Bus or Small Group: Which Northern Lights Tour?

The big bus is the cheapest way to chase the aurora from Reykjavik, from $85 a person; a small group costs more, from about $107 in current promotion (usually $119) for Northern Lights Bus’s own minibus tour to $165 for Aurora Viking’s photo tour (checked November 2026). Every one of them stands under the same sky. What the extra money buys is a smaller group, a guide who has time for you, photos of you under the lights on some tours, and on the 4x4 a vehicle that goes further from the road. It does not buy a better chance of an aurora that is not there.

The calendar above is Northern Lights Bus’s Small-Group Premium Northern Lights Tour from Reykjavik, from $107 in current promotion (usually $119) a person (checked November 2026).

Side by side

From each GetYourGuide listing, prices and terms read checked November 2026.

What the big bus does well

Northern Lights Bus’s bus tour carries 15,402 reviews (checked November 2026). It heads wherever meteorologists predict the best conditions, stops for photos and serves hot chocolate. No group size is published for it, and on a bus you share each stop with everyone aboard, but the retry is the same kind of insurance the small groups offer, at the lowest price.

Check dates for the small-group tour

What a small group adds

Fewer people means a guide who answers your questions and a quicker stop when the sky opens. Aurora Viking caps its minibus at 18 and EastWest at 19; both include photos of you under the aurora, and Aurora Viking’s guides double as photographers with Viking costumes for the pictures. Northern Lights Bus’s own small-group tour keeps the bus tour’s three-year retry and adds a full refund if weather cancels the tour on every day of your stay. It does not take children under 8.

The 4x4

The 4x4 tour uses a modified minibus built for Iceland’s rougher roads, to get further from the city’s light into darker countryside. It brings pastries and hand warmers, the guide photographs you under the lights, and you can rebook free for two years. It suits a guest who wants to get as far from the city’s light as the night allows.

Pick your group size

Prices, ratings and review counts from the listings (GetYourGuide checked November 2026). Operators price by date and season, so treat the figures as the shape of the market, not a quote.