Me with the Northern Lights in the background (Photo by Chasing Lights)

It wasn’t supposed to be this night. This place. Not if I had had it my way.

One of the ‘must-dos’ on my global walkabout was to see the Aurora Borealis (or northern lights as it’s more commonly referred to as) in Tromsø, Norway. While I knew going in that it is never a guarantee to be able to see the lights, I put myself in the best position possible to do so. Despite these efforts, a series of unfortunate events led to me being down to my final day in town with a cloudy night in the forecast – and I had yet to experience nature’s spectacular light show.

While bad weather did factor in often, including that final night, I did not account for an airline strike and being sick in bed for several days as part of my plans. Before I knew it, I had one last chance. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and this Irish-American hadn’t the faintest idea of what good fortune awaited.

Tromsø is probably the best place in the world to go and see the northern lights given its location well north of the Arctic Circle, surrounding inland areas protected from the sea, and it’s fairly mild climate thanks to the Gulf Stream. Knowing weather could be factor, I had booked 10 days to give myself plenty of time to see the lights, as well as enjoy the “Paris of the north.”

When I finally stood on the roadside of the E8 (the “Northern Lights Route”) on my last night, deep inside the border of Finland, I was shivering. And yet despite the frigid air, I was humbly in awe of not only the amazing, breathtaking and, even for this part of the world, rare light show that nature was putting on all around us, but also for the circumstances that led to coming here on this night, with this group, to this location.

It’s like Steve Jobs talked about in connecting the dots, you just can’t see it at the time looking forward. You just have to trust your gut or the universe or whatever you want to call it and believe that things will work out fine.

Well I patiently followed my gut, and was richly rewarded more than I could have imagined. Here’s how it all went down, connecting each of the dots along the way:

The First Dot – Moving Dates Around in My Itinerary
This story began in late October from my room I rented on AirBnB in Brisbane, Australia. This is where I originally used some of my frequent flier miles to book my exit flight out of Australia. My itinerary had me departing via Sydney to Tromsø on March 11 – just within the range before my visa would require me to leave the country. After a December trip to New Zealand, I figured I might be moving this date up, most likely to visit Chiang Mai, Thailand before heading to Norway. In between, however, I fell in love with Melbourne and decided to pass on Thailand, for this trip anyway, in order to spend more time in this great city.

Watching Marion Ravn and her band perform at Rockefeller Oslo was definitely worth moving my itinerary around for. Marion was even gracious enough to meet and sign autographs for her fans after the concert!

It wasn’t until early February, however, when I heard that one of my favorite Norwegian singers, Marion Ravn, would be having a concert in Oslo on Feb 27, that I went ahead and made a change. It’s rare and unlikely she would be touring the USA anytime soon (not to mention not all of her albums get released in America) and I was already planning to go to Oslo anyway, so I felt I should be there for the show.

Having decided to stay in Melbourne rather than travel to Thailand, moving my original Sydney-Tromsø flight to depart Melbourne and arrive in Oslo on Feb 26 instead was an easy process. I now felt satisfied this was the right time to exit Australia, even though it was difficult to say goodbye. I figured I would want to spend 10 days each in Oslo – a city I had been to briefly a couple years ago and wanted to spend a more meaningful amount of time getting to know – as well as Tromsø before moving on to see some of the rest of Norway. Ten days should give me plenty of chances to see the northern lights, I thought. This now meant I would be spending March 8-18 in Tromsø, instead of March 11-21.

Dot Two – Norwegian Air Pilots Go On Strike!
The day before I was to leave Oslo for Tromsø (March 7), I received a text while visiting the Holmenkollen ski jump facility that my flight the next day on Norwegian Air had been canceled. Later I discovered that there was a pilots strike going on and there were no realistic alternatives to leave Sunday the 8th as planned. I re-booked for Monday and planned to arrive in Tromsø that night. One potential northern lights night lost.

