We are so excited to share our trip to Lapland, Finland – the magical destination which had us exploring beautiful landscapes and oh snow many bucket list activities!
Planning a trip to Finland?
Planning a trip to Finland? Here are some finer details before reading onto the itenarary
- Costings: Finland can be pricey so be weary of this, we travelled as a group of 6 which definitely helped us keep prices down when it came to group bookings and accommodation.
- Flights: We flew from London to Rovaniemi which took approx 3.5 hours. We booked this 4 months in advance and were able to pick up return flights for £80 per person.
- Accommodation: We were absolutely over the moon with the Ounasvaaran Lakituvat Chalet, we had booked for our trip. This was a gorgeous wooden chalet in the middle of the woods, very homely, toasty warm and it even had heated flooring (much needed it winter!!). For 4 nights we paid £145 per person (£36 p/p per night, how good!) and the place comfortably fitted all 6 of us, was close proximity to the supermarket and ski slopes and just a £7 per person shuttle ride away from the airport.
- Tour Bookings: Our tours which you will read about below were all booked through Safartica who we couldn’t recommend enough! As we booked more than 3 activities we were able to get a 10% discount, they also allowed us to keep their winter gear for the duration of our stay. As an added bonus, Safartica are partnered up with our chalet company so we were able to be picked up and dropped of each day for no additional cost.
- Clothing: Everyday we didn’t leave the house unless we had minimum 4 layers on (ski gear, snow boots, merinos, balaclavas, beanies, long johns, gloves, scarfs – you name it we had it and without it we would have been miserable)
- Best time to go: our trip was through the last week of January. This was a great time to book as December is meant to be mayhem with it being the ‘Santa Claus’ attraction must see and neither our tours nor our ski day were packed with other tourists. We also ensured that the dates we had selected fell in time with the dates when Northern Lights usually appear.
Our Itinerary Summary
DAY 1: Arctic Delight Tour (Santa’s Village, Snowmobiles, Reindeer Sleigh)
DAY 2: Skiing and Northern Lights Tour
DAY 3: Thrill of Speed Tour (Husky Sledding)
DAY 4: Head Home
Day 1
Arctic Delight Tour
We booked the Arctic Delight tour for our first full day. Picked up early in the morning and being fully equipped with the proper clothing for the -17 degree climate we were set for a fun 6 hours ahead!
This tour was a great way to start our holiday and pack in a lot of activities into a one day (Santa Claus Village, Snowmobiles, Reindeer Sleighs). This is usually €192 however as we were doing 3 activities with Safartica we were able to get a 10% discount of everything so all up came to €172 per person.
Santa Claus Village
Our morning was spent at the Santa Claus Village which was the ultimate Christmas experience (a bit belated as it was February however it brought the true chirstmas festivity spirit came out all over again. The entire village was covered in Christmas trees, fairy lights, snow, snow and more snow and they even had Christmas carols running through big outdoor speakers.
Sneak peak of what we got up to:
- Arctic Circle Crossing: This marks the southernmost latitude where the sun can stay continuously below or above the horizon for a full 24 hours. Here you will also receive a special certificate that you officially crossed the Arctic Circle.
- Meet Santa: See what the man himself is up to, enter Santa’s workshop, meet a few of the elves and after a catch up get the famous Santa Claus snap. You can even get a video copy of your visit with Santa!
- Santa Claus Post office: All your letters to Santa arrive here – they get more than half a million letters every year coming from all over the world. From here you can send a letter, postcard or gift to someone special – everything posted here gets a special Santa Claus mail post office stamp which you cant get anywhere else in the world. They even have a special post box here so your letter will arrive for the upcoming Christmas.
- Buffet Lunch: There are many restaurants here you can have a bite to eat, our tour included lunch so we met at a restaurant in the village for a huge buffet meal.. YUM!
Snowmobiles
This was the first of our snow bucket list activities and it sure gave us a rush of adrenaline as we spent an hour zooming along a huge iced over river before turning off through a beautiful little forest to a reindeer farm. As it was hitting the afternoon we were able to watch the sun setting as we drove through the snow which was an absolute highlight. We managed to hit a high of 80km an hour which shows how powerful these machines are!
Reindeer Farm/Ride
As we entered the Reindeer Farm we huddled around a camp fire and had a toasty cup of hot squash whilst the tour guide filled us in on the Reindeers and the ride we had ahead!
This had to be one of the funniest experiences we have ever had! You get given one rule when riding the sleigh which is to not let go of the rope. Ofcourse it happened to us.. we dropped the rope, it got caught and we couldn’t pick it up to save ourselves. Next second our reindeer is literally galloping and we are flying along through the snow before getting control again. We even managed to capture it all on video which was a laugh to look back on!
A local shaman then performed a ‘Crossing the Arctic Circle in Lapland’ Ceremony in a little hut where we surrounded the campfire followed by receiving our very own reindeer licenses = jackpot! Before heading back to the city we got to visit the reindeer’s play area and pet them – they were super friendly and loved the human contact especially the food!
