings with the aurora as the hoped-for extra: Tromsø Villmarkssenter’s husky camp, the reindeer camps of Tromsø Arctic Reindeer, and Camp Tamok, 75 to 90 minutes inland. Aurora camps with dinner has them on a map.

A private car, or your own

A private chase puts your group in its own minivan with a guide who is also the photographer: Green Gold of Norway’s six-hour chase is $1,609 for up to eight. If you are confident on snow and ice in the dark, a hire car from the airport is the cheapest way to stay out all night. If you are not, we would book a tour; Visit Tromsø’s own words are “Our best advice is to go on an organised tour with a local guide”. Self-drive or a tour covers the road rules.

When to go

Visit Tromsø gives the season as late August to early April, with organised tours usually running from September, and the aurora most often active between about 20:00 and 02:00. From late November to mid-January, about 27 November to 15 January, the sun does not rise. Northern lights activities are often fully booked, so book before you arrive, on an early night of your stay. For what happens to your money after a cloudy night, northernlightstromsotour.com reads the guarantees of the big chase operators one by one.

Tour prices, times, groups and inclusions from the GetYourGuide listings, read in US dollars on 29 October 2026; prices per hour are our arithmetic on the usual prices. Season, activity hours, polar night, booking and chasing advice from Visit Tromsø; Skibotn distance from Visit Lyngenfjord; the distance to Kilpisjärvi is about 165 km measured along the road on our map; the two Kilpisjärvi hotels give 160 km (Santa’s Hotel Rakka) and 175 km (Lapland Hotels Kilpis) from Tromsø Airport; Camp Tamok’s drive time from Lyngsfjord Adventure; the yacht’s size and hot-tub session and the cruise’s second-chance terms from the operators’ own sites.