Northern Lights tours popular this season
A photo taken by Kleifarvatn, South Iceland. The Northern Lights have been very visible over the past couple of weeks. Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson / ARCTIC IMAGES
Almost 43 percent of tourists to Iceland last year over the winter months went on a Northern Lights tour. According to the Iceland Tourist Bureau it seems that this percentage is similar this autumn with a great amount of companies and hotels offering such trips.
There are all kinds of options on offer. Northern lights seen on horseback, on boats, superjeeps and coaches and often hotels schedule wake up calls for guests at night if there's good visibility.
At Sel hótel in the Mývatn district in North Iceland hotel manager Yngvi Ragnar Kristjánssons offers a wake up call to his guests. "We've had a lot of wake up calls at the hotel this season, the Northern Lights lately have been fantastic. When we call people hang up and immediately go outside. Then they reappear inside the hotel, speechless."
Coach company Grey Line has scheduled Northern Lights trips. Svala Magnúsdóttir at Grey Line says that bookings are going really well. "On Thursday we took 247 passengers which is not a lot for us, and the following Tuesday we had 480 passengers. We've taken a record of 1400 passengers on trips in one day.
Sævar Helgi Bragason, director of the Seltjarnarnes astronomy society explains that the recent displays of Northern Lights are due to a combination of solar winds and good weather conditions.
