This post about our trip to Tromsø is arriving very late. I actually wrote most of it shortly after we got home, but somewhere during my break from Life of J it ended up gathering dust alongside quite a few other half-finished drafts. Normally, I might have just left it there, but Tromsø was genuinely one of the most incredible holidays I’ve ever been on, and going back through the draft has given me an excuse to relive the whole thing again.

I actually wrote most of it shortly after we got home, but somewhere during my break from Life of J it ended up gathering dust alongside quite a few other half-finished drafts. Normally, I might have just left it there, but Tromsø was genuinely one of the most incredible holidays I’ve ever been on, and going back through the draft has given me an excuse to relive the whole thing again.

It also meant going back through all the photos and videos we took, which is something I’m terrible at doing. I don’t normally take loads of photos when we’re away, partly because I get so caught up in actually enjoying what we’re doing, but I think it’s also a habit I’ve picked up since I stopped using social media as much. Without that feeling that I need to document everything to post online, my phone tends to stay in my pocket a lot more.

Most of the time, I actually quite like that. I’d rather be enjoying something properly than looking at it through my phone screen, but it does mean I occasionally get home from an incredible trip and realise I’ve got about three slightly blurry photos to remember it by. Going back through everything we did capture from Tromsø was a really nice excuse to relive the whole holiday again.

Because somehow, a holiday to somewhere I had barely even heard of a couple of months beforehand ended up becoming my favourite holiday I’ve ever had.

Planning Our Trip to Tromsø: Swapping Sun and Cocktails for Arctic Norway

Normally, when we go away, I gravitate towards somewhere warm. Give me a pool, some sun, a stack of books and an opportunity to conduct some very serious cocktail tasting, and I’m quite happy.

Over the last few years we’ve also really enjoyed warmer city breaks like Barcelona, Rome and, more recently, Rhodes and Athens. But when we started talking about what we wanted to do this year, we decided it might be nice to do something completely different.

The idea actually started after a conversation with my barber. He’d recently returned from Greenland and described it as one of the best holidays he’d ever had, and for whatever reason that got the idea of a proper winter holiday stuck in my head.

My wife and I had always talked about going skiing at some point, although there was one fairly significant problem with that plan.

I can’t ski.

So instead, we started looking at colder destinations where we could still experience the snow, mountains and completely different scenery without requiring me to launch myself uncontrollably down the side of one.

Seeing the Northern Lights was also something firmly on both of our bucket lists, and somewhere along the way we stumbled across Tromsø.

Up until that point, I’d genuinely never heard of it.

My wife was immediately sold by the pictures of the little city glowing between the mountains, while I was looking at the surrounding landscapes and thinking they looked almost unreal. It didn’t take long for us to decide.

We were going to Tromsø.

Arriving in Tromsø

We’d only booked a relatively short trip, flying out on Friday lunchtime and returning late on Tuesday evening, so we knew from the beginning that we’d be packing quite a lot into a few days.

The flight from Luton took around three and a half hours, and we even got a tiny preview of what we were hoping to see while we were still in the air. Through the camera on my phone we could make out a few faint wisps of the Northern Lights outside the plane.

You couldn’t really see much with the naked eye, but it was enough to get us even more excited.

By the time we landed in Tromsø it was already dark, which was going to become a very normal part of the holiday. Being so far north and visiting during winter meant there were only a few hours of proper daylight each day.

The first thing I noticed as soon as we stepped off the plane was, unsurprisingly, the cold. It was properly cold, but strangely it didn’t feel quite as aggressive as I’d expected. Wrapped up in thermals and a winter jacket, the air just felt incredibly crisp and fresh.

The second thing I noticed was the snow.

Not the slightly disappointing British kind where there are two millimetres on the pavement and everyone immediately forgets how to drive. This was thick, pure white snow piled alongside roads, covering cars and forming huge banks around the airport.

Standing outside waiting for our taxi was probably the first moment it properly hit me that we were somewhere completely different. Across the water we could see lights shining from another island, while everything immediately around us was blanketed in snow.

It was beautiful.

