Finnish Lapland: The Complete Guide to Visiting
Most people book Lapland twice. The first time they get three nights in a glass igloo over Christmas, queue for Santa, come home with four hundred photographs of a reindeer and a feeling that they have been somewhere expensive.
The second time they book a week in March, stay in a log cabin with a stove and a sauna, and finally work out what the place is.
This guide is an attempt to skip the first trip. It covers how you actually get there, which town to sleep in, what everything costs and when to go, and it is honest about the bits that are worth the money and the bits that are not.
Most people book Lapland twice. This guide is an attempt to skip the first trip.
What Finnish Lapland actually is
Lapland is the northernmost region of Finland and it is enormous and almost empty. Statistics Finland puts the land area at 92,678 square kilometres and the population at 176,151. That is close to a third of the country holding around three per cent of its people.
Work it through and you get fewer than two people per square kilometre. For comparison, the Netherlands manages about five hundred.
Fact box · the reindeer country is bigger than Lapland
122,936 square kilometres, 36% of Finland
That is the reindeer herding area, as measured by the Reindeer Herders' Association, and it spills well beyond Lapland into northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu. Reindeer are not wild. Every one of them is owned, earmarked and free to wander across more than a third of the country, which is why they end up on the road in front of you.
The Sámi are the indigenous people of this region and their languages, livelihoods and reindeer herding are still very much present, particularly in the north around Inari. Sámi culture is not a tourist attraction laid on for visitors, and the good operators are clear about that distinction.
How you actually get there
This is the part most guides skip. Lapland has five airports and which one you fly into decides your whole trip, because they are hours apart.
Rovaniemi is the capital and the busiest arrival point, and it is where Santa Claus Village is. Kittilä is the airport for Levi and Ylläs. Ivalo serves Saariselkä and Inari in the far north. Kuusamo serves Ruka. Kemi-Tornio sits down at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia and is the least useful for a fell holiday.
Book the wrong one and you are looking at a long transfer in the dark, so check which airport your accommodation actually sits near before you touch a flight.
The better option, and the one almost no foreign visitor takes, is the night train. VR runs sleepers from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, Kemijärvi and Kolari, and in peak ski season as many as five leave Helsinki in a single night.
Helsinki to Rovaniemi takes about eleven hours and fifty minutes. You get on at twenty past eleven at night and get off at eleven the next morning, which costs you no daylight at all in a season that has very little to spare.
Cabins start at €49, or €74 with a shower in the room. You can also put your car on the train from €39, and a sleeper and car together can come in around €88. Compare that with flights plus a hire car plus a transfer and the maths gets interesting quickly.
Which town should you actually stay in
This is the decision that shapes the holiday, and the brochures are no help because they describe everywhere as magical.
Rovaniemi is a small city rather than a resort. It has the widest choice of restaurants and tours, an airport you can fly to directly from a lot of Europe, and Santa Claus Village on its edge. It is the easiest first trip and the least wild.
Levi is Finland's biggest ski resort and the closest thing Lapland has to a proper resort village, with the lifts running straight up from the end of the main street. Good if you want skiing, restaurants and something happening in the evening.
Ylläs is quieter, spread across two villages either side of the fell, and it is the one for cross country skiing and for people who find Levi too busy. The Finnish Meteorological Institute rates it at roughly half of all clear nights for aurora.
Saariselkä and Inari are much further north, smaller, colder and darker, and they are where you go if the point of the trip is wilderness and Sámi culture rather than nightlife. Inari is the centre of Sámi life in Finland.
Ruka sits slightly south of the others near Kuusamo, which makes it easier to reach and marginally milder, with excellent hiking in the surrounding Oulanka country.
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Santa Claus Village, without the sneering
It is easy to be snooty about Santa Claus Village and most travel writing duly is. That is a mistake, because two things about it are genuinely surprising.
The first is that it is free. There is no entrance fee, no ticket and no turnstile. It is an open cluster of wooden buildings, shops, restaurants and tour operators with the Arctic Circle line painted through the middle of it, and you can walk in and out all day without paying anybody.
