Long before my then bf, now husband, proposed, we'd joked about going for honeymoon under the northern lights, but reality felt so far away. Yet, here we are, ever so blessed to witness this phenomenal moment. We both stood in silence at the first spotting of the green light dancing gracefully in the scandic sky, totally jaw dropping!

Here's our top 6 experiences in Tromso:

1. The flight from Trondheim to Tromso was like taking a bus. On the way to Tromso, SAS Airline drops off and picks up passengers at Bodo and continues its journey. It was no wonder there were 2 arrival destination displayed at the departure gate and how silly of us to think that the airport made a mistake. 

2. We recognised the importance of snow boots. Snow and ice cover the streets of Tromso and wearing sports shoe is a big NO! We saw a tourist in sports shoe sliding across the street because she could not walk, pretty hillarious. Even in my snow boots, I slipped when we were doing an illegal crossing and was almost knocked down by a car (Forgive us for illegal crossing, it was too cold and we were desperate for shelter). At least the driver had a good laugh.

3. Two hours of day light. Yup, sun rises at approximately 10am and sets at 12pm. By 1pm, you'll be eating lunch in the dark. Knowing what's nice to see under the daylight is important, so please plan ahead! You wouldn't wanna hunt for animals in the polar zoo with your "not-so-night-vision" eyes. 

4. You are not a fool by carrying a tripod. When we arrived at the airport, there were many travellers carrying a tripod too! The auroral activity may not be as high as some lucky days where even a phone camera can capture it. More often, the aurora borealis is faint which needs to be shot with a long shutter speed setting. Whether faint or not, it's still amaaazing! Here's some camera settings we used on our Panasonic Lumix G H-H020 20mm f/1.7 Aspherical Pancake Lens  - ISO 800; Shutter Speed - 20 to 30 seconds; Aperture - f/2.5 to f/2.8, but we can't remember the focus setting. Most sites recommended infinity focus, which was not available on our lens. No worries if you do not have a tripod! If you are following an aurora borealis tour, most likely your tour guide has sufficient tripods for all to use and they will give you some photography tips as well!

5. Travelling directionless and hours away from town to chase the aurora borealis. The first night, we took a 3 hours drive to Finland, camped there for hours, yet no luck due to snowtstorm (we were out for 2 nights in total). Got back to our hotel room only at 4am! On an aurora borealis tour, your tour guide will not be able to tell you the exact location, but drives based on weather conditions and lights activity forecast via an app, as well as constant communication with many other tour guides of a possible sighting. It gets pretty intense sometimes. It's only on certain days with high level of auroral activities (from the scale of 0 to 9), you'll get to see it from town itself. Otherwise, getting to a dark place is key. So, be prepared for a long night on tours like these!

6. Fighting the cold. At one point, temperature went down to -17°C, so clothes layering is important. Our tour guide sets up camp fire wherever we went, such a saviour! Only to becareful as standing near the campfire for too long will make your one and only winter jacket and scarf smells like barbecue! It's hard to get rid of such smell. Avoid putting your camera straight into the camera bag once you get into the car as this leads to condensation inside the lens.

Two other things we missed at Tromso:

1. Polar zoo. It was about 3 hours bus journey from town and since we were there on a weekend, there was only one bus to the zoo. We probably can't make it for northern lights by the time we get back to town.

2. Cable car from Solliveien in Tromsdalen up to the mountain ledge Storsteinen. Seen pictures and the panaromic view was beautiful up there! Sadly, the cable car was on renovation during our visit. 

There are many excursions in Tromso (skiing, dog sledding, fishing, etc), so do check them out at the visitor centre! The tour guide we engaged - Guide Gunnar, do provide some of these excursions too! So do check his package out as well.

Overall, no words can describe the phenomenal experience when we first saw the lights. Beautiful, beautiful, beaufitul!