There won't be a better time to sell the northern lights (well at least for another 10 years)

Although stone cold sober stumbling outside the Lazy Bear Lodge in Churchill, I’m intoxicated by the astral shenanigans in the night sky above. Above dancing bands of luminous green shapes like lava lamp plasma, is a curtain of pinkish vermilion swishing open and shut. The lights shape shift abruptly before in one cosmic flicker they form into a knotted arc curved like a psychedelic rainbow across the surrounding sea.

I travelled to Arctic Canada, to the town of Churchill on the Hudson Bay, widely regarded as the best place in the world to witness the northern lights. Here, they boast 300 clear nights each year and during a three-night stay I was treated to aurora borealis displays that blew my mind. This winter, however, will see northern lights sightings that will prove to be fabulous and send clients home in raptures across the Arctic region because of Solar Cycle 25.

This solar cycle is upon us now. It’s a phenomenon, first identified in the 1820s, of cyclical sunspot activity that correlates to the fluctuating intensity of the northern lights. It occurs over an 11-year cycle and currently sunspot activity is at its maximum peak of that cycle.

These peak episodes see large volumes of plasma and matter ejected from the sun to hurtle 149-million kilometres to Earth to collide with our atmospheric shield and spark the auroras. Occasionally these mass ejections are huge and identified as solar storms. When this happens, the northern lights are spectacular – as they were back on 11 May when people all over the UK, even in light-polluted cities, posted incredible pink-sky aurora shots from their mobile phones.

“Magnetic particles lighting up our skies demonstrate the Earth’s connection to the sun, which is something quite amazing,” explains Dr Sarah Gibson, a solar physicist with the National Centre of Atmospheric Research in Colorado. She accompanied my northern lights tour to Churchill. Selling trips with an expert onboard really enhances understanding behind the aurora’s complex science. 

Northern lights prospects for 2026

The good news for the travel sector is scientists predict this high solar cycle activity will carry on into the next winter season.  “A solar cycle maximum will last around two years and as we have just come into it, this should ensure good sightings into winter 2025 to 2026,” she predicts.

The publicity surrounding Solar Cycle 25 is likely behind a surge in demand for northern lights watching holidays. “Northern lights season is always busy for us, but the last few years have been increasingly popular as word has spread about the solar cycle,” explains Andrea Godfrey, head of Regent Travel.