A private northern lights tour in Rovaniemi

A private aurora tour looks like the luxury version of a group tour, and for two people it is. For a family of six or a group of friends it can be the ordinary version with a better seat. Which of those it is depends on arithmetic the listings leave to you. For group tours, the best northern lights tour compares the seats; this page is about booking the whole vehicle.

The headcount decides whether it is expensive

Private tours are priced per group, and group tours per person, so the comparison changes with every person you add.

For a couple, Beyond Arctic’s private tour costs nearly three times what the two of them would pay for seats on its group tour. That buys real things, set out below, but it is hard to justify on the view alone. At the other end, a full private group of eight pays about what the same people would pay for seats on a small-group tour, and with one operator noticeably less. Between those two points, Beyond Arctic’s price steps up with the headcount while Wild About Lapland’s stays flat, so a group of five or six should price both.

What private actually changes

The start time and the pace become yours. Two of these operators set the start time around your group, which matters with young children or a late dinner. The third private option here is private in the sense that nobody else is at the campfire, but it runs to a fixed evening schedule.

Children become easier. A group tour can turn away a young child; one private tour here says it welcomes children of any age and brings sleeping bags for the smallest. The guide’s attention also becomes yours, which is what makes private worthwhile for photographs of a family under the lights rather than of the lights with a family somewhere in the dark.

What does not change is the sky. A private guide reads the same cloud forecast as a group guide, and the northern lights guide explains why that decides the evening.

A cloudy night costs more when you have paid for the vehicle

On a group seat, a cloudy night is a disappointing evening and a modest sum. On a private booking it is the better part of a thousand euros. Only Wild About Lapland returns any of it when the tour runs and the lights do not show, and it returns half.

That makes the forecast part of the booking decision rather than something to check on the day. If you can, book the private tour for a date late enough in the trip that you can move it, and ask each operator whether a cloudy forecast lets you change the night without charge before you pay.

Snowtrail’s private evening

Snowtrail supplies this site, and its private evening is a different thing from the three above. It is a six-hour programme built around a sleigh ride, Santa, reindeer and a dinner in a kota, with watching for the aurora as part of the night. For a family that wants all of that on one evening, nothing else here is comparable.

Its price is for the whole party, not for each person, which Snowtrail has confirmed to us. What still stops a per-head comparison is that the page does not say how many people the party can be, and it does not mention winter clothing, though pickup within ten kilometres of the centre is included. Ask both before setting it against the others. Snowtrail also says any of its tours can be made private, without publishing what that costs.