Finland, after dark.
Which aurora hunt drives until the sky clears. What a husky team costs at Christmas. Where the reindeer farms are, and why the sauna ends in a hole in the ice.
What a week in Finnish Lapland is actually made of.
Nearly every itinerary north of the Arctic Circle is built from the same six days. Here is what each one costs, how long it takes, and which operator does it properly.
Three ways to be under the lights in Lapland.
All northern lights tours →
The sky does what it wants; the tour decides how far you get from the town glow and how long you stay out. These three carry the most travellers, and they are three different nights.
Minibus hunts that keep going until it clears
The guide watches the cloud maps all afternoon, then drives to whichever lake or fell is open, sometimes an hour past the Arctic Circle. The good ones do not turn around at ten.
Aurora safaris on your own snowmobile
Out onto a frozen lake, headlights off, the engine ticking as it cools. Nothing overhead but the green, and a fire in a kota when your hands have had enough.
Glass roofs, and no reason to go back outside
The lights rarely arrive on schedule, which is the whole argument for a glass-roofed room. Most places will wake you when the sky starts moving.
Rovaniemi is where most of Finland gets booked.
The town sits on the Arctic Circle with an airport, a river, a reindeer farm in every direction and more sled dogs than the rest of the country put together. Half the tours on this site leave from here.
The Finnish year is set by light, not by months.
Aurora tours run from late August to early April and stop dead in between, because the nights stop being dark. Snow holds in Lapland from November into April. At Saariselkä and Inari the sun does not clear the horizon at all for weeks around midwinter, and in June it never sets.
The tours more travellers take than anything else in Finland.
Every review →Nine in ten of these leave Rovaniemi, and every one of them is a winter night or a winter morning. That is what this country actually sells.
1
Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightings
Chase the Northern Lights from Rovaniemi in a small 4x4 group with expert guides, professional photos, warm gear, and a refund promise.
From · $164
Read our review →
2
Northern Lights Rovaniemi: Guaranteed Viewing & Unlimited Mileage
from $228
3
Lapland Northern Lights Tour with BBQ
from $81
4
Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Village
from $213
5
Small-Group Northern Lights Wilderness Tour
from $136
6
Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls Tour
from $136
7
Apukka Husky Adventure
from $237
8
Sightseeing Canal Cruise with Audio Commentary
from $33
What a day in Finland costs, honestly.
Finland is not a cheap winter. The catalogue splits cleanly into three price tiers: the town half-days, the standard Lapland safari, and the private or overnight end.
Helsinki walks and cruises, ice fishing, snowshoe mornings, entry tickets to the Arctic Circle attractions.
The Lapland standard: a husky team, a reindeer farm, a snowmobile safari or an aurora hunt with a campfire in the middle.
Private guides, multi-activity days, aurora photography with a pro, and the glass-roofed nights you remember longest.
Levi, Ylläs and Saariselkä: the same lights, none of the town glow.
The fell resorts trade Rovaniemi’s airport convenience for darker skies and shorter transfers. From Levi the aurora hunt starts at the edge of the village; from Saariselkä you are already two hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
Helsinki is a sea city that happens to freeze.
The capital does its sightseeing from the water: a ferry to the fortress islands, an evening loop through the archipelago, a wooden sauna on the shore with a ladder into the harbour. Inland it is a two-hour walk and a market hall.
- 1Sightseeing Canal Cruise with Audio Commentaryfrom $33
- 2A Finntastic Walking Tour in Helsinkifrom $24
- 3Nuuksio National Park Half-Day Tripfrom $66
Three things Finland does that nowhere else bothers with.
Snow and sled dogs you can find across the Arctic. The sauna ritual, the reindeer economy and the frozen canyon at Korouoma are Finnish.
The Sauna, and the Hole in the Ice
There are roughly three million saunas in Finland for five and a half million people, which works out at one per household plus spares. The public ones run hot, quiet and mixed with strangers, and the point of the wooden steps is the avanto at the bottom of them: a hole cut in the lake ice, a ladder, and about twenty seconds. Guided sessions hand you a survival suit if the cold water is a step too far.
- 1Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 614 reviews
- 2Traditional Sauna and Ice Swimming Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 431 reviews
- 3Daytime Ice Floating Rovaniemi, Frozen Lake Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 252 reviews
The Reindeer Farms of Lapland
Around 200,000 reindeer graze northern Finland, managed by 54 herding co-operatives that carve the whole region into grazing districts. Many of the farms open to visitors are Sámi family operations, and the visit is a working one: the sleigh ride is short, the feeding is real, and the talk is about earmarks, winter feed and where the herd went this year.
- 1Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,543 reviews
- 2Apukka Reindeer Journey★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,005 reviews
- 3Snowmobile Safari, Reindeer & Husky Sleigh Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 940 reviews
The Frozen Falls of Korouoma
Korouoma is a rift canyon south of Posio where the spring-fed waterfalls freeze standing up, into blue and brown columns the height of a house. The walk in takes an hour over rough ground, the light lasts about four, and ice climbers hang off the biggest of them all winter while everyone else photographs from below.
- 1Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,489 reviews
- 2Korouoma Canyon & Frozen Waterfalls Tour with BBQ★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 654 reviews
- 3Korouoma Canyon & Frozen Waterfalls Tour with BBQ★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 261 reviews
In December, Lapland stops pretending there is a day.
All campfire evenings →
Sort these before you fly to Finland.
Most of a Finnish trip can be booked from the hotel the night before. These four cannot: they run on a short season, a fixed number of beds, or a piece of paper you have to bring from home.
- 01Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsAurora tours need real darkness. The season closes in early April and does not open again until late August.
- 02PRIVATE Party dinner in a Glass Igloo Under Northern LightsA resort has a few dozen glass-roofed rooms, not a few hundred, and the clear-sky months go a long way out.
- 03Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus VillageThe village is open all year, but the fortnight either side of Christmas is the busiest in the country and closes early.
- 04Aurora Borealis Snowmobile Safari with CampfireDriving your own snowmobile needs a valid driving licence in your hand at the depot. Passengers ride without one.
By base — where you sleep decides the week
Rovaniemi202 tours
Helsinki79 tours
Levi48 tours
Saariselkä24 tours
Wider Lapland19 tours
Kuusamo & Ruka4 tours
Ylläs5 tours
Kemi4 tours- Every base →
By experience — pick the day, then the base
Helsinki to Inari, the way the night train runs.
Helsinki
Kemi
Rovaniemi
SaariselkäThe newest Finland reviews.
All recent →
Discover the heart of Finland with a local guide.
Read our review →
