Daylight and scenery, or riding in the dark with a chance of aurora.
The short answer
Choose a day safari for the scenery and the most riding time, up to about 2.5 hours, and the evening tour if you want to ride in the dark with stops to look for the northern lights. The evening tour includes dinner and gives 1.5 to 2 hours on the snowmobile depending on the weather, and an aurora is never guaranteed. Camp Troll’s 12:30 departure sits between the two, with the long Lyngen route ending in the dark and no dedicated aurora stops.
Pick a day, or the first and last day you are in Tromsø. We check the booking calendar of every snowmobile tour and show which ones still have places.
On the snowmobile: 2.5 h
On the snowmobile: 1.5–2 h
On the snowmobile: 2.5 h per reviews
Snowmobile tours from Tromsø come in two formats: day safaris that ride through the scenery in (polar-winter) daylight, and evening tours that ride in the dark, with a chance to see the northern lights. The most-booked day safari, the evening tour with aurora stops and Camp Troll's 12:30 departure are below; the comparison follows after, and the other evening formats are on the evening page.
Every tour side by side with the same facts. Open a card for the full tour details. Prices are live from GetYourGuide and include taxes and booking fees, so the figure on the card is what the snowmobile tour costs at checkout.
The most-booked day safari, with the largest review base here and ~2.5 h of riding through Lyngen scenery in daylight.
Camp Troll's Lyngen Alps safari is the tour to pick if actual riding time matters most to you. The day starts at 8:30 at Prostneset in Tromsø and ends back there around 16:30; the camp's own dedicated bus takes you out, rolls onto the fjord ferry and continues on the other side, with no changing buses. Of the day safaris compared on this site, it puts you on the snowmobile the longest, at around 2.5 hours.
The trade-off is the journey: the Lyngen Alps are further from Tromsø than Camp Tamok, and the approach takes correspondingly longer. Many riders consider the ferry crossing part of the experience rather than dead time. See our Camp Tamok vs. Lyngen Alps comparison for the numbers side by side.
Content taken from the operator's product page on the booking platform.
The evening option: 1.5–2 h riding in the dark with several northern-lights stops, dinner included.
North experience runs the evening snowmobile tour in this comparison: an 8-hour trip that leaves Tromsø (Radisson Blu) by bus (plan about 80 minutes each way), with a 45-minute dinner and a 30-minute briefing before you ride. On the snowmobile you spend 1.5–2 hours in the dark, depending on the weather, with several stops along the route to look for the northern lights.
Be realistic about two things. The northern lights are a natural phenomenon: the stops are aurora lookouts, not a guarantee. And the reviews are more mixed than for the daytime safaris in this comparison: the overall rating is solid, but value for money is the subscore reviewers mark down. Book it for the evening-and-aurora format, not as the cheapest way onto a sled.
Content taken from the operator's product page on the booking platform.
The Lyngen safari at 12:30: reviewers describe about 2.5 h on the sled, the return to Tromsø around 20:30 is after dark.
This is the afternoon departure of Camp Troll's Lyngen safari. The bus leaves Prostneset at 12:30, crosses the fjord by ferry and reaches the camp in the Lyngen Alps after about 2 hours. You are back in Tromsø around 20:30. The listing gives the guided part of the day at just over 4 hours, and reviewers describe about 2.5 hours on the snowmobile itself.
Because the ride runs into the polar-night darkness, the listing mentions a possible northern-lights sighting. Treat that as luck, not as part of the deal: there are no dedicated aurora stops and nothing is promised. Snowmobiles are always shared, including for solo bookers, and drivers need to be 18 with a valid licence.
Content taken from the operator's product page on the booking platform.
The comparison below uses the most-booked day safari (Camp Troll, Lyngen Alps) as the daytime representative. The other day tours are in the day-tour comparison.
| Format | Total duration | Time on the sled | What you get | Book | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Day safari Camp Troll, Lyngen Alps |
Full day: 8:30 to ~16:30 from Prostneset | ~2.5 h in daylight | Scenery you can see in daylight · soup at the camp · the best-rated format on this site | Book now |
|
Evening tour North experience, ~80 min from Tromsø |
~8 h evening, from the Radisson Blu | 1.5–2 h in the dark (weather-dependent) | Riding at night · dinner + briefing included · several aurora stops, no sighting guarantee · rated below the day safaris, with value for money the subscore reviewers mark down | Book now |
Formats and times from the operators' product pages (checked 09/2026). Current prices are in the list above.
Book the evening tour because you want to ride a snowmobile at night, not because it is your northern-lights strategy. If seeing the aurora is the priority, a dedicated aurora tour can chase clear skies by minibus; the snowmobile route cannot. And if you simply want the best snowmobile day, the daytime safaris are the better-rated product.
They combine well if you have two free slots in the season: a day safari for scenery and maximum riding time, the evening tour for the night-riding format. Both cancel free up to 24 hours ahead, which keeps a weather day flexible. Drivers need a valid driver's licence on both formats.
With only one free slot, Camp Troll's 12:30 departure sits between the two: the Lyngen route with the long riding time, starting in the last light of the day and ending in the dark. It has no aurora stops, so treat any northern lights on the way back as luck.
Snowmobile tours from Tromsø depend on snow cover at the camps. The season runs from roughly mid-December to the end of March or early April, with the most reliable conditions from January to mid-March. Travelling in November or early December? Snowmobiling is usually not running yet, so look at huskies, reindeer and other Arctic experiences instead. See the full season calendar
No. It is a snowmobile tour with aurora stops, not an aurora chase. Dedicated northern-lights tours follow clear skies by minibus; the snowmobile route is fixed. Choose the evening tour for the night-riding experience, with the aurora as a possible bonus.
Tromsø sits above the Arctic Circle, so midwinter days are short and the light is low. The day safaris still run in the brightest hours of the day; the evening tour deliberately rides in full darkness.
They sit in a similar range: the full-day safaris and the evening tour all run well above the 3.5-hour budget short tour. The current price for each is shown in the list on this page; note that value for money is the subscore evening-tour reviewers mark down.
Yes. Two people per snowmobile with a driver swap is the standard on the day safaris; passengers can join from age 7 on the Camp Troll day tour and from age 12 on the evening tour. Whoever drives needs a valid driver's licence.
