✦ WHERE TO STAY
Sleep somewhere the sky is actually dark.
The hardest part of seeing the northern lights is being in the right place with the night still ahead of you. These are three places to base yourself — each one rural, each one far from a town's glow, and each one somewhere you can walk outside and look up without driving first.
Self-drive · No sighting guarantee
Three places to stay
Different corners of the country — north-west, north-east and south-east — so there is usually one within reach of wherever your route already goes.
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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 → -
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.
See the stay →
What they have in common
All three are rural, all three are somewhere you can step straight outside on an active night, and all three sit within reach of spots the app already scores.
What you are paying for
- A room, or a whole house — booked with the property, on their terms
Free for everyone, guest or not
- The Aurora Iceland app — free, no account needed
- Live scores for 128 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. 128 spots across Iceland, scored every 5 minutes. No account needed.