Under the aurora, fully planned.
The northern lights over Cleary Summit, the Chena soak, a dog yard at first light and the long road into Denali. What each tour is really like, what it costs, and where to book it.
The seven worth the flight north.
First winter or fifth, these are the ones travellers keep coming back for: a night chasing the lights, a run behind a dog team, the drive to the Arctic Circle sign, and the soak that thaws all of it out.
Alaska Snowmobile Adventure Tour
A guided snowmobile ride in North Pole through frozen lakes and remote trails, plus warm drinks and snacks after. Small group.
From $112 per person
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★ 5.0Safe betGuided Fairbanks Snowmobile TourFrom $169809 reviews
★ 5.0Books out earlySkyChase™ | Northern Lights Experience – Free Photography & MoreFrom $335706 reviews
★ 4.5Traveller favouriteArctic Circle Day TourFrom $305680 reviews
★ 5.0Worth the coldDenali Park Zipline AdventureFrom $208675 reviews
★ 5.0Easy first nightDenali Rafting Canyon WaveFrom $147643 reviews
★ 5.0Reader favouriteAlaskan Heritage & Sightseeing TourFrom $165495 reviews
The park road runs all day.
Two hours south of Fairbanks the country opens up: tundra, braided rivers, the high wall of the Alaska Range, and a decent chance of a grizzly on the flats. Ride the park road, raft the Nenana canyon, or take the ATV up onto the ridge. These are the Denali days worth the drive.
How do you want to see the lights?
Fairbanks sits right under the auroral oval, so the odds are good on any clear night from late August to April. The choice is how you spend the wait. Three ways to do it, each one already reviewed and priced.
Chase the clear sky
Go out and hunt it
10 hours (approx.) · from $250 · 1,278 reviews
A guide watches the forecast, then drives you north of the city glow to wherever the sky is clearest that night. Best odds, plenty of standing around in the cold, and a photographer on hand to catch you under the band. For the traveller who wants the strongest chance, not the comfiest chair.
Compare the guided hunts →
Wait it out warm
Stay put by the fire
4 hours (approx.) · from $169 · 461 reviews
A heated cabin or a ridge-top lodge with the horizon already framed for you. Coffee, a wake-up call when the lights come on, and no long drive home at three in the morning. The relaxed way to spend an aurora night, and the easiest with kids or a late flight in.
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Built for the camera
Get it on camera
5 hours (approx.) · from $335 · 706 reviews
Small groups built around the photo: a guide who knows the dark-sky pullouts at Murphy Dome and Cleary Summit, and who sets your camera so the band actually lands sharp. You leave with the frame everyone back home assumes is edited. Bring a tripod, or borrow one.
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The whole town waits for the sky.
On a clear winter night the band comes up green over the black spruce, then swings and folds until it fills the sky. You can chase it up to Murphy Dome, wait it out from a heated cabin, or read the aurora forecast and step outside when the number climbs. These are the nights people fly a long way for.
Meet the dog team first.
The best mushing tours start in the yard, with forty huskies who cannot wait to run and a musher who has raced them. Ride the runners across a frozen lake in winter, or take the wheeled cart through the boreal forest in summer. Either way you leave covered in dog.
Ride the winter trails.
When the ground freezes hard the interior opens up to machines. Snowmobiles across the flats to a warm-up cabin, or a side-by-side up onto the ridge for the view back over Fairbanks. Warm gear is usually supplied, and no licence is needed to sit up front.
Gold built this town.
Fairbanks began as a gold camp on the Chena River, and the story is still standing. Pan for colour on the tailings at Gold Dredge 8, ride the narrow-gauge train past the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, or take a sternwheeler down to an Athabascan fish camp. Slow, warm and mostly indoors, which some days is the whole point.
The interior, place by place.
Fairbanks is the base, and the country spreads out from it. Chena Hot Springs for the soak and the Ice Museum. Murphy Dome and Cleary Summit for the darkest skies. The Arctic Circle up the Dalton Highway, Denali down the Parks.
What are you here to do?
Twelve ways to spend a day in the interior. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of cold and every tour behind it is already reviewed and priced.
A morning out, a long day back.
The interior rewards a full tank. Chena and its hot springs, the Arctic Circle over the Yukon, the park road at Denali, a snowshoe walk to a blue ice cave. All of it doable in a day from town, warm seat there and back.
Your first three days up north.
You will not see all of the interior in one trip, but you can do the right three days. This is the order we would hand a friend landing in Fairbanks tomorrow, built around a clear night for the lights.
Day 1
Get your bearings
Gold Dredge 8 and the pipeline in the afternoon, a sternwheeler on the Chena, an early dinner. Then the first aurora watch once the sky goes dark, close to town.
Plan day one →
Day 2
Out to Chena
Drive an hour east to Chena Hot Springs, tour the Aurora Ice Museum, then soak in the hot pool while the light fades. Stay for the lights over the ridge before the drive back.
Plan day two →
Day 3
Run with the dogs
A morning at the kennel and a run behind the team, then the Denali road or the Arctic Circle drive if you have the light for it. Save the clearest forecast night for another aurora hunt.
Plan day three →
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