For several years now, we have been exploring destinations that are easily accessible by car from Germany with our campervan. Always on the lookout for the perfect combination of a windsurfing holiday and at the same time unspoilt nature, wild animals and good hiking opportunities for extended tours with our dogs. Recently, our trips have increasingly taken us to Scandinavia, especially Sweden and Norway - not least because it is still very easy to spend the night in a van in these countries due to the "Allemannsretten" (everyman's right).
When planning our autumn tour in 2022, it quickly became clear that we should head north again. The stated aim of our holiday mission: to see and photograph the Northern Lights once in our lives, hopefully experience moose and reindeer in the wild - and, of course, spend as much time as possible on the water.
The fascination of the Northern Lights
Auroras, known as aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere, are caused by the interaction of high-energy, charged particles of the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. The spectacular light phenomenon is formed where these particles hit the Earth's atmosphere after travelling from the sun for two to four days. The electrons and protons travel at a speed of an unimaginable 500 to 800 kilometres per second. The greenish light is produced at a height of around 100 to 200 kilometres above the Earth's surface, the redder light at even greater heights.
The intensity of the auroras depends on the intensity of the solar winds. This is based on the solar cycle, which lasts approximately eleven years. Today, solar activity is continuously monitored, meaning that the occurrence of auroras can now be predicted relatively well. If you do not have direct access to data from ESA or NASA, you can use various apps for this purpose. We recommend the Aurora and Norway Lights apps, the combination of both forecasts worked really well for us on the Lofoten Islands and was very reliable.
Incidentally, auroras are not always equally good to see. We only perceive colours to a limited extent when the light intensity is low, which is why the auroras often appear whitish to light green on nights with weak colours, so that they can easily be mistaken for bright clouds. As the intensity increases, the auroras then glow a clear green, sometimes purple or reddish colour. On photos, the colours often appear much stronger than they actually are, especially on weak days. On intense nights, however, you can also see an absolute spectacle of colour with the naked eye.
The long journey to the light
After a little more detailed research, it quickly became clear that our mission would have to take us further north than we had managed so far. Lapland, the North Cape, Iceland or remote areas in northern Russia are the best places to see the Northern Lights with a high probability. However, as we only had three weeks and Russia was currently not an option for us due to the current situation, we decided to try our luck on the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway. A journey of around 2500 kilometres from Kiel one-way with a four-hour ferry crossing from northern Denmark to southern Norway seemed quite feasible to us for the time available - taking into account the fact that you travel at a significantly lower speed in Norway than on German motorways. We also wanted to plan a few hours of hiking every day to take care of our four-legged companions. But the area along the route is far too beautiful to simply rush through without stopping off.
As it turned out, the prospects for auroras north of Trondheim are already quite good, and there are some impressive pictures of sensational aurora nights from the Lofoten Islands online. The time of year also seemed well suited - according to our research, the best chances of seeing the spectacular light event are at the end of September, beginning of October and from February to March.
How to photograph the Northern Lights
We spent the majority of our trip preparation gathering tips and instructions for photographing our target. Of course, in order to take the best possible photos of the Northern Lights, you need a cloud-free sky and the corresponding solar activity. So you just have to be lucky that both coincide in the few days available. We also bought some equipment so that we could take the best possible pictures.
The minimum equipment for this is a camera with which you can manually set the aperture and exposure time, a tripod and a lens with as wide an angle and fast aperture as possible. A remote shutter release is also useful, although you can also use a self-timer function. With exposure times of around ten to 15 seconds, manual release is not an option. Otherwise, we scoured the internet for windsurfing and surfing spots, descriptions of national parks, and studied a few travel guides and the "Red Hiking Guide" about the Lofoten Islands and the Vesterålen Islands a little further north.
The windsurfing board will have to wait
In the second half of September, we finally set off on our Nordland adventure. Shortly after Oslo, the landscape changes and you get a first impression of the beauty of Norway, which, in our experience, can only really be experienced on foot on hikes away from the busy and built-up areas.
After the first few hours of our tour, we experienced several highlights of our trip. During a hike lasting several hours in the Dovrefjell National Park, we were able to admire a musk ox from a short distance. The evening before, we had already been lucky enough to observe a group of these mighty, magnificent and hairy animals from the main E6 road, but only from a greater distance. An encounter at close range is even more impressive.