The second is that meeting Santa is also free, every single day of the year. He is in the Santa Claus Office and there is no charge to go in and talk to him.
Here is the catch, and it is a good one. The office's own rules state that using your own cameras, phones and other recording gadgets is prohibited. A photographer elf takes the pictures instead and those you pay for.
So the man is free and the evidence is not. It is the most quietly Finnish piece of commerce in the country and you should admire it rather than resent it.
Everything else in the village, from reindeer rides to the husky kennels, is run by separate businesses and priced separately.
When to go, month by month
September and October bring ruska, the autumn colour, and the first aurora of the season on genuinely dark nights. Cheaper, quieter and criminally underrated.
November is the awkward month. Snow is arriving but not reliable, the light is going and many winter programmes have not started.
December is Christmas, polar night and peak prices. At Utsjoki in the far north the sun stays below the horizon for around fifty days. Book early or do not bother.
January and February are the coldest and the most reliably snowy, with the light returning fast through February. This is when Lapland looks like the photographs.
March and early April are the sweet spot. Full snow, long bright days, functioning ski lifts and some of the best aurora of the year. If you take one recommendation from this guide, take this one.
June and July bring the midnight sun and a completely different country, green and buzzing with mosquitoes, with nobody in it.
The season nobody books
Ask a Finn when to go to Lapland and a surprising number will say September. The word is ruska, and it is the two or three weeks when the birch and the ground cover turn yellow, orange and red across the whole fell landscape at once.
The paths are dry, the mosquitoes have gone, the nights are dark enough for aurora again and the prices have not yet climbed into Christmas territory.
Summer proper is stranger still. The sun does not set for weeks in the far north, the fells turn green, the rivers fill with salmon fishermen and the mosquitoes arrive in numbers that have to be experienced to be believed.
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What to do, and what it costs
Prices below are what the operators themselves publish, checked in September 2026. They move every season, so treat them as the shape of the thing rather than a quote.
Husky sledding is the one everybody books and it is not cheap. Bearhill Husky in Rovaniemi charge €196 an adult and €128 for a child aged four to eleven for their Happy Trail tour, rising to €201 and €133 over Christmas and New Year.
For that you get a two and a half hour programme of which the sledding itself is about forty five minutes and six to ten kilometres, plus pick-up, arctic outer clothing and a hot drink.
Reindeer are the slower, older and quieter option. A reindeer does not sprint and a reindeer sleigh ride is a gentle plod through the trees rather than a thrill, which is exactly the point of it.
Most farms will also let you feed them by hand, which is a better memory than the ride.
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Snowmobiles are how Lapland gets about once the roads run out, and a safari will take you somewhere a car cannot go. You need a full driving licence to drive one yourself, and there is usually a supplement to ride solo rather than share.
Ice fishing sounds like the dullest thing ever devised and is quietly the best of the lot. You drill a hole, you sit on a frozen lake in complete silence with a hot drink, and after twenty minutes you understand more about Finland than any museum will teach you.
The northern lights, briefly
The aurora is why a lot of people come, and the honest summary is short. The Finnish Meteorological Institute puts Kilpisjärvi at 75% of clear nights, the fell resorts of Ylläs, Levi and Saariselkä at roughly half, and Oulu and Kuusamo at about a quarter.
Every one of those figures assumes a clear sky, which is the condition that ruins holidays. Book three or four nights rather than one and your odds change completely.
The full version, including how to read the Kp index and why your own eyes will show you grey when the camera shows green, is in our northern lights guide.
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Where to sleep
Glass igloos are the famous one. A heated glass dome, a bed under it and the sky directly overhead, and yes it is remarkable. It is also the most expensive way to sleep in Lapland by a distance, it books out months ahead for aurora season, and a cloudy night costs the same as a clear one.
An ice hotel is a different proposition. The rooms are carved from snow, the beds sit on ice blocks under reindeer hides and thermal bags, and you sleep in something a few degrees below zero.
