My wife has always wanted to see the Northern lights.
Trouble is she hates flying. So Scotland it is.

Does anyone know

a) A good place to go in the very north of Scotland to do this?
b) When will be the best time? I presume some time in January.

I know there’s no guarantees so the place needs to be good for a long weekend away as well just in case.

Don’t know where is best in Scotland to be honest, definitely further north than Aberdeen.

If flying is out of the question could you take a cruise from the UK somewhere up to Norway, see the fjords and stuff, relax on the ship and possibly maybe see the northern lights?

Something like THIS

This should help

Yeah, I was reckoning around the Pitlochery area. Thanks.

I’ve booked a room in a huge castle in the area for two nights for us both for £200 which seems like a good deal. Can always cancel if I find somewhere better.

Cruise idea is nice but not in budget I’m afraid.

Have seen Northern Lights several times Jon.

No hard and fast “best place” but would say from Inverness north would do the trick. Would have thought Aberdeen would work but maybe not..

Places I’ve seen them – Kintail (W Ross), Dava Moor (S Moray Firth), outside Elgin (S Moray Firth again) and Arisaig (west coast, W of Fort William).

Pitlochry – you might need the elevation to see them as well. Big hotel in Pitlochry? nice! Kevin @ Escape Route for bike stuff.

Not sure activity is winter month confined, just more darkness. Sightings above were October, possibly October again, maybe November and October..

Sign up to Aurora Watch?

Pitlochry area is nowhere near ideal. The hills to the north obscure the horizon. Head for Elgin, Nairn or somewhere else around the Morayshire coast – or be prepared to go even further north to Thurso

Ta. We’ll need to nip over and say hello if we come up.
Atholl Palace. Looks good.

Pitlochry area is nowhere near ideal. The hills to the north obscure the horizon. Head for Elgin, Nairn or somewhere else around the Morayshire coast – or be prepared to go even further north to Thurso

Would it not be fairly easy to drive across to the other side of the hills on a evening? As I say, I’m trying to find somewhere that is going to work if it’s cloudy as well as clear. Not that it’s ever cloudy in Scotland.

Aye, that’s the one I was thinking, it’s quite large! Been to a wedding there only.

nip over”

– Aviemore by bike could be ah challenging in January LOL.

Minigaig Pass for the win, Gaick Pass trailing a poor second, Sustrans route would be woosing out – fat bike will be fine 🙂

Sign up to Aurora Watch?

I’m not sure how much in advance this works. We both have to pre-book time off work before we drive for 5 trillion miles so we can’t just up and leave if the watch tells us ‘tonight’

My grasp of geometry (and Earth geometry) is not that good, but I think that “the other side of the hills” wouldn’t work really –
a/ the hills don’t really have an easily accessible “other side”
b/ there are other – bigger – hills on the other side

N Lights appear at reasonable height but full effect is probably only going to be visible with view of horizon (which is why Moray Firth, and further North, get more sightings presumably..)

Given that you need to combine a lack of cloud (and light pollution) with the right funny business going on up in the sky the likelihood of seeing anything on any weekend booked in advance is always pretty low (as it seems you know). Even spending quite a bit of time in northern Sweden each winter there are far more days with nothing to see than there are with anything notable. The best I’ve seen in the UK was in Northumberland so Pitlochry isn’t too far south – quite a bit of artificial lighting until you head out into the hills though, and a bit hemmed in. But the fact that you probably won’t see them whenever/wherever you book means you might as well just book somewhere you want to spend a weekend with the wife. Having said that if I was going somewhere just on the off chance, then I’d go up to the top end of the mainland – north coast, the top of some hills in Sutherland or maybe Skye.

kcal +1 – unless you want to go right up to the north, north, north coast, Moray Firth is your best bet, nothing to obscure the horizon. Time it right and you could join one of the Lights watching parties on the beach at Lossiemouth, bonfire, BBQ, etc, etc…

Don’t need to go that far North but you get better with less light pollution, seen them loads of times the best being a few years ago when driving back to Station up the A1 they were amazing.

So Kielder area is another option as it’s very close to getting the dark sky status and a lot easier to get to.

I saw them acouple times when I lived in Aberdeenshire, but the best was east of Dundee when the show covered pretty the whole sky. You need a clear sky and best to be away from lights. Pick up a planishere (Amazon, £10 or so) and a torch. Get some large aperture (7×50 or so) if the budget extends to it, then wander off on a clear night and enjoy the night sky. Don’t get too hooked on the need to see the horizon, there’s plenty of sky, but I wouldn’t be going to Pitlochry – bit too touristy.

Drac – Moderator
Don’t need to go that far North but you get better with less light pollution, seen them loads of times the best being a few years ago when driving back to Station up the A1 they were amazing.

Yep outside of Alnwick a few times, what you need is to be in the right place at the right time. That is it.

I saw them once on a night ride. about 5 miles from Bradford city centre!

I have been skiing in Finland 3 times and I have only seen them once. I would not pin your hopes on seeing them on any trip. There are optimum months (Sept and March from memory) to view the lights (when there is the least cloud cover) but it is still pot luck.

Would it not be fairly easy to drive across to the other side of the hills on a evening?

Even as far north as Inverness the lights are very low in the sky, or at least the most visible elements are low – so low you really need to be looking north over the sea – a stand of trees never mind a range of hills will hide them if they indeed make an appearance. As an indication of the hit and miss-ness – I lived to the east of Inverness for 3 years and glimpsed the lights just twice in that time – once when I was up in the hills, once driving by the coast.

Short of going all the way up to the north coast the Moray / Aberdeenshire coast, and a hotel with a sea view would be a much better than Pitlochry. But the flip side of that is most of the towns on that coast are all but closed in the winter

Further north still I met a woman who runs a cafe at the Butt of Lewis who was a total Northern Lights nut – her site gives a bit of a steer / forecast as to when and where you’d have better luck seeing the lights.

If you were heading up that far north you can do worse than stay at Baile Na Cille

OTOH they can be really strong quite high in the sky as it were – my sighting in Kintail was as I drove back one night from Skye, fully visible tubes of light – thought they were spooky green searchlights at first – easily visible over the Five Sisters…

Many thanks Chaps. yeah, I appreciate it’s pot luck if we see them which is why i want to make it a trip away during which we may see the lights if we’re very lucky. We both love Scotland so just driving up for as long weekend will be fine for us. I’ll reconsider where we will stay.