A quest for the Northern Lights

The Northern Lights are perhaps nature's most enchanting spectacle. Chris Carter looks at the best places around the world to grab a front-row seat.

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The beautiful, remote wilderness of northern Sweden is a perfect spot to see the lights
(Image credit: Asaf Kliger/imagebank.sweden.se)

Winter doesn't have to mean gloom, says Penelope Rowlands in The Wall Street Journal. When the "neon-bright" colours of the Northern Lights, also known as the aurora borealis, streak across the northern skies, the season becomes distinctly lively. It is hard to predict when or where the lights, caused by charged particles from the sun crashing into atoms in the Earth's atmosphere, will appear. But that only "adds to the quixotic nature of the quest" to see them between August and March each year.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

You can follow Chris on Instagram.