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The Reykjavík Grapevine

@rvkgrapevine

Photo by

Art Bicnick/The Reykjavík Grapevine

You’ve had your five a day (veggies/beers/panic attacks), now you gotta stay active. Whether it’s to get a dose of culture, hopping on a day tour or splashing around in your municipal pool, you can’t go wrong with our picks for Best Activities.

Best Place to See Northern Lights

In Your (Or Someone Else’s) Backyard

Let’s get the public service announcement out of the way: you can’t see northern lights in the summer. The panellists all had experiences of having to re-explain this to visiting friends, so now you can’t say we didn’t tell you. 

For the second year in a row we go for the oh-so-punk-rock choice of telling people to watch the northern lights at home. The reason is that there are few Reykjavík experiences that haven’t been overrun by tourism and one of them is being caught by surprise by a display of northern lights. This can happen on your way home from a night out or while lying on your back after slipping on some ice near the hot tub at your parents’ summer cabin. A welcome respite either way. You could also try tracking a tag or term like “norðurljós” on social media as the locals will often command each other to go out and watch them. This might work, as long as you can get your butt outside in five minutes flat, because these lights don’t often stick around long.

Runner-Up:

Lake Hvaleyrarvatn

Hafnarfjörður

Photo by Art Bicnick

There is no such thing as a tour that can guarantee you will see the northern lights. There can still be good reasons for splurging on a tour, the professionals have good data, great cameras and are full of crazy sky knowledge. That said, those are hard to recommend as they tend not to advertise their favourite spots and there is no shortage of tour companies. So we are highlighting Hvaleyrarvatn as a runner-up for the second year in a row. The area offers a short but scenic walk around the lake and the city lights are juuuust far enough for the northern lights to shine that much brighter. Just don’t go there on New Year’s Eve as it’s also a popular spot for young folks to shoot fireworks and engage in mild hooliganism.

Runner-Up:

Hljómskálagarðurinn

Hljómskálagarðurinn

Photo by Art Bicnick

Let’s say you live downtown, but you’re either surrounded by street lights or the neon pink glow of iconic hotel signage and you can’t see the auroras as strongly as you’d like. Get yourself to Hljómskálagarðurinn. The park smack dab in the middle of Reykjavík encircling Tjörnin is just far enough away from the big city lights to let any northern lights that may be dancing overhead really shine. We’ve spied some epic swirls and spirals in the sky above Þingholt and Hallgrímskirkja. Magnificent.