Tromsø in 3 days: the Arctic city at −3 °C

300 km inside the Arctic Circle, and January averages −3 °C. Your 3 days in Tromsø ❄️ Day 2 is the one: a minibus driving inland until the sky clears is worth more than any hotel window. 📍 Day 1: Fjellheisen up to Storsteinen, 420 m, for the whole island and the bridge in one frame. Go at blue hour 📍 Day 2: the aurora chase. The coast is often cloudy, so book a guide whose job is driving inland, sometimes into Finland, until it clears 📍 Day 3: a slow one after the late night. The Arctic Cathedral, built in 1965 and a parish church despite the name, is best lit up after dark 📍 Plan B: if clear skies matter more than a city, Abisko in Sweden gets just 349 mm of rain and snow a year, the driest place in the country. January there averages −10.5 °C, though The light is the strange part. Polar night runs 26 November to 15 January, and because of the mountains the sun doesn't show at all from 21 November to 21 January. Noon turns blue instead. January averages −3 °C, with highs around −1. The Gulf Stream keeps it milder than Lapland, so pack layers for wind and wet, not an expedition parka. 👉 Swipe for the three days and the light dates. Save this for your trip and send it to who you'd go with. Tromsø for the city or Abisko for the sky? 👇 📷 Faris Mohammed, Lightscape, Munir Rani, Dana Andreea Gheorghe / Unsplash · US Embassy Sweden / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0