I'm writing this on October 19, 2026, the same day I stepped off the ship in Hamburg. I just spent 15 days cruising Norway on the Costa Favolosa, and I went for one reason only: to see the northern lights. I saw them. Not on one night, but on five nights in a row, each one more stunning than the last.

It was a beautiful kind of madness. I'll tell you everything: how the idea started, what it's like to watch the aurora from a ship, where to stand, what to wear, and what happens when the weather rewrites your itinerary.

And this post isn't just me talking. On board, I interviewed four people I shared the trip with: Charo, Miguel, Fernando and Isa. None of them had ever seen an aurora before, just like me. And we didn't all experience it the same way. That's why I think you should hear what they told me, too.

Yes. But nobody can guarantee it, and you should be very clear about that before you book.

The aurora depends on two things nobody controls. First, clear skies, which you can never predict with certainty. Second, solar activity. You can go in the best season, on the best route and on the best ship, and still come home without seeing them.

I went with the idea that if I saw them just once, I'd be lucky. And the forecast wasn't helping: on the Monday we boarded in Hamburg, the outlook for the two weeks was terrible, with clouds almost every day.

In the end we saw them five nights in a row, starting on Thursday, October 8, our first sea day after Bergen. On the fifth night I didn't even go up on deck. We'd had four nights of auroras in a row and I had nothing left.

The irony was Hammerfest. It was the day on the itinerary built around seeing the aurora, and it was the day we saw the least. It was very cloudy and the probability was very low. Even so, there were two moments, one around 9 p.m. and another around midnight, when we saw something, but very little and very faint.

What about timing? Forget summer: with the midnight sun, it never gets dark. In October, the sun came up around 8 or 9 a.m. and it got dark between 4 and 6 p.m., so there were plenty of dark hours to look for them. For me, it's one of the best times to go. You can also see them in spring, but check carefully how many hours of daylight and darkness you'll get on your dates.

I've loved nature since I was a kid. I love the mountains, and anything to do with natural phenomena. Seeing the northern lights was one of those childhood dreams you quietly file under "someday." Beautiful, but far away. Something for other people.

That changed in August 2025. I was on a cruise through the Norwegian fjords, and in Geiranger our guide told us he'd seen the first aurora of his life in August. In August, the same month we were there, and right there in Geiranger, below the Arctic Circle.

That stuck with me. If he'd seen one there, at that time of year, maybe seeing the aurora wasn't as impossible as I'd always assumed. It was much closer than I thought.

That same guide recommended an app to follow the aurora forecast. I downloaded it and kept it. I had no idea that a year later I'd be checking it dozens of times a day.

On January 1, 2026, I made my vision board for the year. Among the travel photos, I added one of the northern lights. A few months later, around May, I saw that Costa had a cruise designed specifically for seeing the aurora. I didn't think about it for long. The decision was made: I'm going to see the northern lights.

There was one thing left to figure out. My partner decided not to come because of work, to keep pushing the business forward. And for a while I went back and forth: go alone, don't go alone. In the end I told myself plainly: this is what I want, and I'm going. So I went solo, in an ocean-view cabin with a window.

I was looking forward to the rest of the trip, of course. But I was there for the aurora. Mission more than accomplished.

I wasn't the only one with that dream. Miguel had wanted to travel north for a very long time. He'd tried to go to Iceland four or five times and never made it. When this cruise came along, he knew: he was coming for the aurora. Charo already knew Norway from an earlier trip by bus and boat, so she wasn't there for the country either. She told me straight out: she didn't want to die without seeing an aurora. Fernando came for the northern lights and to see reindeer. Isa had never been to Norway and had been eyeing this trip for a while.

Five people, five different stories, one goal.

The app the Geiranger guide recommended is called My Aurora Forecast in the App Store, although on your phone it just shows up as "Aurora." According to him, a lot of people in Norway use it. I followed it the whole cruise.

For the first few days, I wasn't convinced. Everything was very cloudy, and I assumed we wouldn't see anything until Hammerfest at the earliest. But when we left Bergen, the weather changed. The sky started to clear and the app began showing a fairly high forecast for the next few days, because of the solar wind and conditions.

That night, our first night at sea after Bergen, I knew we were going to see them. I was sure of it. It was the sky, with almost no clouds. It was the probability in the app. And it was also, I don't know how else to put it, a feeling.

So when I saw the sun starting to go down, I went to my cabin to bundle up, because it was freezing, and headed up on deck. The sun had already set, but it was still quite light. I waited about 20 minutes and decided to go down for a coffee to warm up while it got fully dark.

I was quietly drinking my coffee when I looked out the window and saw it was already pretty dark. And I thought: "They're coming out. They're coming out."

I stood up. I took two steps. And right then, the announcement came over the PA: "Aurora, aurora, aurora."

I went up one deck.

I don't really know how to describe what I saw, so I'll just tell you this: as I write it, I still feel like crying. It was such an incredible, beautiful and special moment that it's unlike anything I've experienced on any other trip.

Here's something practical, too: on a ship like this, you don't have to spend all night watching the sky. You can be at dinner, at the theater or having a coffee. When the aurora appears, the ship announces it and you head up.

Except for Hammerfest, we saw every aurora from the ship, while sailing.

We usually went up to Deck 9, at the stern. Other times we went to Decks 10, 11 or 12, mostly at the bow or midship. It depended on which way the ship was heading: if it was leaving a fjord or rounding a bend, we moved around to find the spot with the best view of the sky.

What helped most, by far, was something I didn't expect: as soon as the aurora alert went out, they switched off all the lights on the upper decks. And often they didn't turn them back on until the next day.

Add clear skies, every star visible, and a part of Norway where towns are tiny, with very few people and almost no light pollution. Take away the ship's lights on top of that, and the result is unreal.

