The Green Adventure — Local services in Tromsø

This tour completely exceeded my expectations. Antonio was a FANTASTIC guide. Wow! And the driver, a nice man from Finland, made us feel safe, comfortable, warm, and was committed to helping Antonio find the right spots.

WEATHER: The surprising thing is that even though we planned our tour during a more likely time of year (October - March, according to my research), the weather might now always cooperate. The skies had been cloudy all day before we left at 6:30 pm. There had been rain and snow off and on since the night before, so Antonio told us it would be a challenge to find aurora and we might need to drive into Finland (I was actually totally OK with that because why not see at least part of another country?!?), but he said he was optimistic.

AURORA FOUND: Well, he was persistent and it paid off! The first place we stopped, the lights were definitely in the sky, but they weren’t super bright. There were definitely some swirls of green and purple and pink. But Antonio said we could do better. So, after a few photos (where not all of us could quite capture the colors on our phones… People with older phones had some trouble capturing the colors. Mine was a new iPhone 15 Pro and it did a great job, but my husbands older Android was a dud), he continued North.

PHOTOS: The second spot was BRILLIANT! Wow. I got fantastic photos and this is also where Antonio took the first set of professional shots (These were downloadable for free the next day, and if you wanted to purchase prints without the watermark, they were available for purchase).

THE GROUP: This is also where Antonio made us a fire… It was definitely cold, but only a few of us actually needed the thermal suits that were provided. Most of us did just fine with our own warm winter parkas, scarves, hats or hoodies, thermal socks, and thermal gloves. He made everyone tea or hot cocoa. We sat around and chatted and he told us more about aurora. There were about 15 people: several from England, 2 from Spain, 3 from India, 1 from France, and us—a couple from Portland Oregon (on the upper west coast of the United States). We had a great time! I thought it was great that Antonio was multilingual and everyone was able to easily communicate with him and each other. Ages ranged from about 25- 70, I’m guessing, although there was one preteen who seemed sleepy but very well-mannered. The average age was probably 35-45. Everyone was mature and no one was intoxicated, thankfully (I’d read bad reviews of this occasionally being an issue with a few tours. How unfortunate. But not this group! Everyone was great).

FOOD: Next, we were served hot soup: a really tasty vegan tomato noodle soup (That’s what most people had) or a meat option of a reindeer stew. And, by the way, the driver pretty much always remained inside of the warm van with the heater going, so if you need to go in there and warm up for a little bit, that was always an option! I loved that.

BATHROOMS: I was worried about not being able to use the restroom (the public ones in the rural areas were all closed this time of year), but we did stop 2 times (once at a gas station/convenience store and once at a rest stop), so this really wasn’t an issue. I was very grateful for that.

AURORA FOUND A THIRD TIME: After the campfire and food and beverages, Antonio even stopped a third time and we found Aurora again! He took another set of professional photos while we all took photos on our phones as well. This time, the photos were slightly less brilliant than the second time, but far more brilliant than the first stop.

So, yeah, in summary: AMAZING EXPERIENCE. Highly recommended! Everyone was kind, helpful, and I will never forget it. (See attached photos from Antonio as well as my iPhone. As mentioned, two spots were brighter than the first one. But these are all real,...

Incredible experience! I originally booked this tour because of the small group size and The Green Adventure's commitment to drive as far as needed to get to see the northern lights. It just got better with our guide Jurre Jan being exceptionally knowledgable about the lights, weather, and photography. We were all prepped with the fact that it is nature and nothing is guaranteed, which we knew all along, but it was nice to hear the guides reiterating that if the conditions ended up not being ideal it's just part of the adventure.

We ended up driving all the way to the border of Finland to find clear skies. Jurre Jan was checking conditions on Aurora apps the whole way and calling and taking calls from other guides about cloud cover/weather. Once we got near where the weather was forecast to be the best, he was checking multiple locations to find the best area to possibly see the lights. We stopped in one location, saw the lights for maybe 5 minutes, then the clouds started moving in again. We continued driving all the way to the Finland border where on the plateau we started to see the lights again. And then as we waited, the magic happened and an insane display of northern lights happened. We were dazzled with curtains of lights slowly dancing across the sky for almost three hours! Jurre Jan was quick to point out special formations in the lights, took killer photos of the 8 of us on the tour, and helped me when my camera lens frosted over!

I will point out that during most of the night it was below freezing with snow on the ground; I was bundled up to begin with but I wouldn't have made it without the thermal suit provided. Don't be afraid or too proud to ask for it - it made it so much more comfortable to continue to be out watching the show!

The show continued even after several hours, but we all chose to warm up by the camp fire where Jurre Jan explained some of the science behind the lights. This will help me understand how to read the aurora apps better in the future! He was kind in answering all our questions, and pointed out that we got really lucky with the show we had (probably around kp7).

We each got a freeze dried soup for dinner from Real Turmat, a local maker of hiking provisions. We chose the reindeer stew, but there was a vegetarian option as well. After we finished our soups there was hot chocolate and a cinnamon bun! The campfire and food while still seeing the northern lights all around us was a perfect way to end our adventure - or so I thought...

As we prepared to head back to Tromsø, Jurre Jan turned the other way and took us just over the Finland border. We got to hop out momentarily and take photos with the border sign. He said it would be terrible to be 100m away from Finland and go there - we really appreciated this! And to top off the evening we saw a female and baby moose from the car.

We know our experience was a lot of luck with nature, but everything The Green Adventure provided and Jurre Jan being a wonderful guide and photographer really made this a special experience. Worth the price and then some. We hope to return and go again!

Photos taken by Jurre Jan...

Experience of a lifetime!

I cannot recommend The Green Adventure enough for Northern Lights tour. Lucas was our guide and David was our driver, and they are amaaaaaazing.

Lucas was very knowledgable and when decision-making is needed, he definitely knows how to make good ones. He is definitely passionate about his job and even though he probably has seen a thousands times already, he was also excited as we are and that’s how you know you made a right choice going with The Green Adventure. Lucas was also very engaging, he tried to connect the travellers with each other and explain nerdy physics terms into simple english, now I can definitely explain NL and sound smart for it. Also, Lucas taught us how to look for NL ourselves and the next day, using his guide and could spot them right in Tromso as well.

The meeting point is easy to locate, the guide definitely go out of their way to locate you and if you’re late and missed that’s on you for sure.

First 40 minutes in, we already saw the first burst of NL, but Lucas decided that this is not the best one yet so we moved to another spot with clearer sky and BOOM. NL was dancing in front of our eyes, even visible with bare eyes. They gave you thermal suits so you can be nice and warm to focus on the main thing ie taking pictures. Also if you don’t have good phone or just bad at taking pictures, Lucas is also there for you, he really went out of his way, taking pictures for everyone the whole night, making sure everyone is included.

After that, we had reindeer soup with marshmallows, which is really nice and dreamt especially under the NL. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try hot chocolate or tea due to minor technical issues.

Lucas and David made sure to know everyone’s drop off point and plan it accordingly so everyone is dropped off smoothly and safely. We didn’t live in Tromso Island but they still dropped us off 10min away from our airbnb, which is amazing as transportation is definitely a hassle at 2am.

There can be many NL tour in Tromso, but from the reviews and my own experience, The Green Adventure definitely go out of their way to let people achieve...