If you visit Finland, besides Helsinki you should spend some time in Lapland – the magical land of snow-covered forests, Northern lights shows, reindeer and husky sled rides and all things snow-sports. One of the most popular destination is Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland and the official home of Santa Claus. A few hours north is another popular destination, Levi – Finland’s largest and most popular skiing resort. Kemi is known for the large Sampo Icebreaker cruises in addition to all the usual winter activities. Finally, Saariselkä is known for what’s probably the most famous glass igloo hotel on the internet. You can see them on the map here and find a few more destinations here. All in all, practically everywhere you’ll be able to visit reindeer farms, ride husky sleds, cross-country ski and rent snowmobiles, so unless you want something more unique, any town in Lapland is great.
Getting there
Getting to Lapland is easy and there are several options. Most convenient and fast is flying. Finnair has multiple daily flights from Helsinki to the 6 Lapland airports. This is the option we chose for our trip – the flight from Helsinki to Kittilä (Levi area) being only an 1.5 hrs. One could also take Santa Claus Express train that goes from Helsinki to Rovaniemi and Kemijärvi and is a popular option with families. The ride takes ~ 10 hours and is an overnight affair. After reading various comments online and watching a few YouTube videos of the sleeper cabin – which has very small windows – spending 10 hours in a confined space with tons of kids running around didn’t seem like it was worth it. The last option is driving. It takes about the same 10 hours to get from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. The main roads in Lapland are well maintained and all cars are required by law to have winter tires. So it seems doable depending on how adventurous you are 🙂
Ice Hotel
One of the unique experiences in Lapland is staying in an ice hotel. There are several of them in Finland, all built from scratch around November-December and in operation until they melt in April. We chose SnowVillage in Kittilä mainly due to availability, but there are also Arctic SnowHotel in Rovaniemi and SnowCastle in Kemi. Each year, hotels choose a new theme and every room is carved/decorated in a unique way. This year’s theme for SnowVillage was “Around the World” and so the ice decorations honored Paris, London, Santorini and others world-famous sights.
We spent one night at the hotel, which is the maximum recommended given that room temperature stays between -1 and -5 Celsius. The stay included our own room with an icebed, sleeping bags and a separate (non-ice 😀 ) lounge where we could warm up and use a kitchen and facilities during the night. There were many visitors to the hotel throughout the day and evening who stayed somewhere else and visited for lunch, dinner, or an overnight stay through various local tours.
So, would we recommend it? Yes. It was a fun experience. Will it be the most comfortable night of your life? Probably not 😀
Ylläs/Levi Area
SnowVillage is located in Ylläs area that is made out of two villages: Äkäslompolo and Ylläsjärvi on opposites side of the Yillas ski resort. You can see their location on this map. Both are pretty quiet, have very few restaurants and shops and, according to our guides, are more popular with the older tourists. If you are looking for a more lively town with a night scene, younger crowd and more shopping and entertainment options, Levi would be a better place to stay. Both are within 30-minute drive (or a bus ride) form Kittilä airport.
Northern Lights
Northern light shows are another major attraction of the Lapland region during winter. Our guides told us that the shows occur often, every 2-3 nights, but to see them one has to be away from the city lights AND the sky has to be clear. So it’s a lot about luck. We did get lucky and saw the show on one of the 5 nights we spent in Lapland. It was mostly by accident when we couldn’t sleep at 5 in the morning and looked randomly out of the window. If you can rent a hotel with big glass windows or, even better, a glass ceiling, you might be able to catch more random shows. Also, what no-one mentions is that the lights don’t look very bright and only when you point your phone at the sky, you can tell for certain.
Activities
We booked most of our tours through Lapland Safaris in Ylläs which ended up being a great choice and we highly recommend it. The company exists since 1980s and has outposts in Levi, Luosto, Rovaniemi and Saariselkä in addition to Ylläs. For each tour, we were picked up from our hotel and taken to the main office where we were given all the snow gear needed to stay warm – jumpsuits, gloves, wool socks and boots. Most tours took around 3 hours and were outside, so the warm gear came in very handy. The tours were very well organized and the guides were friendly and knowledgeable. Reindeer safari was the most relaxed of all the tours – we drove the sled at a leisurely pace through the beautiful landscapes of snow-covered forests and got to enjoy the views. Aurora Borealis safari by snowmobile was a lot more intense. Driving full speed under the falling snow through the dark Finnish forests was quite a memorable experience 😀 One of our favorite tours was forest skiing in the national forest. We ended up being the only ones on the tour and our guide, Erland, was very funny and taught us all kinds of interesting facts about forest animals and survival skills in the Arctic Circle. If you want to experience Finnish forests up close and personal, this is the only way to do it, since without the skis, you’d fall into the snow up to your hips. We also got to use a new type of skis – Altai – that are something of a mix between down-hill skis and snowshoes and make going around trees in deep snow ‘relatively’ easy. One tour we booked directly was Rami’s Huskies safari and it was a also a great experience.
If you want to do things on your own, that’s also an option. There is a gear/clothing rental place in Ylläs ski resort that rents everything you need for skiing, snowshoeing, snow-biking and whatever other winter sport at a reasonable price.
One Sunny Morning 