Our introduction wasn’t completely magical, admittedly. We had a slightly questionable taxi experience involving a conveniently broken card machine and being taken to withdraw cash instead, which in hindsight felt very much like we’d fallen for the classic “my card machine isn’t working” trick.

Not ideal.

Thankfully, that was probably the only genuinely negative experience we had during the whole trip. Even the taxi journey was difficult to stay annoyed during because I was too busy staring out of the window at enormous snowdrifts and the occasional car practically buried beneath them.

It was everything I’d hoped Tromsø would look like.

Somehow, it was even better.

Our First Northern Lights

We were staying at Clarion Hotel The Edge, right on the harbour, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone visiting Tromsø. It was stylish and modern without feeling over the top, with a bar downstairs, another on the rooftop and a cosy room that had everything we needed.

Although, considering how little time we actually spent in it, we probably didn’t get the full hotel experience.

We arrived at around 9pm and, despite travelling for most of the day, neither of us wanted to go straight to bed. We were finally in Tromsø, so after quickly dropping everything off in the room, we wrapped ourselves back up in thermals and winter jackets and headed outside for our first proper look around.

And almost immediately, there they were.

The Northern Lights.

I don’t think anything could have properly prepared me for that moment.

The harbour was in front of us, a snow-covered mountain sat across the water, and above everything was this bright green light moving across the sky with faint tinges of red beneath it. I just stood there, completely captivated.

And I’m not remotely ashamed to admit that I teared up a little.

Seeing the Northern Lights had been on my bucket list ever since I first read Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver when I was younger. Something about those books put this image of the Arctic and the aurora into my head, and I’d wanted to see them properly ever since.

Side note: the Wolf Brother audiobook narrated by Sir Ian McKellen is fantastic.

We must have stood watching them for more than ten minutes. Naturally, because I’m apparently incapable of remembering I’m carrying a camera when anything exciting happens, it took me most of that time before I thought to take any pictures.

I’m glad I did, but none of them really capture it.

The Northern Lights are one of those things that look spectacular in photographs but somehow feel completely different when they’re actually moving above you. Standing underneath them, with the harbour and mountains around us, was genuinely magical.

And this was our first night.

Exploring Tromsø for the First Time

Eventually the lights faded, so we decided to take a short walk into the city to grab some snacks from 7-Eleven and have our first proper look around.

Even late in the evening, Tromsø felt incredibly welcoming. There was a mixture of different buildings everywhere, including plenty of older wooden ones, and Christmas lights were still hanging across the main streets.

Against the snow, they gave the whole city this really warm yellow glow. It honestly felt a little bit like walking through a Christmas film.

We passed Tromsø Cathedral, wandered past a beautifully lit Sami shop and spent about 25 minutes exploring before reluctantly deciding we should probably get some sleep.

We had a very early start the following morning.

Fjellheisen, Polaria and Chasing the Northern Lights

Our alarms went off at around 5:30am, which is exactly the sort of relaxing start you want on holiday.

After getting ready and attacking the hotel’s genuinely impressive breakfast buffet, we headed out towards Fjellheisen, the cable car overlooking Tromsø.

We’d timed it so there was just enough winter light beginning to appear as we reached the top, and the views were spectacular. Below us, Tromsø was glowing between the mountains and water, while in the distance the first sunlight was catching the peaks of the surrounding mountain ranges.

This is one of those places where photographs really don’t communicate the scale of what you’re looking at. Mountains seemed to stretch in every direction, with tiny pockets of light and buildings scattered between them.

We stayed at the top for around half an hour, mostly just staring at everything, before taking the cable car back down. From there we passed the Arctic Cathedral and continued towards Polaria, where we’d specifically planned our visit around the seal training.

Polaria itself isn’t enormous, but the training session was really interesting. What I particularly liked was how clear they were that this wasn’t about making the seals perform tricks purely for entertainment. The training forms part of their enrichment and care, while also giving visitors an opportunity to learn more about them.

By the time we finished exploring, we’d already done a ridiculous amount of walking. Something like 18,000 steps.

