Northern Lights (Norway, Sweden, Finland)

All

What's the best route? And any thoughts on vehicle prep for Far North trips. Most people seem to want to head south.

This is a route I having been planning as well, sticking mainly to main towns and cities, if you want I could send you some autoroute maps of my planned route see if they help you any ,

and when are you planning on going?

Thanks fellas beginning to think that this topic was dead....

Want to go in the next 2 years as a prelim to a 40th birthday tour into Iceland. Been around southern Scandinavia a few times but want to take in the Northern Lights.

Mackdog0001 - maps would be good, I using Michelin sheet 752 at the moment. need to get to the map centre in Hereford I think

Any luck with vehicle prep for this trip? We are planning to cover this area during 2010 - plan to hit during mid April through May 2010, onto Russia (St Peterburg and Moscow only) and out again toward Poland and Germany. Just starting to look at route planning/duration and accommodation/re-fuel points for these areas - can PM you if your interested. What dates are you planning?

I hope that there wont be too much prep needed. An electric parking heater would be good and maybe an additional Eberspacher diesel as well as I intend going in winter to get the baest effect.

My Disco will need new door seals as well as they are staring to be a bit noisy. I will be adding some basic underbody protection which would be useful elsewhere. Otherwise I have looked into some basic G4 style mods but not the Orange paintwork! Mantec Snorkel, Roof Rack no roof tent.

Any route suggestions would be great.

i seem to remember something about november-december being the best time to see the northern lights at their greatest

anybody got an electric blanket??? Won't be going for a roof tent I don't think.

I was planning just a mini trip, ferry from newcastle to stavenger then work my way up to hammerfest stopping at most of the towns in between, think it is roughly 1500 miles from stavenger to hammerfest so was planning to take maybe a week to get there, does anyone have any advice on the state of the roads in norway ?

Main routes north are fine - at least they were about 5 years ago when I was last there. Ferries are brilliant and run on time. Never been that far North in the Winter and would advise that you take advice on tyre choice.

I think I would only go that far in the summer, much better for seeing the scenery as they only get a few hours of daylight in the winter, as an example sunrise in hammerfest for wednesday is 01:50 and sunset is 22:50 it hardly gets dark in the summer, temperature is still low only 3 during the day and a possible -4 during the night, Im not planning on doing any heavy off roading will probably stick to main routes and will be staying in cheap hotels or hostels, unfortunately my girlfriend refuses to sleep in a roof tent under any circumstances, I would have been happy with camping,

The AA are doing a good foreign recovery policy at the moment for a starting price of £65 and it covers norway, always handy just incase

We're going May 2010 as part of route and having looked into in more detail have been advised that due to time of year that we are going - do not need to make any special considerations and in fact need to beware of mosquitos in Lap areas where really warm and ice breaks etc. Otherwise, we would take ferry from Newcastle to either of 3 stop points and make our way up. Reckon on main routes too. Research shows that Norway is building more tourist routes also which are due to be completed by 2010 so worth doing a final check a month or two before you go to re-check route.

I was checking the weather forcast for Norway today and by the looks of it hammerfest has nearly 24 hours of daylight now but still showing possible snow flurries for today and just above freezing tempertures, so certainly best to ensure the heater is working properly before leaving

There's nowhere better in my opinion than the north in the summer - can't stand the idea of chockablock beaches and the idea of running into the desert can wait. However .... I would like to take in the Northern Lights so we will need to prepare ourselves for the worst ... or just fly.