The aurora, the fjords, the ice. Five countries, one trip.
Which Tromsø aurora boat still sails when the cloud rolls in. What an ice cave under Vatnajökull costs in March. Whether Bergen or Stavanger gives you the better fjord day. Reviews of every tour you can book across the Nordic five.
Four bookings a first Nordic trip is usually built around.
A loop out of Reykjavík, a Lapland night under clear sky, a fjord arm out of Bergen and the boat through the Stockholm skerries. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The Iceland loopGolden Circle Full-Day Tour with Kerid CraterGeysir, Gullfoss and the rift at Þingvellir in one day out of Reykjavík. Take the early bus and you are at Gullfoss before the coaches arrive.
02The Lapland nightNorthern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsRovaniemi guides keep driving until they find a hole in the cloud, and hand you a thermal suit at the door. Runs late August to early April.
03The fjord half-dayThe Original Fjord Cruise to MostraumenOut of Bergen into Mostraumen, close enough under the waterfall to fill a glass from it. The Norway booking nobody argues about afterwards.
04The Swedish waterArchipelago Boat TourOut through the inner skerries, where Stockholm stops being a city and turns into red boathouses. Summer sailings, and the late ones catch the low sun.
The lights run late August to early April. Tromsø, Lapland or Reykjavík decides the rest.
Nobody sells you the aurora. What you are buying is a driver who will chase a gap in the cloud for six hours. Three ways to take that gamble, what boarding each one costs, and the town it leaves from.
Five countries, and the day out that decides each one.
Iceland is waterfalls and ice. Norway is deep water and vertical rock. Finland is the snow and the reindeer that live on it. Sweden runs from the Stockholm skerries to the Kiruna ice, and Denmark is a capital you can cycle across before lunch.
From the Bergen quays to the Stockholm skerries, the good day starts on a boat.
Every boat trip →
Fjord arms too narrow for a cruise ship, whales feeding off Húsavík and Tromsø, RIBs running out to Lysefjord and the slow ferries through the archipelago. Most of this coastline only makes sense from the water.
Lapland runs on snow: a dog team, a reindeer sledge, an engine across a frozen lake.
From December the ground is white from Kiruna to Kirkenes and the daylight is a couple of blue hours. Everything worth doing happens inside them: huskies pulling flat out, a herder tipping lichen out of a bucket, a snowmobile track across a lake with a hole cut in it for the fish.
Every winter day out →
What a day out in Scandinavia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what one person pays. The Nordics are not cheap, but the gap between a city walk and a day on a glacier is wider than most people budget for.
Old-town walks, museum entry, canal cruises, city bikes and the short harbour hops.
- 1Northern Lights Bus Tour from Reykjavikfrom $73
- 2City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guidefrom $41
- 3Canal Cruise with Guidefrom $26
The full-day standards: the Golden Circle, an aurora chase, a fjord cruise, a husky run.
Ice caves, glacier hikes, Silfra in a drysuit and the private Arctic days that earn it.
The Nordic days out more travellers take than any other.
Every review on the site →Across all five countries, these are the ones that sell their seats first, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Golden Circle Full-Day Tour with Kerid Crater
Ride from Reykjavik to Strokkur, Gullfoss, Þingvellir, and Kerið on a 7 to 8.5-hour bus tour. Your English-speaking guide, such as Barbara, Andrea, or Eagle, adds Icelandic stories, geology, culture, and folklore. Choose an early departure if you want the best chance of visiting Kerið and avoiding the busiest crowds.
From · $82
Read our review →
2
Reykjavik Food Walk – Local Foodie Adventure in Iceland
from $146
3
Northern Lights Bus Tour from Reykjavik
from $73
4
South Coast Waterfalls, Black Sand & Glacier Tour
from $126
5
City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guide
from $41
6
Whale Watching and Marine Life Cruise
from $87
7
Canal Cruise with Guide
from $26
8
The Original Fjord Cruise to Mostraumen
from $93
Three things that only happen this far north.
