By worldtravelling on Skatehive
Experts say 2026 will be a peak year for aurora spotting. Photographer Wil Cheung has seen the borealis more than 400 times and offers his tips on how to witness them yourself. In March 2015, Wil Cheung was visiting Iceland with friends to witness a solar eclipse when he received a tip that an unmissably strong aurora was expected over Thingvellir National Park. I remember thinking, is it really worth it? We'd need to hire a car and drive in the freezing cold," Cheung says. "But once we started driving, we began to see these colours, and they just got stronger. We ended up lying on the snow in the national park and seeing these huge pillars of light, hundreds of miles high. I'm not religious, but it felt like this huge angel above me. We were there for hours mesmerised, and I was hooked." Cheung was already volunteering at a local observatory back home in Northumberland, England, learning about the science of the night sky, but once home, he threw himself into the study of celestial ph