Rebecca Douglas has been to Iceland 29 times. And she’s already booked her 30th trip.
The goal of every trip is the same: photographing the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights.
Douglas has been photographing this spectacular phenomenon since 2010. It’s colors — which can paint the sky a dazzling array of green, purple, yellow and blue — are the result of sun particles that react with gases in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. With the current solar cycle reaching the peak of its 11-year period, the lights are expected to be even more prominent during the next four years.
Douglas, a professional photographer based in Kent in the United Kingdom, also travels yearly to Finland, Norway and Iceland to shoot the night sky. But she said she’s also been able to photograph Northern Lights from the English countryside in the past year.
The rise of ‘noctourism’
Douglas has unknowingly been an early adopter of “noctourism” — a trend that focuses on nighttime travel experiences.
Booking.com named it a top travel trend for 2025, describing it as a desire to “ditch the daylight crowds for midnight magic.” A global survey of more than 27,000 travelers by the company showed nearly two in three travelers said they have considered “darker sky destinations” for activities such as stargazing (72%), once-in-a-lifetime cosmic events (59%) and constellation tracking (57%).
The Northern Lights, as seen over Rebecca Douglas’ holiday accommodation in the Lofoten, an archipelago in Norway.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
Most activities involve the night sky, but others happen on the ground, from city tours and truffle hunting in Italy at night to full moon picnics by the sea.
Luxury travel company Wayfairer Travel said noctourism experiences rose 25% in the past year, with requests for Northern Light viewings in Norway and Iceland, but also night diving in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Egypt’s Red Sea. Nocturnal wildlife safaris in Zambia and Kenya and stargazing in Chile’s Atacama Desert are also popular, according to the company.
“Noctotourism is set to transform travel in 2025 as night owl travelers are increasingly seeking unique after-dark experiences,” said the company’s CEO Jay Stevens.
Travelers can sign up to hunt for truffles at night alongside professional hunters and their dogs.
Stefano Guidi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Eclipse chasing could become a new “bucket list” experience, according to the luxury travel operator Scott Dunn.
“Travelers are venturing to remote corners of the world to witness these celestial spectacles, with Greenland’s High Arctic … set to be the next must-visit destination thanks to its remote, light-pollution-free shores,” said a Scott Dunn spokesperson.
But journeys needn’t be that far-flung, with hotels from Hawaii to Austria now offering stargazing activities. The next total lunar eclipse will occur on March 14 and will be visible across much of the world, including the Americas, Western Europe and Western Africa, according to NASA.
In search of darkness
Douglas avoids hotel packages, preferring to plan her own trips, since she plans so many activities at night. She also said she prefers to stay away from large groups, which are often made up of people new to noctourism who unwittingly create light pollution with their smartphones and camera flashes.
The Northern Lights, as viewed from Iceland.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
Douglas plans most of her trips around the best time to see the Northern Lights — usually between August and April, she said. She also chooses remote accommodations far from towns and even neighbors, as just one street or domestic light can compromise photos, she said.
“I spend a lot of time looking at accommodation on Google Maps,” she said. “If there’s any lighting in the pictures, I’ll ask the host if it’s possible to turn the outside lighting off … Even some of the least active shows can be really beautiful if you are in a genuinely dark area.”
She also considers the phases of the moon too, she said.
An aurora storm as seen from Elmley Nature Reserve in Kent, United Kingdom.
Source: Rebecca Douglas Photography
“In that two weeks around a new moon, you’ve got the darkest skies possible. And then it’s not just the Aurora that’s at its best, but the stars are just breathtaking,” she said. “You can see the Milky Way, and it’s just this rainbow of dust and glitter across the sky.”
Douglas created an online course to help people photograph the aurora borealis.
At night, she also photographs noctilucent clouds — shimmery ice crystal clouds located high in the atmosphere — and polar stratospheric rainbow clouds, she said. She sometimes shoots from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m., and has been out in temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
“They say you have to work hard for your art,” said Douglas.
But to her, spending her travels taking photographs at night is “a privilege,” she said.
