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The Aurora season is from August 21st - April 21st. We are accepting bookings now for the 2021-22 Aurora Season and beyond.
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Aurora Chasing Photography TourAugust 21st - April 21st
9-10 pm - Pick up 3-4:00 am - Return time Tour Details:
**Aurora portraits are contingent upon weather and aurora conditions. $195 per Person
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Additional Tour Information
What should you expect on your fully guided tour?
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Aurora Portraits |
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Portrait is included in the tour, extra portraits are available for $100 each.
Fall 2021- Spring 2022 Requires booking of tour. |
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Rental Camera |
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Imagine coming home from your northern lights adventure in Alaska and being able to share a piece of the experience with friends and family with beautiful photos of the aurora on print and on social media. With our Nikon D610 rental package, this can become a reality. This rental is available exclusively for our tour guests and includes everything you need to take great pictures of the northern lights. This is the same camera that took most of the shots on this website. All you need to bring is an SD memory card or buy one from us and you are set with a tripod, lenses, and all. Online availability is shown on the booking calendar and must be booked separately from the tour.
$55 for rental package
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Frequently Asked Questions
Question: When is the best time to come?
Answer: Anytime your personal schedule will allow from August 21st to April 21st is a good time. I find April to be the best of all months. More information can be found here.
Question: Do you offer winter clothing rentals?
Answer: No. We have suggestions on what to bring here. If you really want to rent something please check out Alaska Element, a locally owned winter clothing rental company. They offer warm clothing packages and will even deliver to your hotel and pick it up when you are done! https://alaskaelement.com/
Question: What lens should I get for my Nikon DX sensor camera (D3000 and D5000 series cameras)?
Check our blog post here, other camera brands and sensor size suggestion coming soon.
Question: Is seeing the northern lights guaranteed?
Answer: The local visitors association advertises that if you spend 3 nights out looking for the aurora you have a 90% chance to see the northern lights. If you back out the numbers to a single night it would come out to roughly 53% chance for one as what they advertise but our internal numbers show us photographing the aurora on roughly 80% of all our tours! This is the evidence that chasing the lights MASSIVELY increases your chances of seeing it and if you miss out you can hop on another tour as our stand by guest at no cost within 30 days of your original tour. If other operators don't advertise their success rate, you can bet it is far lower than ours and closer to the average 53%. We do not guarantee the aurora because it does not happen 100% of the time but the fact remains that the more time you plan on spending out looking for it the closer your odds get to 100% so we do not suggest planning on just one night.
Where does the tour go?
We have many, perhaps dozens of locations we have used for viewing the aurora. Like a fisherman trying to keep his fishing holes secret we also do not publish where we go specifically, but as a general rule of thumb, we try to stay within 2 hours or about 100 miles of Fairbanks. On rare occasion we will chase farther.
Question: Do you offer a discount for (fill in the blank)?
Our aurora chasing tour is specifically designed to be different. We made the decision at our inception to offer a tour to give you the very best chance possible of enjoying our famous northern lights while also offering a high quality, informative, photo tour with a small group and local guide. In short, our business strategy is to compete on quality, not price. Furthermore, our guest's age, camera or lack of, veteran status, etc. doesn't change the business costs we incur. We could charge everybody else more to lower the price for certain groups of people, and many businesses around the country do that but we choose to offer all people the same price.
What makes your tour different?
Many other operations put as many people as they can in a fixed location (cabin, yurt, etc) and often use multiple vans to shuttle people to the site or full-sized buses. Imagine several dozen people all in a small area all shining their flashlights around. Anyone who has done stargazing before knows this is the opposite of what you want. This actually happens and is extremely damaging to our own natural night vision and messes up photos of the northern light. We don't like it that way and want to offer you a better way. While everyone is at the mercy of the weather we have found by chasing we have seen it many times when everyone else at stationary location near Fairbanks has been clouded out, by traveling to the areas with the best forecasts we have found we can be successful and bring you the aurora far more frequently than the average operation. Our internal numbers show us photographing it on about 88% of all of our tours and if you miss the aurora can hop on another one of our tours in the next 30 days as a stand by guest at no additional cost.
What is the cancelation policy?