Cold water and reindeer exist elsewhere. Swimming between two continental plates, a herd worked by the people who have always worked it, and a hotel carved out of river ice every November do not.
The Silfra Fissure
At Þingvellir the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart, and the gap has filled with glacier meltwater filtered through lava for decades. Visibility runs past a hundred metres and the water holds at two degrees all year, which is why everyone goes in wearing a drysuit and comes out talking about their face. Morning slots get the flat light straight down the crack.
- 1Silfra: Snorkeling Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on Location★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 5,001 reviews
- 2Silfra: Fissure Snorkeling Tour with Underwater Photos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,731 reviews
- 3Silfra Fissure Snorkeling between Two Continents★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,712 reviews
A Sámi Camp
Reindeer herding across northern Norway, Sweden and Finland is Sámi work, and the camps that take visitors are run by the families who do it. You feed the herd, sit in a lavvu while the fire smokes, and hear a joik, which is less a song about something than the thing itself. Winter camps stand on snow; the summer ones move with the herd.
- 1Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,417 reviews
- 2Reindeer Camp and Sami Cultural Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,326 reviews
- 3Sami Culture and Short Reindeer Sledding from Tromso★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 584 reviews
The Ice Hotels
Jukkasjärvi has been carving a hotel out of Torne river ice since 1989, and it melts back into the river every spring, so the rooms are new work each year. Copies now run from Kiruna down to Rovaniemi, with a glass-roofed variant aimed squarely at the aurora. Minus five inside is the point, and the bar serves in glasses cut from the same ice.
- 1Snow Hotel Tour and Ice Restaurant Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 345 reviews
- 2Arctic Snow Hotel Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 302 reviews
- 3Snow Hotel Tour with Food by the Fire★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 144 reviews
Darkness or daylight: this far north you get one or the other.
Above the Arctic Circle the sun does not set from late May to late July, and from December it barely rises. That single fact sorts a whole trip. Summer is the fjords, the ridges, the puffins and a kayak at midnight. Winter is the lights, the dogs, the ice caves and a sauna with a hole in the lake outside it.
- 1Katla Ice Cave and Super Jeep Tourfrom $194
- 2Jökulsárlón: Vatnajökull Ice Cave Guided Tourfrom $164
- 3Ice Cave Tour and Glacier Hikefrom $165
Four Nordic bookings that will not wait.
Most of a trip up here can be sorted from a hotel lobby the night before. These four run on ice that exists for part of the year, on daylight, and on a short list of operators with small boats and small kennels.
- 01Katla Ice Cave and Super Jeep TourNatural ice caves are cut fresh by meltwater each autumn and flood again in spring, so the season runs roughly November to March and the safe ones take small groups.
- 02Silfra: Snorkeling Between Tectonic Plates – Meet on LocationDrysuit sizing and a fixed guide ratio cap every Silfra slot, and the fissure takes only a few groups an hour.
- 03Small-Group Golden Circle, Blue Lagoon with Ticket & Kerid CraterEntry is by timed slot with a cap on each one, and the late-afternoon slots go first all winter.
- 04Self-Drive Husky Dog Sledding AdventureA dog team can only run so many times a day, so the good kennels sell out December and the Christmas week months ahead.
By place, from Copenhagen to the Arctic Circle
Reykjavíkfrom $20
Tromsøfrom $18
Rovaniemifrom $25
Copenhagenfrom $7
Stockholmfrom $11
Oslofrom $8
Bergenfrom $9
Helsinkifrom $6- Every town on the site →
By kind of day, on ice or on water
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø, Rovaniemi: the run most first trips end up doing.
The newest Nordic tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
The Ultimate Study of the Human Form at Vigeland’s Sculpture Park with a Local
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Central Oslo Guided Walking Tour with Local Guide
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The Scenic Roadtrip, Oslo to Bergen via Flam & the Fjords
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Private Full-Day Round Trip from Oslo to Sognefjord via Flåm Railway
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