Reindeer and a Chance of Northern Lights in Tromsø

Three of the eleven reindeer tours here run in the evening specifically so you can look up afterward. None of them sells a sighting; every one says, in its own way, that the northern lights are a chance, not a promise, and the clear sky and dark-enough night that make it happen are out of any guide’s hands. What they do sell reliably is the evening itself: feeding the herd after dark, a hot dinner, and Sámi storytelling by firelight, with the aurora as the thing everyone’s quietly hoping for on top.

The tour pinned on this page, Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s Reindeer Sled, Dinner, and Chance of Northern Lights, adds a sled ride to that evening when the snow allows it, plus a three-course dinner built around bidos, a traditional Sámi stew. It’s rated 4.6 from 2,808 reviews, from about $218 when we checked.

The three evening options, side by side

Why no tour promises the lights

Tromsø Lapland’s own listing for the cheaper of these three is unusually direct about this: a sighting isn’t something the camp can promise, only that the location is chosen and the camp is set up for good odds when conditions cooperate. That’s an honest way to put something true of all three tours here. The camp, the clear sky and the solar activity all have to line up on the same night, and no operator controls more than one of those three things.

The season itself runs wide: the aurora is visible across northern Norway roughly September through April, with the long, dark nights of November through February usually called the best odds, even though the equinox months can show just as much raw activity. All three tours here sit inside that window by design.

What actually happens if the sky doesn’t cooperate

Reviewers of these tours describe it both ways. One guest on the tour pinned here called the night “absolutely freezing” and said the group was lucky enough to see the aurora — pack extra socks either way. A guest on Tromsø Lapland’s sledding-and-dinner tour got the opposite result the same season: good reindeer time, no lights, and not enough snow for the sled portion either. The sledding caveat that applies everywhere else on this site applies here too: two of these three tours include a sled ride, and it depends on snow exactly the way every other sledding product here does.

Which of the three to pick

If an evening with a real shot at both a sled ride and the lights matters most, the tour pinned here and Tromsø Lapland’s sledding-and-dinner tour both offer all of it together. If the sled isn’t the point and a lower price is, Tromsø Lapland’s feeding-and-dinner version drops the snow gamble entirely while keeping the same aurora chance and a Breivikeidet camp setting about 45 minutes to an hour from town. The Tromsø Lapland sledding tour costs a little more and sets a sled weight limit of 100 kg (220 lbs).

Check dates for the sled, dinner and lights tour

For the wider sledding season this depends on, see best time for a reindeer tour; for how this tour’s sled ride compares with the others, see reindeer sledding in Tromsø. All eleven tours are compared on the homepage.

Tour details, prices and review quotes from the three listings’ own data; aurora season figures from this site’s Tromsø grounding research. Checked October 2026.