Good for family travel. This is nature in her most breathtaking outfit, bejeweled, bedazzled and irresistible. From Finland and Alaska, Iceland and Greenland, the northern lights have baffled, terrified and awed humans. Over the years different cultures have seen them as warnings of plague or death or war, or imagined them as battling heavenly soldiers.

Now we know they are caused by the interaction of the solar wind and the earth's magnetic field, but it doesn't take away any of the magic as the sky blazes red, green, orange and every other colour of the spectrum. The most splendid show on earth is free: join the other sky gazers and let the shivers ripple along your spine.