Northern Lights - 5th Edition by Polly Evans (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The updated Bradt Northern Lights: a Practical Travel Guide guidebook, now in its fifth edition, does what it says on the tin, providing detailed guidance to the best places to gawp at the aurora borealis. It remains the only guidebook to cover optimum locations to watch this natural nocturnal phenomenon across North America (Canada, Alaska), Greenland and Europe (Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland) while also covering all manner of practicalities. Between autumn and spring, the northern lights - surely the greatest light show you'll ever see - are a major, increasingly popular tourist draw of the Arctic and sub-Arctic. As well as advising on the best places to see auroras, Arctic expert and award-winning travel journalist Polly Evans offers a succinct, easy-to-understand explanation of the science that makes them happen, and provides information on tour operators offering northern lights packages alongside practical tips including where to stay (from budget hotels to Sweden's spectacular ICEHOTEL, built each year from river water before melting in spring), what to wear, how to drive in winter conditions and how to understand northern lights forecasting. The updated Bradt Northern Lights guidebook is further enriched by: -suggestions for complementary daytime activities such as dog sledging, skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling and wildlife safaris; -an examination of the reactions of the early explorers to their first sightings of this phenomenon; and insights into the myths and legends of the northern indigenous peoples; and even -advice on how and where to get married in ice chapels! This new fifth edition contains: -a fully refreshed accommodation section featuring the best new northern lights hotels and accommodation experiences, particularly in the USA and Canada; -a new section on the best northern lights forecast and tracking apps to increase your chances of success; and -a fully updated photography section to include the best northern lights photography apps. Whether the northern lights are still on your bucket list, or you are an experienced aurora aficionado, the updated Bradt Northern Lights guidebook remains the essential companion for planning and getting the most out of one of the world's most remarkable natural experiences.

About the Author

Polly Evans is an award-winning travel journalist and author, specialising in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. She has written two Bradt guides (Yukon, which won Guidebook of the Year, and Northern Lights) plus five travel narratives, one of which - Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman - recounts sharing kennels in Canada with 108 huskies while learning to drive sled dogs. It was on that trip that Evans fell for the far north, and she has since returned often to write about northern Canada, Alaska, Iceland, Greenland and Scandinavia. She has seen the northern lights many times, whether as pale-green wisps across the horizon or all-out extravaganzas of green and magenta covering the sky. It's not just the aurora that draws Evans north, though. She loves the wilderness, the diverse accommodation (from back-country lodges where grizzly bears come knocking to glass-constructed igloo pods), and the quirkiness of people choosing these remote places as home.