A little further on, shortly after the rather unspectacular crossing of the Arctic Circle, we were lucky enough to spot two reindeer in the immediate vicinity of the road, which didn't seem to be bothered by the traffic rushing past. These were our first reindeer in the wild - and unfortunately they were the only ones so far.
Camping and travelling in the Lofoten Islands
The further north we travelled, the quieter and more unspoilt the sparsely populated area became. This changes a little when you cross over to the Lofoten Islands. The archipelago is characterised by small, picturesque villages along the coast. The road network is fairly straightforward - in principle, one main route leads from Lødingen to Å in the far south-west of Lofoten. The 230-kilometre route takes almost four hours. As there are only a few side roads, it is often not easy to find good overnight accommodation. Many campers therefore simply park along the main road (which has little traffic at night) in small gravel bays, which has little to do with wild and romantic camping. The typical apps such as park4night are very helpful, and with a little exploration and effort you can find good places to sleep, at least in the low season.
In the high season, on the other hand, Lofoten must be a madhouse. The islands are very popular with campers - and even at our time of travelling, in the absolute low season, you get the feeling in some places that all the motorhomes in the world are gathered on the islands.
Challenging hiking tours in the Lofoten Islands
Some of the villages on the Lofoten Islands are really famous as photo motifs. The photographic face of Lofoten, for example, is the village of Reine, in the evening light or at night. Otherwise, the small fishing huts near Hamnøy and picturesque Nusjford are definitely worth a detour. The latter is not just a place to visit, but also the starting point for a beautiful coastal hike.
Speaking of hikes: As already mentioned, the best way to experience Norway is on foot off the beaten track - and there are countless wonderful hiking opportunities in the Lofoten Islands. The Outdooractive app contains most of the tours that are also described in the "Red Hiking Guide", for example. However, most of the tours are at least partly uphill. Some tours are very demanding and long, so you should approach them slowly.
Windsurfing spots in the Lofoten Islands
In terms of windsurfing, the Lofoten Islands are relatively poorly developed. There are only a few well-known windsurfing spots, which only work in narrow wind windows. The best-known spots are on the north side of the islands, the south coast is often very rocky and the water is very difficult to access. There are only a few real wave spots. Good down-the-line conditions can be found in Eggum on the OSO. However, the spot is rocky and the entry is challenging. You can be lucky here for surfing, but the better spot and the Mecca of surfing in the area is Unstad, which offers very good left and right handers with two point breaks. However, it gets crowded here quickly and the entry is not trivial due to the many rocks.
On the western islands there is a fantastic freestyle spot in Fredvang (SO), as well as two spots with the chance of small swells in Ramberg and Flakstad. Especially with longboards, you can also find good surfing conditions at a simple beach break in Flakstad. The problem is that both spots only work in extremely narrow wind windows. A few degrees of wind shift can quickly lead to extremely gusty conditions or no wind at all, while on the other side of the mountain the wind is blowing like crazy.
Discover new spots yourself
It's easier and more comfortable at Vinjestranda on Gimsøya, where you can find easy freeride and freestyle conditions on a beautiful sandy beach and (especially in different wind directions) relatively steady winds.
Apart from these more well-known spots (where you will usually be alone on the water), there are of course many opportunities to get out on the water on the countless fjords. Finding a parking space is often the biggest challenge - you should keep a close eye on the tide times, as the current can sometimes be considerable and quite dangerous. The general rule here is: Seek and ye shall find. There are many opportunities for surfing, but once again you need a spirit of discovery to find good spots and entry points in different wind directions.
After the rain comes the aurora borealis
But back to the actual topic - the northern lights. On our way north, we were accompanied by constant rain - and when we arrived in the Lofoten Islands, it was pouring so heavily that you had to drive at a snail's pace to be able to see the road at all. But then the tide turned when we arrived at Reine in the west of Lofoten. The rain subsided, the cloud cover thinned and what followed can only be described as incredible luck. Until our departure, we had SE to E winds, which were sufficient for windsurfing on a few days and ensured that the weather got better and better. As a result, we were able to observe our target nine nights in a row.
As early as the second night, a bright shimmer appeared in the sky, which we didn't even recognise as an aurora borealis. But then the aurora became more intense and colourful from day to day, and we were able to observe and photograph an increasingly intense spectacle in the sky every evening. This was ideal for us, as we were able to find the perfect camera settings and look for the best places to take photos. At some point, you don't just want to take blunt shots of the sky, you want even more perfect reflections on a film of water on the beach or a beautiful foreground.