And we weren’t finished.

That evening we’d booked a proper Northern Lights excursion, where the plan was basically to drive wherever the weather gave us the best chance of seeing them. In reality, that meant potentially spending up to seven hours travelling between areas with different microclimates, looking for gaps in the cloud.

Eventually, after several hours on the road, we found a clearing around 45 minutes from the Swedish border.

The aurora that night wasn’t anywhere near as vivid as the display we’d accidentally walked into outside our hotel. Instead, it appeared more like pale, ghostly streaks across the sky.

But honestly, I didn’t care.

The sky was incredibly clear, the stars were beautiful and we were surrounded by mountains in the middle of nowhere, drinking hot chocolate beside a roaring fire. It was around -13°C, which certainly helped make the fire appealing.

By the time we finally got back to Tromsø it was just after midnight. After more than 23,000 steps and an extremely long day, I don’t think either of us stayed awake for very long.

Snowmobiling Through Camp Tamok

Thankfully, the following morning started with a much-needed lie-in.

My legs were feeling every single one of those steps.

After breakfast we spent some time wandering around the harbour before making our way towards the meeting point for the excursion I’d probably been most excited about: snowmobiling at Camp Tamok.

It took around two and a half hours to reach the camp, but this was one journey where I genuinely didn’t care how long we were on the bus. Most of our travelling so far had happened in darkness, whereas this time we were travelling during the limited winter daylight and could properly see the Norwegian landscape surrounding us.

It was incredible.

Mountains, frozen landscapes, deep snow and little pockets of buildings scattered between them. I barely stopped looking out of the window.

Once we arrived at Camp Tamok, we quickly got changed into the safety equipment before meeting our instructors. They were brilliant — knowledgeable, friendly and really easy to talk to.

After a quick introduction to the controls, we were off.

Driving a snowmobile turned out to be slightly harder than I’d expected. You have to use your body far more than I imagined, particularly leaning into corners to help the skis bite into the snow.

More importantly, you don’t want to lean away from the corner.

One of the other couples discovered that fairly quickly when their snowmobile tipped onto its side. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and even the plastic windscreen that came loose simply popped back into place, so we were moving again within a few minutes.

Once I got comfortable with it, though, it was incredible fun. The snowmobiles were limited for safety, but we were still reaching around 30mph, and I somehow managed to see 36mph going downhill on the way back.

Not that I was looking at the speedometer, obviously.

Our guide led us along a winding trail higher into the mountains, and this is where the whole experience changed for me.

The scenery was unbelievable.

Untouched white snow stretched across the landscape in every direction, covering mountains and valleys with barely any sign that people had ever been there. Away from the noise of the snowmobiles, it was almost completely silent apart from the wind.

I’ve genuinely never experienced anything quite like it.

At one point I tried to get my phone out to record everything, only for the cold to kill it completely. It shut down and refused to turn back on, and I lost some footage I thought I’d managed to capture.

It was frustrating, but maybe it forced me to do exactly what I’m normally guilty of doing anyway: just look at it.

On the return journey, my wife took over driving, which meant I could sit back and properly absorb the scenery. Honestly, that journey back down the mountain is one of the clearest memories I have from the whole holiday.

It was spectacular.

Reindeer Stew by the Fire

When we returned to camp, we were taken into one of the little huts to warm up beside a log fire. Everything inside was lit by the fire and candles, giving the whole place an incredibly cosy atmosphere after spending hours outside in the cold.

We were given a traditional berry drink that tasted a bit like a healthier, more natural Ribena, before being served reindeer and potato stew with bread.

It was so good.

I had two bowls, and I could very easily have eaten another two.

Sitting there beside the fire with the wind and snow outside was one of those relatively simple moments that ended up becoming a highlight of the trip.

Eventually my phone returned from the dead, so before we left I stepped outside to take a few final photographs. Somehow, I got lucky again.

Above one of the mountains, the Northern Lights had appeared.

I managed to get one of my favourite photographs from the entire holiday before climbing back onto the bus for the journey home.

