✦ WHERE TO STAY
Sleep somewhere the sky is actually dark.
Five rural places to base yourself, far from any town's glow — where seeing the northern lights means stepping outside, not driving first.
Self-drive · No sighting guarantee
Five places to stay
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★ Our pick
Hella · South Iceland
Landhotel
A countryside hotel on Route 26 with open farmland in every direction, a free northern-lights wake-up call, and two aurora webcams running all winter.
- Open all year
- 10 min off the Ring Road
- 69 rooms and a restaurant
- Sauna, hot tub and gym
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Ásahreppur, Hella · South Iceland
Hestheimar
A guesthouse and eight cottages on the open plains north-west of Hella, with two hot tubs and Hekla on the skyline. In National Geographic's 100 Hotels of a Lifetime.
See the stay → -
Kópasker · North-East Iceland
Melar Guesthouse
A family guesthouse in one of Kópasker's oldest houses, on the shore of Öxarfjörður, with geothermal hot tubs and a black-sand beach alongside.
See the stay → -
Mýrar, Hornafjörður · South-East Iceland
Brunnhóll
A family-run farm guesthouse on the Ring Road under Vatnajökull, with a restaurant, its own ice cream, and a northern-lights wake-up call.
Closed mid-November to late January
See the stay → -
Hrútafjörður · North-West Iceland
Óspaksstaðir Aurora Basecamp
A renovated family farm let out as a whole house. Sleeps 6, 160 km from Reykjavík, with no town glow in any direction.
See the stay →
What they have in common
All five are rural, all five are somewhere you can step straight outside on an active night, and all five sit within reach of spots the app already scores. They sit in different corners of the country — the southern plains, north-west, north-east and south-east — so there is usually one within reach of wherever your route already goes.
What you are paying for
- A room, or a whole house — booked through Booking.com, on the property's terms
Free for everyone, guest or not
- The Aurora Iceland app — free, no account needed
- Live scores for 137 spots — refreshed every 5 minutes
- A recommended self-drive route — on each property's page
Anyone can download the app, guest or not. It is not an extra you are paying for here, and it is not a guided service. You drive, you decide, you watch the sky.
What we will not promise
Nobody can guarantee the northern lights. Anyone who does is selling you something.
The aurora needs a quiet sun to cooperate and the weather to get out of the way, and neither takes instruction. Some stays get three clear, active nights. Some get cloud from start to finish. That is the honest shape of it — which is also why we suggest more than one night wherever you end up.
What the forecast can do is make it far less likely that you sleep through a good night, or drive an hour for a sky that was never going to open.
Get the forecast first
Free. 137 spots across Iceland, scored every 5 minutes. No account needed.