Alta Northern Lights Tours

Alta sits at the head of the Altafjord in Finnmark, just below the 70th parallel, and its aurora season runs from September to early April. The town is known as the City of the Northern Lights, a name that goes back to the observatory on Haldde mountain that came into use in 1899. The tours on this page leave Alta on most evenings of the season, and they differ more than their photos suggest.

A chase moves, an activity mostly does not

The first choice is between a tour built around finding the lights and an evening activity that hopes to see them. A dedicated aurora chase has no fixed destination. The guide watches the cloud and the forecast and drives to wherever the sky looks clearest, which on some nights is close to town and on others much further out. The Small-Group Guided Northern Lights Tour says as much on its listing: some nights it has to drive quite far, and the distance decides whether there is time to set up a campfire. Our review of the small-group chase →

Snowmobile, sleigh, husky and dinner evenings work the other way. The Northern Lights Night Adventure by Snowmobile follows the old postal road up to the Beskades mountains at the edge of the Finnmark plateau. (our review) The sleigh ride under the northern lights goes through the forest and along the Alta River to a fire shelter for dinner. The Arctic Wilderness Evening at Gargia Lodge is a kennel visit and a stew supper with no dog sledding at all. If the sky is clear where they are, you see the lights. If cloud sits over that valley, the route stays the same. They are good evenings in their own right, with the aurora as a possible extra. Our pages on snowmobile tours, sleigh rides and husky experiences cover each one.

If seeing the aurora is the reason for your trip, book a chase first and keep the activity for another night.

Small group or bus

Price mostly follows group size. On the dates we checked in early November 2026, the small-group tour, capped at 13 guests, was $258 per person, and Icecube of Aurora’s Northern Lights Tour, capped at eight, was $260. With a minibus, you get more of the guide’s time and fewer people around the fire.

The bus tours cost roughly half that. The Northern Lights Adventure Tour with Fire & Free Photos was $129 for 13 November, and Finnmark Adventure’s Northern Lights Bus was $149. Both still move with the weather, but you share the viewpoint with many more people: one reviewer of the fire-and-photos tour counted around 60 guests at two small fires. The small-group tours and bus tours pages set the options side by side, and our guide to which Alta northern lights tour to book sorts ten evening tours by budget, age limit and what each one includes.

Photos, pickup and warm clothes

A good aurora photo needs a tripod and manual camera settings, and most tours expect you to bring both. Two include photos in the price. The fire-and-photos tour gives every guest professional pictures, and Luuso Travel’s Northern Lights Tour with Guide and Photos photographs your evening for you. The small-group tour does not supply tripods. Its listing also warns that pictures often show the colors more strongly than you see them with your own eyes. Northern lights photography tours lists every photo option.

Nearly every tour collects you in Alta, but not always from your door. The fire-and-photos tour uses two fixed points, Løkkeveien 55 and Havneveien 32 near the harbor. The Luuso tour stops at the Thon and Scandic hotels, Flatmoen, Sorrisniva and the cruise dock. On several others the exact pickup point appears when you pick a date, or on your voucher.

Thermal suits come with some tours and not others. The small-group tour lends warm suits and boots, the snowmobile tour supplies thermal suits, shoes, gloves and helmets, and the Luuso tour provides thermal clothing. The two bus tours list none. From December to February, nights in Alta average around −8 to −10 °C, the plateau is colder, and you spend long stretches standing still outside, so pack wool layers even if a suit is included.

Cancellation, and nights with no lights

Every tour on this page can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before it starts. That deadline passes before anyone knows what the night’s sky will do. None of the tours promises a refund if the aurora does not appear. The small-group tour runs whatever the weather and is called off, with a full refund, only when the weather or the roads are dangerous. The Icecube tour may postpone or cancel at a few hours’ notice and refunds in full when it does. Every listing says in its own words that the lights cannot be guaranteed.

The practical answer is to book your chase for the first evening of your stay, so a cloudy night still leaves time for a second try.

When to go

Visit Alta puts the aurora season from September to early April and calls November to March the best months. On GetYourGuide most evening tours run from 4 November this season. The fire-and-photos tour starts on 13 November and the snowmobile tour on 23 November, and snowmobile trails depend on snow. From late November to mid-January the sun does not rise at all, but the lights are most often seen between about 20:00 and 02:00 in any month, and by April the sky no longer gets fully dark. The best time to see the northern lights in Alta goes through the season month by month.

Alta or Tromsø

Alta is roughly six hours from Tromsø by road, or about 40 minutes by air. Visit Alta’s case for the town is that it lies sheltered inland at the head of a fjord, with less precipitation than coastal Tromsø and, it says, more clear nights on average. The precipitation part holds up: Alta Airport records about 438 mm a year against about 1,090 mm in Tromsø. We found no sighting figures that compare the two towns, so treat the clear-nights point as the tourist board’s view. Alta vs Tromsø for northern lights compares tours, transport and weather in more detail.

Cruise passengers and where to stay

Cruise ships berth at Terminalkaia in Alta Havn, on the eastern edge of town by the airport and about 4 km from the center. The Hurtigruten coastal route does not call at Alta. Many winter calls leave in the afternoon, before dark, so an evening tour only fits a call that stays into the evening or overnight. Several tours list the harbor or cruise dock as a pickup, including the small-group tour (choose Alta Havn) and the Luuso tour. Check your ship’s all-aboard time against the start time on the booking page before you pay. Northern lights tours from Alta cruise port has the details.

If you are staying a few nights, choose a hotel near one of the pickup points, since that is where most evenings start. Where to stay in Alta for the northern lights picks hotels with that in mind.