I soon realized that the strike wasn’t going to end anytime soon, and sure enough on Sunday night, I found out Monday’s flight also got canceled. I re-booked for Tuesday although I knew by now that this likely would get canceled as well. I now wanted to get to Tromsø as soon as possible so I scrambled around Monday morning and ended up booking on Finnair to fly to Tromsø that night. I arrived safely, but there was a snowstorm so there would be no northern lights on Monday – second night lost.

Dots Three & Four – A Simple Conversation High Up in the Arctic Air

View of Tromsø from Fjellheisen.

Tuesday was my first full day in Tromsø and I still had eight days left – so no worries. I did my customary first-day walk around to get to know the city, being careful to avoid not slipping on the skating rink hills that had become the city side streets. The highlight of the day was the Fjellheisen cable car up the mountain that provided a wonderful panoramic view of Tromsøya (Tromsø island) and the surrounding mountains and fjord.

This was another fateful twist in the story for two reasons. One, it was noticeably colder up on the mountain than it was on the island below, and I may have spent too much time outside. The second reason was a couple from San Francisco that I met on the way up the mountain. We chatted a bit in between taking photos outside and sipping on hot drinks inside the cafe and they had mentioned that they had already seen the northern lights having gone with a tour group the night before.

Allow me to back up a bit. Now I’m traveling on a backpacker budget for the most part, and I had heard that these sorts of excursions were expensive (what isn’t expensive in Norway, right?). Therefore, when I found a listing on AirBnB that mentioned, both in the description and in reviews, being able to see the lights quite regularly from the lake down the street from the house, I jumped on that opportunity! I figured that in staying 10 days there I probably wouldn’t need to spend money on a light-chasing tour. Well planned I thought!

Out of curiosity, I decided to ask the couple which tour they went on and how much it was. They told me the name was Chasing Lights and said it came out to around $200 USD, a lot more reasonable than I was expecting. I had been under the impression it was several hundreds of dollars for these types of tours based on glancing through various websites and travel forums. Apparently I didn’t examine carefully enough – or I had been looking at some of the more elaborate tour packages.

This tour drove them out all the way to Finland since the weather was not favorable in the Tromsø area that night. It seemed like the guides went wherever they needed to go to find the lights so I decided to put this in the back of my mind just in case I didn’t see anything back at the house over the first 4-5 days or so. Surely I would see something before needing to make a panic tour purchase though!

Heck, Tuesday was a beautiful day as evidenced by the wonderful views from atop Fjellheisen. Maybe if I stay long enough into the evening, I thought. I did manage to get some great night photos, however soon the snow came in, and came in to stay for the night. No lights on day three.

View of Tromsø from Fjellheisen in the evening before the snow arrives.

Dot Five – Down for the Count
I didn’t expect much over the next few days as the forecast called for more bad weather. The weekend looked better though so not to worry. I went into the city Wednesday afternoon, ate lunch, and then settled into a coffee shop for a few hours to get out of the cold air and catch up on some emails. Something at lunch didn’t really feel right though. I finished what I had to do at the coffee shop, picked up some groceries down the street and went home.

I figured I was OK and that I just needed to lay down for a while. I had had a tough time adjusting back to European time after 31 hours of flying from Melbourne, so even though I had been in Norway for a couple weeks already, I think my usually strong immune defenses were vulnerable. Add in the change in climates, being outside in the miserable weather a lot, the lunch not feeling right, as well as two people in the house I was staying already feeling sick when I got there… well my body had had enough apparently.

The next few days I stayed in bed much of the time – unable to do anything else really. The timing felt OK to me though. I was in no rush, the weather was awful, the house and room were very comfortable. If I was to get sick at any point in my trip, this was probably the best time and place I could have chosen. The forecast looked better toward the end of my stay, and my body clearly needed to settle and rest for a bit. The northern lights will wait. Still plenty of time.

Dots Six and Seven – The Lights Make an Appearance, but…
One night while I was sick the weather must have cleared up a bit as I heard the next morning there had in fact been an aurora sighting at the house. I was unaware, and just as well I thought as I was unable to muster the energy to get out of bed anyway. In fact, it wasn’t until Monday that I felt myself again and able to go about and move around.

