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Rebecca Douglas has been to Iceland 29 times. And she has already booked her 30th trip.
The goal of each trip is the same: to photograph the aurora borealis, or northern lights.
Douglas has been photographing this impressive phenomenon since 2010. Its colors – which can paint the sky in a dazzling array of greens, purples, yellows and blues – are the result of solar particles reacting with gases in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. With current solar cycle having reached the peak of its 11-year period, the lights are expected to be even more prominent over the next four years.
Douglas, a professional photographer is based in Kent in the UK and also travels to Finland, Norway and Iceland every year to shoot the night sky. But she said she was also able to photograph the northern lights from the English countryside last year.
The rise of “naturism”
Unbeknownst to himself, Douglas was one of the early proponents of “night tourism,” a trend that focuses on overnight travel.
Booking.com called it a top travel trend for 2025describing it as a desire to “give up the daylight crowds for midnight magic”. A global survey of more than 27,000 travelers by the company found that nearly two in three travelers said they had considered “darker sky destinations” for activities such as stargazing (72%), one-off space events in life (59%) and tracking the constellations (57%).
The Northern Lights over Rebecca Douglas’s home in Lofoten, an archipelago in Norway.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
Most activities involve the night sky, but others take place on the ground, from city tours and truffle hunts in Italy by night to full moon picnics by the sea.
Luxury travel company Wayfairer Travel has reported a 25% increase in overnight tourism over the past year, with requests to view the Northern Lights in Norway and Iceland, as well as night diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Red Sea in Egypt. Night wildlife safaris in Zambia and Kenya and stargazing in the Atacama Desert in Chile are also popular, according to the company.
“Night tourism is set to transform travel in 2025 as night owl travelers increasingly seek unique experiences after dark,” said Jay Stevens, CEO of the company.
Travelers can sign up for a nighttime truffle hunt with professional hunters and their dogs.
Stefano Guidi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Chasing the eclipse could be a new bucket list experience, according to luxury travel operator Scott Dunn.
“Travellers travel to remote corners of the world to witness these celestial spectacles, and Greenland’s High Arctic … will be the next must-visit destination thanks to its remote shores, free of light pollution,” said spokesman Scott Dunn.
But travel doesn’t have to be so far-flung: hotels from Hawaii to Austria now offer stargazing. The next total lunar eclipse will take place on March 14 and will be visible in most of the worldincluding the Americas, Western Europe and West Africa, according to NASA.
In search of darkness
Douglas avoids hotel reservations, preferring to plan her trips on her own since she plans so many activities for the night. She also said she prefers to stay away from large groups, which are often made up of people new to night tourism and unwittingly creating light pollution with their smartphones and camera flashes.
Northern lights, view from Iceland.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
Douglas plans most of her trips during the best time to see the northern lights — usually August through April, she said. She also chooses remote housing away from cities and even neighbors, as a single street or house lamp can compromise the photos, she said.
“I spend a lot of time looking for housing on Google Maps,” she said. “If there’s lighting in the photos, I’ll ask the host if the outside lighting can be turned off… Even some of the least active shows can be really beautiful if you’re in a really dark place.”
It also takes into account the phases of the moon, she said.
An aurora borealis 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. And then it’s not just the Aurora, which is at its best, but the stars, which are just breathtaking,” she said. “You see the Milky Way, and it’s just a rainbow of dust and glitter in the sky.”
Douglas created an online course to help people photograph the aurora borealis.
At night, she also photographs silver clouds — shiny clouds of ice crystals high in the atmosphere — and polar stratospheric rainbow clouds, she said. Sometimes she shoots from 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM and is 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 photographing at night is a “privilege,” she said.
