Northern Lights and Iceland: Expert Travel Advice from Icelandic Adventure

Planning a trip to Iceland can feel overwhelming. Between unpredictable winter roads, tracking down the country's quieter corners and constantly wondering whether tonight might finally be the night the aurora shows up, there's a lot to figure out. To help cut through some of that, we spoke with Calum and Ryan, the UK-based duo behind Icelandic Adventure, who've explored the country firsthand and turned what they've learned into one of the most practical resources out there for independent travellers heading to Iceland.

From winter holiday to travel creators

Calum and Ryan didn't set out to become travel creators. As Calum puts it, "We definitely didn't start out as professional travel creators or Iceland experts." Their first trip to Iceland, in January 2025, was meant to be a winter holiday.

Stepping into the dark skies, snow-covered terrain and huge stretch of empty landscape left an immediate impression. Calum recalls being "struck by how different the landscape felt from anywhere we'd been before. "What was meant to be a holiday, he admits, "very quickly turned into an obsession."

As friends and online followers started asking for advice on where to go, how to drive in Iceland, how to see the Northern lights and how much things cost. That stream of questions became the foundation for Icelandic Adventure. In Calum's words, "What started as sharing our own experiences has become a website, YouTube channel, social media community and now even the My Iceland app." The mission, he says, has stayed constant: "helping people plan better trips to Iceland with useful, honest information based on our real experiences."

Hidden gems worth visiting

Iceland offers one-of-a-kind attractions you will not find anywhere else, like the majestic Gullfoss, Reynisfjara black sand beach and Diamond Beach. But Calum and Ryan are quick to point out that some of the country's best moments happen away from the tour buses.

• Húsavík (North Iceland). Calum's favourite spot in the country. "There's something about the atmosphere there that I absolutely love," he says. Despite being known internationally for whale watching, he notes it "still has that lovely small-town feeling and never feels like it's lost its character."
• Vatnsdalshólar Viewpoint. Ryan's pick, on the North Coast. Calum describes sitting there "watching this incredible sunrise over the frozen lake and surrounding landscape," adding that "we weren't rushing to the next attraction or trying to tick something off an itinerary. We just sat there and took it all in."

• Ægissíðufoss Waterfall (South Iceland). A wide, dramatic waterfall near Hella that somehow avoids the crowds drawn to the South Coast's more famous falls. "It's one of those places where you wonder why it isn't much better known," Calum says.

The common thread, as Calum sums it up: "Sometimes it isn't necessarily the biggest waterfall or most famous attraction that stays with you. It's those quiet moments and places that you form a personal connection with."

Winter in Iceland: what to actually expect

Icelandic winters reward travellers with frozen waterfalls, the Northern Lights, snow-draped mountains and dramatic skies, but they also demand real preparation. Below are the key advice shared by Icelandic Adventure:

• Daylight is short and it's disorienting. "There's something very strange about waking up, looking at the clock and seeing it's 9am, then looking outside and it still feels like the middle of the night," Calum says. Plan driving and outdoor activities tightly around the available daylight window, not around a typical daily schedule.
• Flexibility isn't optional. As Calum explains, "The weather can change incredibly quickly, roads can close and you have far fewer daylight hours, so you have to be much more flexible with your plans."

For Calum and Ryan, none of this is a downside. "That's all part of the experience," Calum says. They're finally visiting in summer for the first time in 2027, chasing the midnight sun and puffins, but he's not convinced it will unseat winter as their favourite: "Summer has got a lot to do if it wants to knock winter off the top spot."

Catching the Northern Lights in Reykjavík

On their first trip to Iceland, Calum and Ryan missed the Northern Lights entirely. By their second visit, seeing the aurora was right at the top of their list.

“We used Hello Aurora to keep an eye on the forecasts and cloud cover and eventually decided that Grótta Lighthouse in Reykjavík gave us our best chance that night.”

Standing on the beach on a freezing November night, the sky cleared and the lights appeared. Calum remembers being genuinely speechless as a quiet hush fell over the crowd, leaving nothing but the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore.

"What I remember most was the atmosphere," Calum says. "The beach was busy with other people who had come hoping to see the lights, yet it was almost completely silent. Everyone was just standing there staring at the sky."

How to actually track the Northern Lights

Their biggest piece of advice for travellers is to stop obsessing over the Kp index.

"Don't obsess over the KP index," Calum explains. "That's probably one of the biggest misconceptions we try to tackle. A low KP doesn't mean you can't have an amazing display in Iceland."

The Kp index is a planetary average built from geomagnetic data collected across 13 observatories worldwide over a rolling three-hour window. Because it blends data from stations well outside the auroral oval, it is often too slow and generalized to reflect fast-moving local displays. Focusing on live, local metrics provides a far more accurate signal.

The best Northern Lights experience in Iceland

In January 2026, Calum and Ryan were travelling Iceland's Ring Road by campervan and staying at Lambeyri Campsite in Varmahlíð when they got aurora alert of a possible G4 solar storm. By now, though, they'd learned not to get too excited about a forecast. As Calum puts it, "you quickly learn never to get your hopes up too much" when chasing the aurora in Iceland.

Later that evening, Calum made a routine walk to the campsite bathroom. On the way back, he checked on Hello Aurora and found the numbers had spiked dramatically. He looked up, saw the first hints of green already forming overhead and sprinted back to the campervan to get Ryan.

What happened next, he says, was "one of the most incredible displays we've ever seen." The sky filled with whites, greens, pinks, and reds, moving and shifting visibly in real time, not the kind of faint glow that only shows up in a long-exposure photo, but a display vivid enough to watch unfold with the naked eye. And it didn't fade quickly either. The show stretched on for hours, giving them time to simply stand outside the van and take it in.

That's part of why the photos from that night still matter so much to Calum. They're not just images of the Northern Lights. They're a direct line back to standing outside a campervan at a quiet campsite in northern Iceland, watching an extraordinary sky that neither of them expected. The whole night was also captured on camera for their YouTube channel, so it's a memory they can revisit whenever they like.

Advice for aurora hunters in Iceland

When asked for advice for first time visitors, Calum and Ryan emphasize one key rule: do not visit Iceland solely for the Northern Lights.

The aurora depends entirely on nature and zero guarantees exist. Treating the lights as a bonus ensures the rest of the trip remains rewarding regardless of what happens in the sky.

They also recommend avoiding reliance on single planetary figures like the Kp index. Focusing on local cloud cover, real-time aurora forecast data, and staying patient yields far better results.

"Find somewhere with a clear view of the sky, be patient and give yourself time. And when they finally do appear, put your phone down for a while."

Where local encounters make the trip

Some of Iceland's best moments come from the people, not just the landscape. During a January 2026 visit to Húsavík, Calum and Ryan arrived at the town's Eurovision exhibition to find it closed. A local resident, Örlygur, happened to be passing by and offered to open the venue especially for them. He went on to interview Ryan for a feature on Húsavík.com, on what happened to be Ryan's 30th birthday. Calum says it "really sums up the Icelandic people we've met on our travels," describing everyone they've encountered as "warm, friendly and welcoming."

What's next for Icelandic Adventure

Beyond continuing to grow their website and YouTube channel, Calum and Ryan are focused on launching My Iceland, an app designed to help travellers "both before they travel and while they're actually in Iceland." Iceland remains their core focus, but Norway, Finland, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands are all on their radar, with Svalbard sitting at the top of their long-term travel wish list.