I now had two days left, but fortunately Monday was predicted to be clear the entire day and night! Surely no need to panic and book a tour! Around 9 pm, I bundled myself up, made a cup of tea and went out to the veranda to watch the skies for signs of the elusive aurora.

Sure enough, it was clear outside and I could see plenty of stars. After an hour and a half, and nothing seen, I went back inside to warm up and take a break. I decided to lay down and rest for a few and then the next thing I knew it was 4 am! Ooops, I guess I was still pretty worn out from being sick! Nine days gone, no light sightings for me…

Dot Eight – Time to Scramble and Book a Tour Quick!!
I took a quick look at the weather when I awoke Tuesday morning, and it didn’t look promising. It was time to book a tour.

I did a search for the company the couple I met had told me about, Chasing Lights. It turns out they were the top-rated tour on TripAdvisor. “Great, surely they won’t have any space at the last minute,” I thought to myself. I decide to contact them anyway just in case.

I fill in the web form around 8:30 am, and then go upstairs to have some breakfast, hoping my message will be waiting whenever the office opens for the day. Surprisingly, I get a response within 15 minutes:

“Hi Kevin, Thank you for getting in touch! We do have exactly 1 seat left for our Northern Lights chase tonight.”

“Wow, that’s very lucky,” I thought. It was fate, I must go now. I respond back, exchange payment and go on about my day until the minibus picks me up around 6 p.m.

The Chase
In the famous words of Biz Markie, “I didn’t know I was in for such an event.”

By this point, I had really left things up to chance. Sure there were some circumstances beyond my control that left me in this spot, but I was really hoping that I had not booked 10 days in Tromsø and failed to see the northern lights. That would have been quite a travesty. The thought of regretting not spending the money to book a tour earlier in the trip was in the back of my mind.

The route taken from Tromsø to witness the northern lights in Finland – close to the border of Sweden. (from Google Maps)

I was the first to be picked up and once everyone was on the bus, tour guides and photographers Thomas and Anna gave us their background story about the company and the about the lights. With it came the expected, ‘while there is no guarantee we will see the lights on any given night (85% chance is what they state on their website), we will do our best to go where there are clear skies,’ speech. The plan was to drive into Finland (much like the couple I had met had gone) and we would probably be getting back in the wee hours of the morning. My flight wasn’t until 11:35 the next morning, so I was more than OK with this.

I knew there was no guarantees and that only booking one night’s tour was risky. Nothing I could do about it now though, I realized. I was on the tour and the rest was up to mother nature.

My first northern lights sighting! (Photo by Chasing Lights)

We crossed into Finland and soon we had almost outrun the cloud cover. We could see the clouds were being illuminated – a sign that there was aurora activity above (the lights are in space so the clouds lay between us and the phenomenon). We managed to find an area to park the minibus off the side of the road, and sure enough, there it was. My first glimpse of the elusive northern lights! This was a quick stop as the clouds continued to follow us from Norway. We would have to go even deeper into Finland to ensure a night of clear skies.

About 30 minutes later we set up camp for the night. Thomas started a fire, Anna made us tea and hot chocolate, I put on one of the heavy duty suits and boots the tour provided to keep warm, and everyone else got out their cameras and tripods. I fumble around with the settings of my simple point-and-shoot camera, but not much luck. It doesn’t stop me from being in awe of the magnificent light show all around. We would be sent all the photos that Thomas took as part of the tour package anyway, so I decide to just focus on observing the lights and staying warm!

This was a pretty cool experience I thought. Not quite like the magical dancing lights you hear about or see in certain Disney movies, but that was probably very rare. It was mesmerizing nonetheless. Others were commenting about all the different colors that were showing up in their photos (the naked eye can’t pick these up, but the cameras with their long exposure can). We had a good show, saw some good lights, and I felt satisfied with my trip up to Tromsø now that I had seen nature’s famous light show.