Another day in Tromsø finished, and another day where we’d somehow packed what felt like an entire holiday into about twelve hours.

When Whale Watching Doesn’t Go to Plan

Our next morning was originally supposed to begin at around 4am.

We’d booked a whale-watching excursion and were incredibly excited about it, but the day before we received a message saying it had been cancelled because of poor weather.

We were gutted.

It was probably the one big thing we’d planned that we didn’t manage to do, but there wasn’t much point letting it ruin the day. The silver lining was that we suddenly had something we’d barely experienced all holiday:

Time.

We had a lie-in, enjoyed another breakfast and started putting together a completely new plan.

While researching Tromsø, we’d spotted a little independent shop called Tromsø Bruktbokhandel selling books, comics, trading cards and LEGO, which obviously meant I had to investigate. We also wanted to spend a bit more time exploring the city itself.

And because apparently simply having a relaxing day was completely beyond us, we booked another excursion at the last minute.

This time, reindeer.

Possibly the Best LEGO Shop I’ve Ever Found

Tromsø Bruktbokhandel was an absolutely brilliant little discovery.

Tucked away slightly off the main street, the ground floor was packed with books.

And I mean packed.

Shelves were completely full, stacks were everywhere and books were piled along the floor. On the other side were comics and trading cards, including Pokémon products I’d barely seen back home because they were permanently sold out.

Pretty cool.

Then I went upstairs.

There was more LEGO than I’d ever seen in one place outside of maybe an actual LEGO store, and honestly I think there might have been more than some of those too. Sets were stacked higher than my head across loads of different themes, including plenty of retired ones. As someone who’s ended up building a pretty sizeable LEGO Star Wars collection over the years, this was exactly the sort of place I could lose far too much time in.

I spotted a sealed Star Wars Fury-Class Interceptor, retired UCS sets including the Snowspeeder and Republic Gunship, and even the original AT-AP Walker from 2008. There were older Lord of the Rings and Hobbit sets too.

If luggage space hadn’t been an issue, that UCS Snowspeeder would have been in serious danger.

Probably for the best that we were running on a schedule, because I could have stayed there for hours.

Feeding Reindeer and Learning About Sami Culture

After quickly grabbing some food, we met the group for our last-minute reindeer excursion.

Normally my ADHD makes me a pretty terrible passenger on longer journeys because I get restless very quickly. Norway somehow completely defeated that.

I could sit on a bus for an hour staring through the window and barely notice the time passing. The landscapes were just endlessly interesting, and this journey took us deeper into the hills and mountains outside Tromsø.

Eventually we arrived at the camp, surrounded once again by mountains and snow.

We started inside a traditional Sami lavvo, where one of the Sami hosts spent around half an hour talking to us about their culture, traditions and experiences growing up. It was fascinating, and one thing I really appreciated throughout the trip was how proud people were of their heritage and how willing they were to share it.

Afterwards, we went outside to meet the reindeer.

I wasn’t quite prepared for how friendly they were.

Or how competitive.

The moment food appeared, any sense of personal space disappeared with it. They were constantly nudging and pushing one another aside trying to reach us, which had everyone laughing.

Some had lost one or both antlers, leaving them looking slightly wonky, and we learned more about the animals while drinking another extremely welcome cup of hot chocolate. The whole camp overlooked some fantastic views of the mountains too, and we were lucky enough to catch some lovely colours in the sky as the sun disappeared.

A professional photographer was also there throughout the experience and managed to get some fantastic pictures of us with the reindeer, considerably better than anything I would’ve managed while trying to hold food and prevent several of them from raiding the bucket.

For something we’d booked almost entirely because our original plans were cancelled, it ended up becoming another highlight.

Sometimes things going wrong works out surprisingly well.

The Slightly Awkward Reindeer Dinner

We returned to Tromsø with one more food stop planned: Raketten Bar & Pølse.

It’s a tiny, famous hot-dog stand sitting along the main street in Tromsø, and my wife had picked it out while we were planning the trip.

There was just one slight issue.

We had chosen to eat reindeer immediately after spending several hours discovering how adorable reindeer are.

