The days are getting longer. Doesn't that make you feel energetic? If you live in the northern U.S., the sun will even stay up as late as 8:30pm in June. If that charges you up, imagine how you'd feel if the sun was up...all...night.
I've been there, and it's weird, and it's wonderful. The midnight sun turns early-rising day people into night owls, and sends night owls into giddy hysteria. It encourages 11:30pm constitutional strolls, midnight snacks, festivals and pickup sports that really don't typically last until 2am in the morning, but they do when the sun is up. It makes cities a little less mysterious, sure, but a lot more joyful.
The closest you can get to the midnight sun in a U.S. city is in Fairbanks, Alaska. (Barrow is even further north, but there isn't much going on in Barrow, beautiful as the nearby wilderness is.) While it's below the Arctic Circle and therefore doesn't get real midnight sun, "midnight twilight" lasts from May 19 until July 26, and in the middle of that period, it's bright enough to do pretty much whatever you want to do at whatever time of day you want to do it.
The ultimate day to be in Fairbanks is, of course, June 21, when the 12-hour Midnight Sun Festival (www.downtownfairbanks.com) takes over downtown from noon to midnight. The festival is a crazy Alaskan patchwork of activities -- a classic car show, live music, gold panning, a military display, local crafts and lots of food. Then head over to the baseball stadium for the annual Alaska Goldpanners (www.goldpanners.com/MSG/index.html) midnight sun amateur baseball game, which starts at 10:30pm. If you'd rather a more mellow evening, restaurants keep their sun decks open until 2am.
Getting to Fairbanks can be expensive; Alaska Airlines (www.alaskaair.com) is the only major airline serving the city, with flights from Anchorage and Seattle. Frommers.com's two-week Alaska itinerary makes the most of a trip into Fairbanks by sending you past some of Alaska's most amazing scenery, best enjoyed when the light is long. You can also fly into Anchorage -- served by all the major airlines, along with Frontier (www.frontierairlines.com), Sun Country (www.suncountry.com) and ATA (www.ata.com) -- and drive or take the 12-hour journey on the Alaska Railroad (www.akrr.com) up to Fairbanks.
For East Coasters, Akureyri, Iceland is the most civilized way to get close to the midnight sun. Just a hair below the Arctic Circle, it has eternal twilight from May 15 until July 30. I've been there in late May, when the local teens spend the midnight hours driving very slowly around the streets in front of the harbor, in circles, in bright daylight, running from car to car. Within a 90-minute drive of the town, I saw a waterfall, "pseudo-craters" that were created when boiling water exploded in gouts from the earth, a real volcanic crater, a collection of bizarre lava formations poking out of a lake, a 100-degree natural swimming hole, and a continental rift.
If you're a golfer, you can participate in the Arctic Open this year from June 20-23 (www.arcticopen.is), and if you like to fish, the area's glacial lakes have plenty of trout. Or you can try a midnight steam bath: if you take a bus tour to Lake Myvatn (https://english.sba.is) and break it up with an overnight stay, you can swim at the nearby Myvatn Nature Baths (www.randburg.com/is/naturebaths-myvatn/index.asp), a natural pool of mineral-infused hot water, until midnight.
Get to Akureyri by flying first to Reykjavik on Icelandair (www.icelandair.com), and then taking a short hop up on the local Air Iceland (www.airiceland.is). Icelandair has packages such as the "Magical Myvatn Getaway," which is six nights for $1,435 per person total, or you can build your own itinerary.
Not enough midnight sun for you? Keep going. The best places to get true 24-hour sunlight are in northern Norway, and Icelandair flies there, too. In fact, if you book a ticket to Oslo on Icelandair (summer fares start at $800 round trip), you get up to seven nights' stay in Iceland free -- so you can compare summer's twilight in Reykjavik or Akureyri to the true midnight sun.
From Oslo, hop a two-hour Norwegian Airlines (www.norwegian.no) or Wideroe (www.wideroe.no) flight to Tromsø for as little as 66 €. At 69 degrees north, Tromsø may be the world's northernmost party town. It's certainly the northernmost university town, and those two go hand in hand -- especially if the university students are strapping, striking Norwegians. This year, the sun will be up from May 20 to July 25, though we really don't recommend not sleeping for two months. You'll start to hallucinate. Bring a sweater, too: temperatures average 49 degrees in summer.
Tromsø's summer is full of music and drinking; there's a big music festival, the Buktafestival from July 19-21, a beer festival from August 15-18 and a vast number of pubs and clubs. We have details of the best places to go in our guide to Tromsø, including hotels ranging from budget to luxury accommodations.
If you're going to go that far, you might as well go all the way. Hammerfest, Norway is the world's northernmost town of any respectable size. Up there, the sun is up from May 16 until July 29. It's chilly, but not awful in June, with temperatures averaging 47 degrees. The best way to get there from Tromsø is an overnight ferry, the Hurtigruten (www.hurtigruten.com); two adults in a double cabin for that trip costs around 2000 NOK (US$335) total during May. The quickest way to get back to Oslo from there is a 2½ hour bus to Alta (NOK 229/US$38) and then a flight on Norwegian Airlines or Wideroe back to Oslo for 66 € and up.
Start your Hammerfest explorations with Frommer's guide to the town. According to us, "Hammerfest is a modern town with an open and unique atmosphere, where the town's square and harbor are natural meeting places." July is a good time to head this far north, with a succession of small fairs and festivals running from July 7-15. Come early, July 5-7 for the midnight sand volleyball tournament, and late, July 12-14, for the beer festival. There's more local details at www.visitnorthcape.com.
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