That is until around after midnight. Anna helped me with my camera settings and let me borrow one of the company’s tripods. This made a world of difference, and it came just in time. If I thought what I had seen up until this point was cool…

I felt like I was back in Sydney for New Years Eve. There was the first fireworks show, and then another, which would culminate with a spectacular grand finale. It seemed as though mother nature was simply waiting for midnight before she kicked her natural fireworks extravaganza into high gear!

This time, it WAS like the magical dancing lights you hear about or see in certain Disney movies!! And being up in this latitude, the show was all around us. To the north, to the south, and directly above us. I was in awe, humbled by nature’s masterpiece.

I started to have fun guessing which direction I should focus my next set of photos on. Once one set of lights dissipated, another would show up behind us, and then above, and then behind again. There were lots of collective “oohs” and “aahs,” and back-and-forth dancing of the tripods on the ground as the lights moved to their own rhythm above.

When the tour guides who see these lights almost every night seem impressed, then you know it’s a special night. I remarked to Anna at one point how it seemed as though there was stage lighting on the horizon shining upwards toward the sky – seemingly shifting locations at random. “Very poetic,” she told me. Probably the first time someone had ever referred to something I said as being poetic! If there was ever a time and place for poetry, this was it.

On the way back to Tromsø I took a screenshot on my phone from the Auroral Forecast app on Android showing the KP Index of 8 and pretty much the whole of Europe covered by northern lights activity.

Time for Reflection

On the way back, Thomas had a smirk on his face as he told us how he and Anna knew before we left that this would be a special night, but they had decided not to spoil the surprise for us.

You see, there was a very good reason the show was as strong as it was. Earth was being bombarded by one of the strongest solar storms in years, and it just happened to reach our fair planet on St. Patrick’s Day. I heard that the lights that night would have been visible upon the northern horizon even in southern Europe and as far south as Pennsylvania back in the US. As for the usual northern lights hot spots, well it was an aurora party!

There is a rating system for northern lights called the KP Index. It is a range from 0-9, with the higher the number basically referring to how far south the lights may be visible. The index can be zero and Tromsø would still have a good chance to see the lights due to its high northern latitude. This night it was an “8” – the highest it had been in six years we were told. In fact, the last time there had been a KP of “9” was in 2003.

Thomas wasn’t the only one with a smirk on his face on the way back to Tromsø. I couldn’t help smile and laugh at my “dumb luck” as I reflected upon all the dots on my journey that led to this point. All those decisions made well in advance, along with the circumstances that kept me away from the lights until that final night Tromsø.

The plan was seemingly perfect, too good to be true when looking back. This sort of coincidence no longer surprises me though. I’ve seen time and time again how life has a way of surprising like this when you go with the flow and live in the moment.

Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe it was simply the Luck of the Irish.

A few of my favorite photos taken by Chasing Lights

My Northern Lights Photos
The photos below I took with my point and shoot camera. I have very limited photography knowledge and used “auto” adjustments in Photoshop to attempt to clean these up.

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Chasing Lights photos used with permission. For more information about their tour packages, visit: chasinglights.co.
Note: I was not paid by Chasing Lights, nor anyone else associated with this story. This is simply a personal account of my experience.

Tapping a pencil (by Rennett Stowe)

I was listening to Tim Ferriss’ podcast interview with Rolf Potts (author of Vagabonding) over the weekend as I was walking into the city, and something they talked about toward the end of part one (around 1:09:00) really made me pause and reflect. To be fair, a lot of what the two of them talk and have written about previously really interests me, but this one tiny insight really caught my attention.

They talked about how Kurt Vonnegut says writers fall into two categories, “swoopers” and “bashers.” I had never heard these terms before but right away I knew which one I fit into. I’m a basher!! It was comforting to know that both Tim and Rolf, both highly accomplished writers, fell into this segment as well as I just assumed there was something wrong with me this whole time!

