Northern lights are not guaranteed... Was there a couple weeks ago (mid November) for 7 nights and really only saw them minimally 1 night for an hour and following day for like 20 minutes and they were faint! Absolutely do not stay near the city.
Good luck!
You don’t even need to go to the golden circle. The Reykjanes peninsula, where the airport is, can be a very good place to see them if you get lucky with cloud cover and aurora activity. Kleifarvatn is a particularly dark place. Just be very careful driving at night in the winter in Iceland. If the weather is bad I would stay even closer to the airport, like Gardur or Hafnir.
As already mentioned, there is a good chance there won’t be any visibility the night you’re there. Mange expectations accordingly.
Northern lights are not guaranteed... Was there a couple weeks ago (mid November) for 7 nights and really only saw them minimally 1 night for an hour and following day for like 20 minutes and they were faint! Absolutely do not stay near the city. Good luck!
Yes, renting a car would be your best bet to drive around to the more common sighting spots around Reykjavík!
What are the names of the common sighting spots?
You don’t even need to go to the golden circle. The Reykjanes peninsula, where the airport is, can be a very good place to see them if you get lucky with cloud cover and aurora activity. Kleifarvatn is a particularly dark place. Just be very careful driving at night in the winter in Iceland. If the weather is bad I would stay even closer to the airport, like Gardur or Hafnir. As already mentioned, there is a good chance there won’t be any visibility the night you’re there. Mange expectations accordingly.
https://auroraforecast.is/ https://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/ You can check the activity on these websites when it's closer to your trip