The timing was unfortunate.

Still, we’d committed.

My wife had a reindeer hot dog while I went for the reindeer stew, and both were really nice. There was a decent queue when we arrived, but it moved quickly and we managed to find somewhere to sit behind the stand.

By now the sun had completely disappeared and the streets were glowing beneath the fairy lights hanging between the buildings. It was incredibly pretty and peaceful.

And suddenly it hit me.

This was our final evening.

Neither of us was remotely ready to leave, but thankfully we still had one more ridiculous idea planned.

Sledging Through Tromsø

While travelling back from our snowmobiling excursion, we’d found a local advertising guided sledging.

So naturally, we booked it.

We walked uphill away from the centre of Tromsø and into one of the residential areas. It felt strangely familiar, almost like walking through a neighbourhood back home, except everything was buried beneath knee-deep snow.

As we climbed higher, we got some incredible views back across Tromsø. We could see the harbour, buildings glowing below us and the Arctic Cathedral across the water, with all the lights twinkling against the snow.

It was really special.

Eventually, we met our guide outside his home. He couldn’t have been more down to earth, and after talking us through the sledges and the safety side of things, he led us to a small park nearby.

Then, for the next hour, we basically behaved like children.

It was brilliant.

We raced down hills, paths and slopes, falling off more times than I could possibly count. What I hadn’t appreciated was just how physical sledging would be.

Going downhill?

Fantastic.

Dragging yourself and the sledge back up every time?

Less fantastic.

By the end I was absolutely drenched in sweat despite being surrounded by snow. We both escaped relatively unharmed, although I did leave Tromsø with a fairly impressive bruised backside.

Worth it.

Walking back towards the hotel afterwards felt different. For the first time all week, we deliberately slowed down and took our time wandering through the streets, looking at the lights and enjoying every last bit of it.

Because now the end really was approaching.

One Final Walk Through Tromsø

Our final day was much simpler.

No snowmobiles, no reindeer and no racing down hills on sledges.

We joined a local guide for a walking tour around Tromsø, learning more about the history of the city and the people who live there. After spending several days racing between excursions, it was actually a lovely way to finish.

We’d seen Tromsø from the top of a mountain, crossed its snowy streets at night and travelled far outside the city into the Arctic landscape. Now we had a chance to slow down and understand a little more about the place itself.

Unfortunately, like every good holiday, it seemed to end far too quickly.

Why Our Trip to Tromsø Completely Surprised Me

I’d like to call Tromsø a hidden gem, but apparently it’s only hidden if you’re me.

Since coming home I’ve realised just how popular it is online, which makes it slightly ridiculous that I’d barely even heard of it before we started planning the trip. Maybe that actually helped, though.

I went in without many expectations. I hadn’t spent months looking at photographs or watching videos of everything we were going to see.

All I really knew was that there was going to be snow.

Instead, I came home having seen the Northern Lights several times, driven a snowmobile through the mountains, fed reindeer, learned about Sami culture, gone sledging through a Norwegian neighbourhood, stood above Tromsø as sunlight hit distant peaks and eaten an unreasonable quantity of reindeer stew.

The landscapes are breathtaking, but it wasn’t just the scenery that made the trip special. Tromsø itself somehow feels incredibly warm and welcoming despite the slightly ridiculous temperatures, and almost everyone we met seemed genuinely proud of the city, the surrounding region and their heritage.

More than anything, though, our trip to Tromsø gave my wife and me some absolutely incredible memories together.

A huge amount of that is down to her. She organised most of the trip and somehow managed to fill a few days with experiences I know I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

So, if you’re reading this:

Thank you. I love you.

And to everyone else, I genuinely cannot recommend Tromsø enough. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who’d choose sunshine, pools and cocktails over freezing temperatures and several layers of thermals.

Apparently I was wrong.

Tromsø is now my favourite holiday I’ve ever had.

And honestly? I’d go back tomorrow.

Have you ever visited Tromsø or somewhere else in Arctic Norway? And if not, what’s the one destination sitting at the top of your bucket list?