As Potts explained, swoopers will blast through their first draft and then spend tons of time working on draft two and then keep writing drafts until they get it right. Bashers go sentence by sentence and then by time page one is done, paragraph one will have been rewritten 10 times. And by the time they get to the end, it’s pretty much done. They won’t do a whole lot of rewrites, but that process will take 20 times as long as the time a swooper takes. Both are legitimate creative methods, however.

The thing about being a basher is that we will just stare into a blank page with a lot of anxiety just trying to get started. That first paragraph might take us forever to write. I’ve seen some people, obviously swoopers, who just start typing right away and have a fully-written piece in no time. I envy them!

Me on the other hand, if it’s a short story, a blog post or a press release, I might still be on that first sentence by time the swooper finishes. Maybe not so much press releases. There is a certain format to those that back when I was working in media relations, I could bang those out fairly quickly once I had all the facts – particularly post-game recaps (it helped being on a tight deadline and writing parts of the release as the game was going on). Anything else though, especially emails, can take me forever! It really takes me far too long to write something and it frustrates the hell out of me.

Talking about how he would agonize over the first two paragraphs in an hour, Tim said, “I have to imagine that being a basher is the most torturous process of self-loathing and doubt.” I can relate!

Like Rolf, I’m not only a basher, but I’m also an optimist, which makes it even harder to get started. That first step is somehow at odds with our optimism in thinking that we’ll write something good. It might not really make sense and it’s hard to explain, but as he said, “the last third (of the story or book) is the easiest to write because I have the first two-thirds to show that I’m not an incompetent.”

It seems to me that we are both perfectionists as well. I’ve been working on trying to suppress this aspect of my personality as it really does get in the way of my productivity and my growing. To paraphrase Rolf, he said “There’s something worthy about Anne Lamott’s idea of shitty first drafts… of getting the words on the page.”

I have long struggled with this. I think I’m a decent writer, at least my finished product generally seems to come out well. Many people have complimented me on my writing before. I was speaking with a university professor of mine recently who told me that, to this day, I was the best writer of the students he had taught. That was very high praise coming from a very intelligent person that I have a lot of respect for. Heck, my last class there was over 12 years ago. And yet, despite hearing things like this, I still struggle.

This got me to thinking that it isn’t just in writing where I see this block happening in my life. That concept of “just getting work out there” is very similar to the insight I picked up at WDS this past summer. Take imperfect action. This has held me back in many ways for years.

Getting started has repeatedly been a stumbling block for me. Writing papers, starting a business and even my recent moving and decluttering. I was speaking with a couple coaching friends of mine recently and the topic of my confidence around this area came up. About my feeling that I needed to learn, grow or be something more before I start seeing better results. They stopped me there and did a pretty good job in convincing me that I had all the confidence, knowledge and experience I need.

I know this is true! I knew this all along and yet I still doubted myself – metaphorically staring at that blank page. I guess now that I have awareness of this it will get better, whereas I was completely oblivious to this before. Tim and Rolf are quite accomplished human beings, and if they can push through this type of thinking and anxiety, then surely I can.

It’s a work in progress, although with these recent insights, I feel I’m starting to bash through it already!

I was a fairly early adopter of Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus, but apart from them, I largely ignored all the other social platforms. That changed recently as I’ve started traveling. I tend to take a lot of photos on the road so I figured it might be worth giving Instagram a try.

You can find me at http://instagram.com/khassett, or click on the new Instagram icon at the top of the page, where you might see photos like the one above. First thing I thought of was it was a speed limit for UFOs (or caution because they frequent the area). What do you think?

Life seems pretty simple for this duck on Lake Zurich.

One of the most important things I did before setting out on an extended period of travel is to develop a minimalist lifestyle. It’s a necessary component in terms of moving around freely and lite enough around the world with only what you need. Turns out it also has a few other benefits.

