These are my notes from my northern lights trip - so many people have asked for tips and help, so here goes.
There's a disc at the upper latitudes where northern lights are mostly likely to be seen. It's not simply a matter of "how north you go" because you can go too far north. Tromso, Norway is right underneath this disc. This is why the Tromso people don't care about the Kp index. The Kp index is a better indication of how far south the northern lights will extend. When Kp is high, you can see the lights in a lot of the mainland US. On the other hand, when the Kp is 0, the Tromso folks can have an amazing show. I believe Iceland is not quite directly underneath it, but is close.
One of the biggest factors, no matter where you go, is cloud cover. I believe Abisko, Sweden has a relatively low cloud cover is a good choice but I chose to go to Tromso because it's a bigger city, with other sightseeing and restaurants, etc. Tromso is also on the coast, and is warmed by the Atlantic current, so it doesn't get super cold - they reported average lows of 4C during the winter, and someone told me the lowest it's been was -12C which isn't bad at all for its 69 degree latitude. As far as I could tell, going inland towards Lapland (Finland), was better for clouds but colder.
Alta, Norway was another possibility because they are in the center of three different climatological regions, but I couldn't get good flights in and out.
Fairbanks and other locations are also very good but be careful of the timing of their auroras. Tromso peaks between 7p and midnight. Apparently Fairbanks is more like 2 or 3am which means really long nights.
It rained the first two days I was in Tromso and was partly cloudy on the third day. I had three days of tours set up with three different agencies to hedge my bets. I had read that three days enabled very high chances of seeing something. The tours are all basically the same. They meet around 6p, take you in a bus or minibus to a good place or two to see the lights, give you a hot drink and snacks or a meal, give you some info about the science if you're lucky, photograph the lights (and you), email the photos to you, and you get back around 2am. Coming directly from the US is nice because you're awake at 2am. They need to review cloud forecasts as well as forecasts on the lights themselves. They are in communication with other light chasers to find the best locations.
I went with Chasing Lights big bus tour the first night (https://chasinglights.com/tour/northern-lights-big-bus-chase/). It was a nice, new tour bus with USB charging outlets at each seat and a bathroom that eventually got clogged. It was relatively inexpensive ($109). That light show was my highlight, there was a plane of green light that rotated and then danced. When the planes of light were directly overhead, it was like the skies were opening up. It was a religious experience for everyone. The guide even said it was a remarkable show and discussed how lucky we were. They had someone drive in to give us a science lecture that was so-so. We had a little fire pit that ended up being bad for my photos because of the ash in the air. We had found a spot on the side of the road so occasionally car lights would come by and ruin a photo. But generally, it was a very dark spot in the middle of nowhere. I didn't even see the picnic tables until much later, and ended up using them for my photos since I didn't have a real tripod.
The second night I went with Northern Horizon (https://northernhorizon.no/tour-item/northern-lights-tour-by-minibus/) on the minibus. It was smaller and more intimate, maybe 10 of us? The highlight was the guide Harry, who has been chasing for 6 years and is a science geek. I learned way more about the science and got to ask a lot of questions. This was a deluxe tour ($210) so we had tripods, thermal suits, duck boots, reindeer sausages over a campfire. Harry was looking for a spot that we could park in that was dark enough. We found a spot surrounded by trees which bugged me at the beginning because the trees were pretty tall, but the darkness was really nice and we could see the colors much more in the total darkness. Harry and Dominic had this tour down to a science in terms of efficient organization and setup of the camp. It was worth the cost and I would have done that tour first, had I known.
The third night I went with Northern Soul (https://www.northernsouladventures.com/northernlights). It was slightly more expensive than Northern Horizon and also featured a minibus. It was chaotic and the guide didn't have much experience and wasn't very organized. She also knew nothing about the science and didn't really try. Her photography skills were lacking and it took her many many tries to get the photos. I remember waiting a very long time to get my photo taken because the bus driver wanted to get her photo taken first and it took a long time. The food was great, some kind of veggie soup. They had chairs and headlamps and tripods although initially my tripod lacked a fitting to attach the camera to, and I had to wait for the guide to set up other stuff before I could get a proper tripod. We went to a spot the guide had never been to, out on the beach but it clouded up pretty quickly so we drove around and eventually found another spot and then the skies really opened up. Seeing the lights over the water is the best if you can do it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of other light from towns and roads that are less than ideal.
I stayed in the Clarion The Edge hotel (https://www.strawberryhotels.com/hotels/norge/tromso/clarion-hotel-the-edge) which was really nice. On the water, great location, an amazing breakfast buffet, a great lunch/dinner restaurant, and just stunning views.
There's a lot of stuff to do during the day if you're awake! I did a fjord boat tour which was nice but not sure I'd do it again. When you drive to see the lights you go by the same areas. There's a nice Arctic cathedral. I didn't do the cable car to the top of the mountain but if I had time, I'd do that or hike up the mountain.
You can do the lights via car, on your own. The key is checking the cloud forecast and aurora forecast. There seem to be two peak periods, one around 8-9p and another at 10-11p. The second is better. I looked on twitter and reddit and I think there must be better sources of real time info than those.
