Rebecca Douglas has visited Iceland 29 times. She has already booked her 30th flight.
The goal of each trip is the same: to photograph the aurora borealis, or northern lights.
Douglas has been photographing this stunning phenomenon since 2010. Its colors — which can paint the sky in a dazzling array of green, purple, yellow and blue — are the result of the Sun’s molecules interacting with gases in Earth’s upper atmosphere. downstream Solar cycle Having reached the peak of an 11-year period, the spotlight is expected to be more prominent during the following period Four years.
Douglas, A Professional photographer Based in Kent, UK, she also travels annually to Finland, Norway and Iceland to photograph the night sky. But she said she was also able to photograph the Northern Lights from the English countryside last year.
The rise of “night tourism”
Douglas was, unwittingly, an early adopter of “night tourism” – a trend focused on night-time travel experiences.
Booking.com named it A Top travel trends for 2025Describing it as a desire to “do away the daytime crowds for the magic of midnight.” A global survey of more than 27,000 travelers by the company showed that nearly two in three travelers said they had considered “dark sky destinations” for activities such as stargazing (72%), once-in-a-lifetime cosmic events (59%) and Constellation tracking (57%).
The Northern Lights, as seen at Rebecca Douglas’s holiday accommodation in Lofoten, an archipelago in Norway.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
Most activities involve the night sky, but there are others that take place on the ground, from city tours and nighttime truffle hunting in Italy to full-moon picnics on the beach.
Luxury travel company Wayfairer Travel said overnight tourism experiences were up 25% last year, with requests to see the Northern Lights in Norway and Iceland, but also night diving in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and the Red Sea in Egypt. Night wildlife safaris in Zambia and Kenya and stargazing in Chile’s Atacama Desert are also very popular, the company says.
“Night-time tourism is set to transform travel in 2025, as night-time travelers increasingly seek out unique experiences after dark,” said Jay Stevens, the company’s CEO.
Travelers can sign up to hunt for truffles at night alongside professional hunters and their dogs.
Stefano Guidi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Chasing an eclipse can become a new experience, according to luxury travel company Scott Dunn.
A spokesman for Scott Dunn said: “Travelers are venturing to remote corners of the world to witness these heavenly spectacles, with Greenland’s High Arctic region set to be the next must-visit destination thanks to its remote beaches free of light pollution.”
But trips don’t have to be that far, as hotels from Hawaii to Austria now offer stargazing. The next total lunar eclipse will occur on March 14, and it will be Visible in most parts of the worldIncluding the Americas, Western Europe and West Africa, according to NASA.
In search of darkness
Douglas avoids hotel deals and prefers to plan her own trips, as she plans many activities at night. She also said she prefers to stay away from large groups, which often consist of people new to night tourism who unwittingly cause light pollution with their smartphones and camera flashes.
The Northern Lights as seen from Iceland.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
Douglas said she plans most of her trips at the best time to see the aurora borealis, usually between August and April. She also chooses remote accommodations away from cities and even neighbors, where a single street or household light can damage photos, she said.
“I spend a lot of time looking up places to stay on Google Maps,” she said. “If there’s any lighting in the photos, I’ll ask the host if it’s possible to turn off the outside lighting… Even some of the less active shows can be really beautiful if you’re in a really dark area.”
She also studies the phases of the moon as well, she said.
Aurora storm as seen from Elmley Nature Reserve in Kent, UK.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
“During those two weeks around the new moon, you have the darkest skies possible. And then, it’s not just the aurora borealis that are at their best, but the stars are breathtaking,” she said. “You can see the Milky Way, and it’s just a rainbow of dust and glitter across the sky.”
Douglas created a Online course To help people photograph the Northern Lights.
At night, she also photographs noctilucent clouds — sparkling ice crystal clouds high in the atmosphere — and polar stratospheric rainbow clouds, she says. She sometimes films from 8pm to 5am, and has been outside in temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
“They say you have to work hard for your art,” Douglas said.
But for her, spending her travels taking photos at night is a “privilege,” she said.
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