Here is the useful part. You do not have to sleep in one to see one. Arctic SnowHotel outside Rovaniemi sells a day visit for €35 an adult and €17 for a child aged two to twelve, with under twos free, and its snow hotel runs from 15 December to 31 March.
Thirty five euros to walk round it in the afternoon and then sleep somewhere warm is, for most people, the correct answer.
A log cabin is the one to book. Most come with a stove, a proper sauna and a door that opens onto forest or lake, and you can cook, dry your gear and come and go on your own schedule instead of a tour operator's.
What to pack
Layers, and the order matters. A moisture wicking base layer, a wool or fleece mid layer and a windproof outer shell will beat one heavy coat in every condition Lapland can produce.
Merino is worth the money for the base layer because it keeps working when it is damp, which cotton does not.
For the ends of you, which is where the trouble starts, take liner gloves inside insulated mittens, a hat that covers your ears properly and boots rated well below the temperature you expect. Fashion boots at minus twenty are a genuine problem rather than a style choice.
Most tour operators lend you a full thermal oversuit and boots for the activity itself, so do not buy a snowmobile suit for a week's holiday. Ask what is included before you spend anything.
Finland runs on the cycle of going out into the cold and then coming back into the heat, and a week in Lapland is that cycle repeated until it makes sense. The sauna is not the reward at the end. It is half the machine.
Frequently asked questions about visiting Lapland
Is Lapland in Finland or Sweden?
Both, and Norway and Russia too. Lapland is a cultural and geographical region spanning the north of all four countries. Finnish Lapland is the northernmost region of Finland, and it is what people usually mean by a Lapland holiday, with Rovaniemi as the main hub.
Which airport should I fly into for Lapland?
It depends entirely on where you are staying. Rovaniemi for Rovaniemi and Santa Claus Village. Kittilä for Levi and Ylläs. Ivalo for Saariselkä and Inari. Kuusamo for Ruka. Kemi-Tornio is the fifth Lapland airport and the least useful for a fell holiday. Check your accommodation before booking a flight, because these airports are hours apart.
Can you get to Lapland by train?
Yes, and it is the underrated option. VR runs night trains from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, Kemijärvi and Kolari. Helsinki to Rovaniemi takes about eleven hours and fifty minutes overnight, cabins start at €49 and around €74 with a shower, and you can put a car on the train from €39. In peak ski season up to five night trains leave Helsinki each night.
Is Santa Claus Village free?
Yes. There is no entrance fee to Santa Claus Village and no charge to meet Santa Claus, who is in the Santa Claus Office every day of the year. What costs money is the photograph, because the office prohibits visitors from using their own cameras, phones and recording devices during the meeting and sells you the official pictures instead. Every other activity in the village is run and priced by a separate business.
How much does a husky safari cost in Lapland?
Expect around two hundred euros an adult for a short self-driven tour. Bearhill Husky in Rovaniemi published €196 an adult and €128 for a child aged four to eleven for a two and a half hour programme with about forty five minutes on the sled, rising to €201 and €133 over Christmas and New Year. Prices were checked in September 2026 and change every season.
Do you have to sleep in an ice hotel to visit one?
No, and most people should not. Arctic SnowHotel outside Rovaniemi sells a day visit at €35 an adult and €17 for children aged two to twelve, with under twos free. Its snow hotel is open from 15 December to 31 March. Walking round in the afternoon and sleeping somewhere heated is a far cheaper way to see one.
When is the best time to visit Lapland?
March and early April for the best combination of full snow, long bright days and strong aurora. December for Christmas, polar night and the highest prices. September for ruska, the autumn colour, which is the cheapest and quietest good option and the one Finns themselves recommend.
How cold does Lapland get?
Winter typically runs from about minus five on a mild day to minus twenty, with cold snaps pushing past minus thirty in January and February. Wind makes exposed skin feel considerably colder. Correct layering is not optional at these temperatures, and it is the difference between a good week and a miserable one.
101 Very Finnish Problems began as a list of observations about Finnish life. It became a book because the observations kept coming, and a fair number of them happen a long way north of Helsinki.
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