My first Solo trip- chasing the Northern lights and the whales! 🥶🐳

My first impression of spotting the auroras - it felt like a silvery zigzag river or a stream flowing - flowing across the sky! ;)

The cute video of the Humpback whales blowing water, is a little treat from me to anyone who landed up on my otherwise boring blog. I hope this makes your day and brings a smile on your face, and inspires you to work hard to travel harder! 😊

--- unfortunately the video might not be able to be played on some of your devices but I'm trying to work on it to fix it! 

Now let's get to my actually experience of the whole trip...

My first solo trip had to be special - 7 hours of chasing the Northern Lights, right from Tromso, Gateway to Arctic Circle, Norway 🇸🇯 all the way

 to Finnish border, northern Finland 🇫🇮. So much to make my childhood dream of watching the Northern Lights come true!

Actually to be more precise, as our guide patiently passed on his knowledge to us, we cannot chase the northern lights. What we chase is clear skies. And what is a sign of a clear sky? The stars shining bright for you ;) Right, so we keep driving till we find a sky with bright stars, and that's where the magic happens!

And magic exists, if you choose to believe in it. Despite us being closer to the North Pole, than to the Norwegian capital Oslo, on this particular day ( rather week), it decided to rain, rain and rain. A sky covered with clouds- almost negligible chances of spotting the auroras. This was a particularly cloudy week. I got to know from the fellow passengers in our safari group that the auora hunt safaris had been cancelled the last two days, and we were indeed lucky that our tour was actually taking place with faint hopes of watching the auroras. But even after nearly 3.5 hours drive, all the way from Tromso to crossing the Finnish border, when we saw no signs of the Auroras that's when we started losing hope. But you know there was one thing in common amongst all the passengers of different nationalities in one small van together, at temperature of -17°C freezing outside, and in complete darkness amidst snow covered jungles, they were all praying for a common goal- just to get a glimpse of the auroras. Despite no sightings yet, the ray of hope and positivity was still alive inside all of us. Our guide stopped the car and said, you know what, if I keep driving we might as well reach Helsinki, so let's just stop and go out and admire the night sky; And sorry guys, I tried my best but some days, luck just doesn't favor you.

And yes, spotting the auroras is in indeed a matter of luck! 🤭

But just as we were about to get down the van, our guide climbed back up and said, you know what let's drive a little farther to a location with a better view. And so we continued again.

About half an hour later we stopped. Our guide went out and called us outside, saying guys the view is amazing, come quick. But it was all pitch black and dark and filled with snow to the extent that half our legs were slipping deep inside it, with every exposed part almost freezing and shivering in the cold. But we continued. Now the human eye takes some time to adjust to the darkness ( I am gonna explain some biological details about it later in the blog, taking advantage of my biology major background 😌). But then as our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we looked up to see the sky full of shining stars. And then there was a faint silvery/ greyish band, dancing across the sky. First there was almost nothing and then there was this faint flowing river like pattern, and then boom, it started getting brighter with an extremely faint greenish hue ( as it looks to the human eye). And then it was all over the sky. Sometimes flowing in the right, sometimes in the left. That's when we realised lady Aurora had not just shown up but she was dancing all across the sky. I don't think I can explain in words the feeling of watching the northern lights. Nothing can come close to this feeling. It was as if watching the magic of the universe and the things beyond the universe. 

Fun fact- Unlike most other breathtaking sights of nature, which are better captured with the naked human eyes than the camera, the colours of the aurora is perhaps captured better with the camera ( I am going to share all the camera settings too with you, so that you can capture the best too, when you embark on your aurora chase). But the science behind this is that human eyes have cones and rods - the photoreceptors! At night the cones which helps us detect colours are inactive - they only function in brighter light levels. Instead the rods which function in low light but only give black and white vision, become active. So now you know, why it is difficult for the human eye to actually see the greenish, reddish, purple and bluish hues of the auroras and instead what we see is a faint silvery band. Of course, this is wheh the auroras are faint. But auroras with extremely high intensity, can be pretty fairly seen with the human eyes with those magnificent greenish hues.

Fun fact- green auroras are the most common ones. In our safari, we were lucky enough to spot greenish as well as reddish auroras dancing all over the sky, getting ciearer as more and more clouds cleared away.

Cut to last day of my trip- another pleasant surprise from universe - a whale 🐳 watching safari in the Arctic ocean, in a catamaran cruise. Something that I had just casually booked. For me, my priority was the northern lights and I was happy, happier and happiest after watching it. For me my trip, actually my first ever solo trip, was already worth it with the sight of the auroras. 

But wait, little did I know that the Orcas ( killer whales), Humpback whales and the Fin whales - all 3 species were waiting to put up a show in the middle of the beautiful Norwegian Fjords and the Arctic ocean.

I flew to Tromso to chase the magic of the northern lights, but I flew back with the magic of the sight whales blowing water- I am yet to see another sight more spectacular than this!

Okay, enough for now. I have returned from my 4 day trip this evening and my eyes are on the verge of giving up. But as a success of my first solo trip and out of all the gratitude and happiness I have in my heart, I am going to make this a detailed blog ( and I am going to actually do it this time, I promise to somehow make time for it 😎) and give out my entire experience of this beautiful trip to Norway, the backstory of how I got to know about the auroras in my childhood and watching it has been my biggest dream since then, and of course my itinerary from the trip, because I think I made it pretty perfect 😌. And I highly encourage everyone, especially my beautiful fellow women in your mid to late twenties, to go for a solo trip, and discover the magic of how it transforms you into a more confident, liberal, courageous, wiser and happier ( my definition of happiness strictly equates to positivity) person. And how it teaches you to learn to let go of things that don't matter as much, and instead passionately chase those goals and focus on aspects of life that matter and that adds to your and solely your growth. 

Also I think it is high time I talk about how it is my father ( and also of course my dear mum) who pushed me and inspired me to write this blog. I have been writing down my travel experiences ever since I was in 2nd grade, starting with memorable trip to the Andaman and Nicobar islands. And while then I would simply write down my experience on papers with the good old Nataraj pencil, my dad would get those papers printed to safely save them as precious memories for me to look at when I grow up. And with the advent of technology, it is my parents, this time more of mum, who pushed me to write this blog. Infact this very evening, she is the one who inspired me to start documenting my experience from this trip of a lifetime!

Some cool tips I would be sharing- Budgeting tips and some safety tips and tricks on how walk on ice without falling, and lastly how to pack light for a solo trip on sloping roads involving a lot of walking up and down the hills.....So stay tuned if you don't want to miss out on this!

PS- pardon any of the errors in my blog. This is going to be a super long one and all the proof checking will be done in the end. And to anyone planning a trip to Tromso, especially a solo trip, feel free to reach out to me for my detailed itinerary regarding hotels, public transport, etc and I would be glad to help you plan your trip! ❤️

....To be continued