I didn’t have a big apartment back in Florida, but I needed to move out before I left (why pay rent if I’m going to be gone for a while) and I realized that I had a ton of junk and clutter collected from over the years that I needed to clear out. I hated this process. It was well worth it though, and there were some lessons learned.

There was a lot of preparation to do in addition to this step. Logistical things such as securing flights, visas and figuring out itineraries and what I need to bring, all while limiting it to just one backpack. I was also brushing up on old skills and learning new ones while trying to get my freelance business back up and running.

When given the option of multiple things to get done, we have a tendency (or at least I do) of doing the one that interests us more, or that we are more comfortable doing. Not necessarily what is more important to do. I’m well aware this is a big no-no in all the best productivity advice out there. The thing you most dread doing is usually what you need to do the most – or something along those lines is what I’ve heard over and over again. I’m working on this.

It was this and my habit of procrastinating that led to what ended up being a very stressful last couple weeks before the trip. Time that would have been better spent relaxed and with everything mostly all set and ready to leave. Basically, I paid the price for my bad habits – although at the same time it finally set in that they are habits I need to change going forward.

After my last day at work, I had a little over a month before my first flight to Europe. The final couple of months at work were very chaotic so I didn’t really have much of a chance to do any of this beforehand. A month though should have been more than enough time.

Maybe it was just that the task seemed so overwhelming that I completely ignored it for the first couple of weeks. Strangely, at the same time I severely underestimated how much time it would take to go through everything. There was the matter of the big items that I wanted to sell or get rid of, such as furniture and my TV. Then there’s the smaller stuff that I had to determine what was important and what to throw away – old mail, documents and bank statements, lots of random items and way too much clothing.

Some of the mail and documents had even carried over from old places I lived – years old. Each time I had to move I would just put them in a box (with the intention of going through it all once I settled in) and never look at them again until my next move. I know, I was bad! Thankfully I had a good friend of mine down the street who is a lot better at organizing than I am to help me and we got sorted through everything. Oh how I wished I had just gotten all this done a long time ago!

I left it a bit too late to figure out trying to sell most of the stuff I had been thinking of selling, but I did donate a lot of clothes and furniture, so I feel good about that. Just rented a uHaul for a few hours and dropped it off at the local Salvation Army. Other items I handed down my friend. Quick and easy. It also was just a huge weight off my shoulder to not have so much stuff anymore. Everything I had left was able to fit in my car and I ended up storing it with family for when I return.

Having a lot of stuff weighs us down and reducing clutter clears mental space. I’ve slowly realized that my energy and productivity levels are greatly impacted by this. I always tended to be vastly more productive while working at coffee shops, and much less so at both the office and at home. I felt completely unmotivated at home that I had to leave to get stuff done or else I would waste an entire day doing nothing useful.

Our environment matters. I’ll certainly be more careful about letting clutter build up going forward.

As it turns out, one day last week when I was buying a transit pass at a convenience shop in Prague, the roles were reversed. I asked to buy a one-day pass (110 CZK) and the man behind the counter (who didn’t seem to know much, if any English) took out his book of tickets (they are tare-away), started to pull out the one-day ones, then saw a single pass free and put that one on the counter so he wouldn’t have to rip a new one out of the book.

Now, I don’t speak a lick of Czech, but I saw right away that he accidentally put out a three-day pass (320 CZK). Without hesitation, I pointed out that it was the wrong one. He acknowledged, and then proceeded to give me the correct one-day pass. As I was walking away down the street, I thought for a moment that I could’ve have taken advantage of his error and received the three-day pass for the one-day price. And maybe I could have justified doing so given what had happened in the previous incidents in which I was ripped off.

I believe though that we should always do the right thing, so this was never a consideration for me. I would have felt bad. I don’t ‘keep score’ or anything like that, but I feel the little things we do add up and that there is some sort of karmic balance in the universe. It’s not up to me to ‘correct the errors’, so to speak. Life seems to have a way of doing that on its own. Or in other words, your actions and choices catch up with you sooner or later – for better or worse.

Astronomical Clock – Prague