Tromsø
You can be here in December for about €1,141, 4 days, direct.
Why now
Good time in December: -3°C days, 15 rainy days, snow season.
The aurora season runs from early autumn to early spring, with the darkest weeks around the polar night when the sun does not rise at all; late winter gives more daylight, snow and the same lights. Summer means hiking under a sun that never sets, and a different, quieter town.
Best months here: March, November, December. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled".
The place
Tromsø is a university town of 80,000 on an island 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, with more bars per head than most Norwegian cities and mountains on every side of the sound. People come for the northern lights in winter and the midnight sun in summer; the town itself is a compact grid of wooden houses that can be walked in an hour. It suits people who accept that the weather, not the itinerary, decides the day.
What you can do
- 01Take the Fjellheisen cable car up Storsteinen from Tromsdalen for the view over the island and the sound.
- 02Join a small-group aurora chase by minibus; drivers cross to the Finnish border if the coast is clouded.
- 03See the Arctic Cathedral's stained glass on the mainland side, then walk back across the Tromsø bridge.
- 04Visit the Polar Museum in an 1830s customs warehouse for Amundsen and the trapper era.
- 05Drink at Ølhallen, the Mack brewery's 1928 beer hall, the northernmost of its kind and open from early afternoon.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
Stay in Sentrum for the tour pickups and the bars; a cabin on Kvaløya is the choice for a self-drive aurora trip with a car.
Unusual things
- ◦The Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden at the university, the world's northernmost, free and open around the clock in summer.
- ◦Polaria's seal feeding times and the Arctic film in the tipped-over ice-block building on the waterfront.
- ◦Sommarøy, an hour's drive out on Kvaløya, with white sand beaches and Arctic sea temperatures to match.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Airport bus, 15 min, NOK 130
- Car needed?
- No — walkable or good public transport
- Getting around
- The town is walked, with local buses to Tromsdalen and the university; the airport is on the island, about 15 minutes by bus 40 or 42. Rental cars need winter tyres and confidence on ice.
- Clock
- Same time as Zurich (Europe/Oslo) derived
- Daylight
- Polar night in December — the sun does not rise derived
- Currency
- NOK
Good to know
From late November to mid-January the sun does not rise, and roads and pavements are icy for months; spikes for your shoes are sold in every supermarket.
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 4 days from Zurich in December, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Abu Dhabi
Dubai
Cape Verde
Muscat
Doha
Jeddah