For those interested in photography, we recommend the website of Sven Herdt ( svenherdt.com ). It offers photo information on many locations worldwide, including the Lofoten Islands, which you can download to make your search for the best photo spots for landscapes and aurora shots much easier.
Northern lights like fireworks
After about four days, the aurora intensity reached its maximum. On three consecutive nights, the lights appeared just as colourful and intense to the naked eye as they do in the best photos. Sometimes static, sometimes slightly wafting, sometimes moving and dynamic, as if they were dancing in the sky - and on the best night, for about half an hour, as if the fireworks at the end of Kiel Week were exploding directly above your head.
The pictures hopefully convey an impression of what we were able to experience: But they certainly can't replace being there live. I have the fondest memories of a very intense night in which we sat on our camping chairs in our ski suits and - in the middle of a deserted beach - watched shooting stars and auroras in the sky for around three hours, pressing the remote shutter release on the camera every 30 seconds. An absolutely unrivalled experience that we will remember for a long time to come.
Whale watching on the Vesterålen
After about a week on the Lofoten Islands, we decided to extend our trip with a detour to the Vesterålen archipelago to the north. We felt that we had achieved our goals on the Lofoten Islands and felt the urge to explore even more new and unknown areas. The Vesterålen islands are a little less popular with tourists - and so you can find even more peace and quiet on the northern islands than on the Lofoten islands. In addition to beautiful - and sometimes challenging - hiking opportunities, more aurora borealis nights and beautiful sunsets, there is a special highlight for all ocean lovers on the northern Vesterålen islands.
About an hour's boat ride from the northernmost town of Andenes, there is a place where the seabed drops steeply from the continental shelf into the deep sea by several hundred metres. It is here that male sperm whales dive in pursuit of deep-sea squid before returning to the surface every 30 minutes or so for about five to ten minutes. With www.whalesafari.no you can book very well-organised tours on which, thanks to sonar technology and extensive experience, you can admire sperm whales (and especially their impressive fluke) with almost one hundred percent probability as they dive down. The majestic sperm whale males are usually between 15 and 20 metres long and weigh around 20 tonnes, making them real gentle giants of the sea.
After four days on the Vesterålen, we slowly had to make our way home, but we wanted to tick off the last item on our to-do list for the trip: moose!
The moose hunt at the end
On the southern edge of the archipelago, within sight of Lofoten, there is a particularly good chance of spotting moose at dusk on Hadseløya on a five-kilometre stretch of a small country road. As the animals are very shy, they are best seen from the car and only extremely rarely on hikes - and certainly not if you have dogs with you. We were lucky here too and on our last evening on the Vesterålen we were able to observe an entire family of moose coming out of a small birch grove to eat the lush grass in a small meadow next to the road for dinner.
With a shoulder height of up to 2.3 metres and a weight of up to 800 kilos, moose have a physique like cows on stilts, and they move as gracefully and slowly as giraffes. As they are relatively localised, there is a great chance of seeing these fascinating animals live once in a lifetime here on Hadseløya on the stretch of road mentioned. Tips and a location description for our moose spot can be found on www.nordlandblog.de/elche .
On the 2500 kilometres or so we travelled home, we were surprisingly lucky enough to see moose from the car at the side of the road several times - mostly in places and areas where we didn't expect to see them, but always at dusk. So, keep your eyes open!
Incredible nature experiences, even away from windsurfing
A total of 6000 kilometres and countless hours of driving time, many kilometres of hiking and metres of altitude, two reindeer, five musk oxen, nine moose, two whales and nine nights of aurora borealis: that's the overall balance of our trip to the north. Mission successfully accomplished!
The windsurfing balance of the trip was a little more sobering. Due to the uncharacteristically good weather with south-easterly winds, I was only able to get out on the water on five days, two of which were in very good freestyle conditions. We did look for good wave conditions several times, but always in vain. Access to the few promising wave spots was usually blocked by steep cliffs or a lot of rocks, and the risk of not even getting the equipment into the water safely was always too high for me. Unfortunately, the few known wave spots on our itinerary didn't work out due to the prevailing wind direction during the time we were travelling.
I can only recommend a trip to the north of Norway to anyone who wants to combine windsurfing with impressive nature experiences, who can live with being on holiday mainly in flat water on fjords, lakes or on beaches protected from the waves, who has a spirit of discovery and spares no effort to find good spots. For those who are hungry for waves, there are admittedly better destinations. Often without the prospect of the northern lights and moose. But as we all know, there's always something...