With the reindeer fun coming to an end we were setting off on the snowmobiles again, this time with me as the driver.
Day 2
Skiing & Aurora Picnic
We had the Aurora Picnic Tour booked for our second night which meant we had a free day to spend skiing.
Ounsavaara Ski Resort
We decided to walk from our chalet to the ski field which took approximately an hour but really allowed us to take in the beautiful scenery with the sun rising and spend a bit of time playing in the snow so was well worth the walk in -20 degree temps.
When we arrived we were in shock with how empty the ski fields were – I think I could have counted a max of about 20 people skiing which was unheard of for us – we are used to the ski fields being jam packed and having to swerve in and around people so it was a total treat. That being said there were only two slopes open for us as the rest of the ski runs opened after 4pm (guessing that’s when the locals all come down). We hadn’t skied in a couple of years so only having two runs was perfectly fine for us. The whole day skiing with rental hire came to £75 each which we just purchased when we arrived.
Lunch break at the ski lodge had us try our first Reindeer meal – which was a soup that tasted exactly like cabonara pasta sauce followed by a couple more slope runs to finish off the day.We then ordered a shuttle from the ski resort to get us get back to the chalet just in time for a quick dinner/relax before getting picked up for our night out in the forest to hunt the Northern Lights!
Aurora Borealis Picnic
After throwing on about 6 layers of clothing we were set to spend 3 hours of our night chasing the Northern Lights and might I add it was well worth the frozen eyelashes.
This tour was the Aurora Borealis Picnic through Safartica. Our tour group included around 20 other travellers all with the hope of seeing the lights in all their glory – one of the reasons we had planned to travel to Lapland was because this region sees the lights 200 out of 300 nights of the year so we guaranteed some pretty good odds. We got picked up from our chalet followed by a 30 minute drive into the woods where we had out own seated campfire all set up for us.
We spent about 2-3 hours out on a lake in a forest freezing our bums off with a high of -32 degrees. The clouds were moving quickly offering constant glimpses of the aurora in its full glory. As the night went on the lights became more and more prominent, changing shapes, flowing through the sky and going from dull to bright constantly. We were so fortunate to see the northern lights which was one of the most incredibly beautiful natural spectacles I think we will experience with the peaceful frozen surroundings making it even more perfect.
We finished off the night with a sausage, marshmallows, cookies and hot squash round the campfire. We are so glad we picked to do a tour to capture the Northern Lights as they took us to a secluded area and helped us to understand what to really look out for – as the reality was pictures you have seen online are not always how it looks through the naked eye. It was the perfect end to an already amazing 2 days.
Camera Gear: We had taken our D3300 Nikon camera and had purposely brought a wide angle lenses just for this trip and I couldn’t be happier with the purchase – we set up the camera on the tripod and were able to get some amazing pictures of the surrounding landscape.
Aurora App: Jarrod had downloaded an app called the Aurora which we had been examining the whole week which measured the activity of the Northern Lights and the likelihood of us seeing them – we checked this each day so we could easily move our tour earlier or later in the week depending on our chances. Luckily this night in particular was very promising so we kept it locked in.
Cost: This tour is originally €69 but with our activity discount came to €62.10 per person.
Day 3:
The Thrill of Speed
Our last full day in Finland was spent cruising along with a 1 hour Husky sled right – #excitement overload! This was The thrill of speed tour through Safartica again.
As we arrived we had a warm welcome with friendly barks from the huskys. We were then given a quick driving lesson on how to handle our own team of huskies and off we went, easy as that. As we set off we enjoyed the surrounding nature with a break stop in the wilderness to take some photos. We also swapped places half way through so we both got a chance to drive the sled.
I don’t think I have ever been so cold in my life (to the point where our eyelashes were half ice)! It was a beautiful clear morning but our huskies were running so fast that the wind brought a whole other chill factor to the party.
I was a bit apprehensive about the exploitation of the huskies but was quickly turned around as we learnt about their love for running in the snow – so much so that I found myself having to break a few times to slow them down and when we would stop they would be rolling around and eating it. We were even pleasantly surprised to hear the workers at the husky farm know all 150 dogs by name!
This had to be my favourite activity of our trip. As this was in the morning we were lucky enough to have the sun rising while we were coming through the picturesque forest and driving over the frozen lakes, an unforgettable experience – how could I not recommend!
Cost: This tour came to €143 per person with the 10% discount.
& That’s A Wrap
Our trip to Lapland, Finland was just incredible, amazing and so much fun, couldn’t fault it at all!
We Made A Video:
Check out our video below to see the footage of all the fun
(Side note: Unfortunately our video/camera equipment was stolen from our home and we lost most of our footage, we luckily had captured some off our phone so bare with us, it’s not the best quality video but we did try to savour what we had)!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0wzICGRmQ