There's another advantage to watching from a cruise ship that I hadn't considered: the ship moves. It's not fast, but it's sailing, and if one area is cloudy, a few miles on it might not be. On land, you're stuck where you are. On a ship, the sky changes with you.

Isa saw her first one out at sea, on Deck 3, in the crowd of people who rushed out as soon as it was announced. After that, she learned to look for them higher up, on her own.

The most impressive night for me was one between Narvik and Harstad. I'll be honest: I don't remember exactly which night, because we saw so many. But I remember exactly what I saw. The lights were huge. They were right above us, covering almost the entire sky, and moving, as if they were dancing. That hit me hard.

Not for everyone. And that's what surprised me most when I talked to the others, because I saw them one way and not everyone experienced them the same.

Charo expected to see them with her own eyes just like they look in photos. When that didn't happen, she was a little let down. But when she saw them on the phone, she was blown away. She told me it felt magical, that it's something in nature we shouldn't ever ruin, it's that beautiful. She was sorry she couldn't see it that way with her own eyes, but the photos Miguel took made the whole trip worth it for her.

Fernando told me something very similar: he would have liked to see them more clearly with his own eyes, but the camera captured incredible images.

Isa's story made me smile. On the first night she couldn't see anything. Everyone else was watching through their phones, and she didn't know that's how you were supposed to look. Then she got hooked: going up to the top decks alone in the middle of the night, bundled up like she was heading to the Arctic, to "hunt auroras," watching for when the green faded and when the red came in. For her, it was the most rewarding part of the trip.

For Miguel, a big part of the experience was learning. Understanding how to watch an aurora, how to wait for the right moment and how to get the most out of the thousand photos you end up taking. And when one of the big ones appears, one of the truly beautiful ones, he described it like this: it's an almost religious experience. "There's something more." It makes you think differently.

I took all my photos with my iPhone 13 Pro, which is four or five years old now. You could tell the sensor was struggling. The people with newer Pro models were getting stunning shots. Even so, mine came out really well.

My takeaway: be ready for what you see with your eyes and what you see on your screen to not always match. Sometimes you'll see them huge and moving over your head. Other times your phone will show you colors you could barely make out. Both are part of the experience.

More than you think. And I'm not exaggerating.

We were above the Arctic Circle. Even though it was October, at that time of night it was around 32°F every day, and some nights the ship's app showed 28 to 30°F. On deck, with the cold wind from the moving ship, it felt even colder. We could barely last 20 minutes, half an hour at most, before we had to head inside. The crew handed out blankets.

I wore a thermal base layer, a sweater, a fleece, a coat, a hat, gloves and a neck gaiter. And it was still hard to stay out there.

What nobody on this trip should go without:

That's part of cruising up north, too, and it happened to us.

The planned route was Hamburg, Bergen, Narvik, Harstad, Hammerfest, Leknes (in the Lofoten Islands), Bodø, Trondheim, Haugesund and back to Hamburg. The first week went exactly as planned. Everything changed when we reached Hammerfest.

A strong storm was coming. The ship announced very adverse weather conditions. Out of curiosity, I checked specialized wave, wind and marine forecast sites, and they were literally showing waves of 26 to 33 feet.

Leknes and Bodø were canceled. We left Hammerfest on Monday at 4:30 a.m., sailed all Monday and Tuesday, and reached Trondheim on Tuesday night. We spent two nights in port there: all day Wednesday and Thursday until almost 10 p.m. Then Haugesund was canceled too, and we stopped in Kristiansand instead. One more sea day and, today, Hamburg.

Not everyone took it the same way. Miguel wanted to go back to Leknes and see the Lofoten Islands properly, since he'd only passed through on another trip, and he missed out. For Fernando, the itinerary change was the worst part of the trip. Charo really missed the outer decks: she loves going out for sunsets, sunrises and sailaways, and many days they were closed because of the wind.

It didn't bother me. I'd rather change the route and see different places, even new ones, than spend two days seasick and miserable in big waves.

And Trondheim was the big surprise. I went out walking around the city both nights we were in port and I thought it was spectacular. Truly spectacular. I'll be back, no doubt about it, to see it slowly and explore the area.

For me, yes. But with one condition: choose a route you'll also enjoy during the day, for what you'll see or for what you'll live and share with the people you travel with. If the aurora doesn't show, the rest of the trip has to be worth it on its own.

On this cruise, the ports were worth it. I already knew Bergen, and it blew me away all over again; I'd go back to spend more days there. Narvik is small and there isn't a lot to see, but I really liked it, and I was sorry the cable car up the mountain was closed. In Harstad, I loved the walk.

Miguel picked Harstad, too: a long walk along the water to a museum and a church, which he found very relaxing. And the war museum in Narvik, where he saw a real Enigma machine, got to touch a torpedo and understood a little better how hard life was there for prisoners during World War II. Isa chose that same walk along the water: she didn't expect to see so much on such an easy trail. Charo picked Harstad for the walk along the fjord, and Fernando picked Hammerfest.

The one I liked least was Kristiansand. It was pretty, but it was the last day, we were tired, and after the nature of northern Norway, which is completely different, it felt like less.

I'll leave you with Charo's advice, because I think it sums it all up. Before you book, be clear about what you want to see. If your goal is the aurora, you know what you're signing up for, you know it might not show, and you pick a route that's worth it anyway. That way, when it does appear, it's a huge gift. And if it doesn't, you won't have wasted the trip.

I went to fulfill a childhood dream. I came back with five nights of northern lights, a city I want to return to, and a scene I'll never forget: a half-finished coffee, a window, and someone calling "aurora" over the PA just when I already knew.

Thank you to Charo, Miguel, Fernando and Isa for sharing their experience with me.

Is seeing the northern lights on your bucket list, too?

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