[rginns]

Hi all,
planning a trip with the missus to Norway in hope of seeing the Northern lights next Feb, and I'm looking for any travel beta on who to go with / cool places to visit / tours etc, and any personal experience of Norway,
cheers!

[nash1]

Why Tromsø? Cool town but not that much to do in Feb. Plenty of skiing to be had, but short-ish days then.

My advice would be to fly to Evenes (3hrs south of Tromsø) and drive to Henningsvær in Lofoten (2-3hrs). You will then get to see Lofoten which is amazing, Henningsvær is a very cool spot, it is mid cod season then as well so you could go for a day trip and catch a million fish - lots of fun (may even be able to boulder if it is a warm day actually, roadside and class). Drive down to Å in the south of Lofoten, plenty of proper Norway to see and the lights will come out as long as the weather plays ball, and it is pretty similar weather-wise to Tromsø.
Used to live up there, so have more beta if you're interested.

[rginns]

 Cheers for the knowledge, was thinking Tromso (excuse the non-Norwegian 'o'!) purely as that appears to be a hub for northern lights chasing, and a lot of visits tend to go there - Lofoten sounds like a good option though, was thinking of either doing an organised tour or getting there and going on organised short trips, not really sure yet...

[nash1]

Northern lights chasing doesn't exist. All you do is look at the sky. It's not like a twister. They're either out or not out, you can't drive to the next valley and see them or anything like that. The reason for the Tromsø focus is the university there, where they do research on the lights, so the experts live there.
Not sure you'll find much in the way of organised tours. what are you thinking of? What sort of trips? There wont be any northern lights organised trips cos all it is is looking up, most people manage that on their own..

[gaston]

Head up to Tromsø, and preferably even further north, if you want to see northern lights at its finest. The northernmost region of Norway is called Finnmark. The plain called Finnmarksvidda is the best area for northern lights. Best way to experience it is going on an organized snowmobile safari, or same thing with reindeers or dogs.

Another thing to do is staying a night at the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel in Alta:
http://www.visitnorway.com/no/Artikler/Tema/Overnatting/Alta-Igloo-Hotel/
The page is in Norwegian, but you can see from the pictures how it is. Everything is made of ice, and it has a bar (where you drink from ice glasses) and a sauna. There is also Kirkenes Snow Hotel.

You could do some of these things in Tromsø, but organizing it would be more difficult (one of the sons of Mohamed al Fayed spent a week there travelling around with reindeers and snowmobile), and you can't be sure to get enough snow either (January can sometimes be good for bouldering though).

There are lots of Norwegian tourist sites in English where you can find out more.