If the request for cancelation is made more than one month before the tour date your booking is fully refundable. Within a month from your tour date, we have a no-cancellation / no refund policy. If we are unable to provide your tour for any reason, (for example due to extreme winter weather) you will receive a full refund. We are very successful at finding the northern lights but ultimately we are at the mercy of mother nature with respect to space weather and earth weather. We do not cancel for cloudy forecasts or slow aurora forecasts because we have found with our “chasing” format that even if the weather forecast for Fairbanks is cloudy, we typically can drive to weather more suitable for viewing. Aurora forecasts generally can’t be accurately made more than 1 hour into the future - yes, they are made up to 27 days out but beyond an hour out they have a low degree of accuracy and are commonly misinterpreted. In the unlikely event that you do not get to see the aurora on your tour, per our discretion, you may book another tour that departs no later than 30 days after your initial tour at no cost as a “standby” guest. We have a no refund policy within one month of the tour date so if you need to be covered for this time frame please buy travelers’ insurance ahead of time.
Answer: Anytime your personal schedule will allow from August 21st to April 21st is a good time. I find April to be the best of all months. More information can be found here.
Question: Do you offer winter clothing rentals?
Answer: No. We have suggestions on what to bring here. If you really want to rent something please check out Alaska Element, a locally owned winter clothing rental company. They offer warm clothing packages and will even deliver to your hotel and pick it up when you are done! https://alaskaelement.com/
Question: What lens should I get for my Nikon DX sensor camera (D3000 and D5000 series cameras)?
Check our blog post here, other camera brands and sensor size suggestion coming soon.
Question: Is seeing the northern lights guaranteed?
Answer: The local visitors association advertises that if you spend 3 nights out looking for the aurora you have a 90% chance to see the northern lights. If you back out the numbers to a single night it would come out to roughly 53% chance for one as what they advertise but our internal numbers show us photographing the aurora on roughly 80% of all our tours! This is the evidence that chasing the lights MASSIVELY increases your chances of seeing it and if you miss out you can hop on another tour as our stand by guest at no cost within 30 days of your original tour. If other operators don't advertise their success rate, you can bet it is far lower than ours and closer to the average 53%. We do not guarantee the aurora because it does not happen 100% of the time but the fact remains that the more time you plan on spending out looking for it the closer your odds get to 100% so we do not suggest planning on just one night.
Where does the tour go?
We have many, perhaps dozens of locations we have used for viewing the aurora. Like a fisherman trying to keep his fishing holes secret we also do not publish where we go specifically, but as a general rule of thumb, we try to stay within 2 hours or about 100 miles of Fairbanks. On rare occasion we will chase farther.
Question: Do you offer a discount for (fill in the blank)?
Our aurora chasing tour is specifically designed to be different. We made the decision at our inception to offer a tour to give you the very best chance possible of enjoying our famous northern lights while also offering a high quality, informative, photo tour with a small group and local guide. In short, our business strategy is to compete on quality, not price. Furthermore, our guest's age, camera or lack of, veteran status, etc. doesn't change the business costs we incur. We could charge everybody else more to lower the price for certain groups of people, and many businesses around the country do that but we choose to offer all people the same price.
What makes your tour different?
Many other operations put as many people as they can in a fixed location (cabin, yurt, etc) and often use multiple vans to shuttle people to the site or full-sized buses. Imagine several dozen people all in a small area all shining their flashlights around. Anyone who has done stargazing before knows this is the opposite of what you want. This actually happens and is extremely damaging to our own natural night vision and messes up photos of the northern light. We don't like it that way and want to offer you a better way. While everyone is at the mercy of the weather we have found by chasing we have seen it many times when everyone else at stationary location near Fairbanks has been clouded out, by traveling to the areas with the best forecasts we have found we can be successful and bring you the aurora far more frequently than the average operation. Our internal numbers show us photographing it on about 88% of all of our tours and if you miss the aurora can hop on another one of our tours in the next 30 days as a stand by guest at no additional cost.
What is the cancelation policy?
If the request for cancelation is made more than one month before the tour date your booking is fully refundable. Within a month from your tour date, we have a no-cancellation / no refund policy. If we are unable to provide your tour for any reason, (for example due to extreme winter weather) you will receive a full refund. We are very successful at finding the northern lights but ultimately we are at the mercy of mother nature with respect to space weather and earth weather. We do not cancel for cloudy forecasts or slow aurora forecasts because we have found with our “chasing” format that even if the weather forecast for Fairbanks is cloudy, we typically can drive to weather more suitable for viewing. Aurora forecasts generally can’t be accurately made more than 1 hour into the future - yes, they are made up to 27 days out but beyond an hour out they have a low degree of accuracy and are commonly misinterpreted. In the unlikely event that you do not get to see the aurora on your tour, per our discretion, you may book another tour that departs no later than 30 days after your initial tour at no cost as a “standby” guest. We have a no refund policy within one month of the tour date so if you need to be covered for this time frame please buy travelers’ insurance ahead of time.
Photos from 2018 Tours
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