Affiliate Disclosure

Plainly, and before anything else: Reykjavik Northern Lights Tours may earn a commission when you book through a link on this site, at no extra cost to you.

What that means in practice

The tours listed here are sold through Viator. When you follow a link from one of these pages and go on to book, the platform pays us a share of its own commission. You pay the same fare either way; the price on the booking page is the operator’s price, not a marked-up one.

What we are not

We are not a tour operator. We do not run any of these tours, employ any of these guides or hold your booking. Your contract is with the operator, through the platform.

We have no connection with the Icelandic Met Office, the Icelandic Tourist Board, Visit Iceland, Perlan or any tour operator.

How tours get listed

Operators cannot pay for placement, position or a badge. A badge on a card is a measured claim: Top rated only on a tour rated 4.9 or higher, Best seller only on the tour with the most reviews, Best value only on the cheapest. Where a platform prints its own badge on a product that does not meet our test, it is dropped rather than relayed, and a badge naming the platform is never shown at all.

The featured tours at the top of the homepage are three different purchases at three price points: the best-rated small-group hunt with unlimited free retries, the boat from the Old Harbour with a free re-sail, and the Super Jeep with an 8pm or 9pm start.

Prices, ratings and how current they are

Prices, star ratings and review counts belong to the operators and were taken from their own listings on 23 September 2026. They move, and the figure at checkout is the one that counts. Every fare is quoted in US dollars because that is the currency the listings were captured in. Every fare is per person except one private night with a photographer, which is priced per group of up to four. Where a listing was on promotion that day, the promotional price is the price shown, and two were: both promotions end in the autumn of 2026. Fares are truncated to the whole dollar, the way the listings display them.

The facts about the sky are the official sources’. The aurora forecast and the climate normals (1961-1990) are the Icelandic Met Office’s. Sunrise and sunset come from the University of Iceland’s almanac. The retry terms, pickup times, ages and kit are each operator’s own, as their listings print them.

What we deliberately do not publish

• A guaranteed sighting. No listing can promise the sky. Where a listing says “guarantee”, it means a free retry, and we call it that.
• An official aurora season with dates. The Met Office publishes none. We give the operators’ own calendars and the hours of darkness instead.
• A Kp number that means you will see them. Activity is only one of three conditions, and cloud decides most nights.
• A cloud-cover percentage by month. The Met Office does not publish one for Reykjavík.
• A claim that this winter is a peak year. No forecast we could read makes one.
• A named place every hunt drives to. A hunt follows the forecast on the night, so we name the directions the listings give, never a fixed stop.
• Hotel and guesthouse names. We have not checked any, so we describe the pickup zones instead.
• “Small group” without a number. A card gives a group size only where the listing states the cap.