The lights are the reason you come. Lapland is what you get.
Which aurora hunt drives far enough to find clear sky. What two hours behind a husky team costs. Whether Santa Claus Village is worth a whole December afternoon. Reviews of every tour you can book in Finland.
One aurora night, one sled day, one frozen lake and a morning in Helsinki.
The four bookings a first Finnish winter tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The aurora nightNorthern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsA minibus out of Rovaniemi that keeps driving until the sky clears, with a sighting guarantee written into the ticket.
02Three in one dayReindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus VillageReindeer, huskies and the Arctic Circle in a single run. The December day trip that does the most work.
03The frozen lakeSnowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with LunchSnowmobile out to the ice, a hole drilled for fishing, lunch cooked over a fire beside it.
04The southern citySightseeing Canal Cruise with Audio CommentaryHelsinki from the water, past the shipyards and out towards the sea fortress. Ninety minutes that explain the place.
Rovaniemi for the lights, Helsinki for the sea, Levi for the snow.
Lapland holds nearly all of the aurora and most of the winter inventory. The south holds the capital, the archipelago and the lake country. Six places to sleep, and the best day out from each.
Minibus, snowmobile or a glass roof. Three ways to stand under the aurora.
Clear sky beats everything else, so the real question is how far your guide will drive to find it and what you do while you wait. Prices start where the seat is on a bus.
Helsinki keeps its best hours out on the water.
The capital sits on a broken coastline of islands. A sea fortress is twenty minutes out by ferry, a national park of lakes and glacial rock an hour north, and the public saunas on the shore exist so somebody can climb straight into the Baltic afterwards.
Rovaniemi runs on three things: the Circle, the animals and the dark.
Everything in Rovaniemi →
The town sits eight kilometres short of the Arctic Circle with an airport, a river and more tour desks than anywhere else in Lapland. Nearly everything in the north is bookable from here, and these three carry more travellers than the rest.
Santa Claus Village, and how long to give it
The Circle runs straight through a cluster of log buildings with a post office that answers letters to Santa all year. Getting in costs nothing. The reindeer sleigh, the husky team and the elf workshop beside it are the bookings, and December afternoons are the busiest hours in Lapland.
Aurora hunt, or wait at the hotel window
Rovaniemi sits under the auroral oval, so on a clear night the lights can appear from the car park. Cloud is the problem, and the whole point of a hunt is a guide who will drive two hours east to get out from under it.
Korouoma, where the waterfalls freeze standing up
A fault line splits the forest south of Posio and the streams falling into it freeze into blue columns up to fifty metres high. The walk in takes a couple of hours over snow, and the minibus leaves early because the light goes by three.
The Finnish days out that fill fastest.
Every tour review in Finland →More travellers take these than anything else in the country. What each one costs, how long it runs, and who it suits.
1
Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightings
Spend up to eight hours hunting the Aurora from Rovaniemi in a heated 2025 Ford Tourneo 4x4. Your English-speaking guide tracks clouds and solar activity, drives as far as Sweden or Norway if needed, and takes DSLR photos of you beneath the lights. Groups are limited to eight, with thermal clothing, hot drinks, snacks, and hotel pickup included.
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
Half of Lapland moves on a sled or a snowmobile.
A husky team leaves at a flat run and barely slows. A reindeer does the opposite, at walking pace, through the trees. A snowmobile covers ground neither of them can. Most first trips end up booking all three.
- 1Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Villagefrom $213
- 2Apukka Husky Adventurefrom $237
- 32-Hour Snowmobiling Experiencefrom $148
Levi is a fell with a village at the bottom and sled tracks all round it.
The season is long and the runs face north, but the reason to come in December is not the piste. It is kennels, reindeer paddocks and snowmobile trails out to the wilderness huts, with the aurora sitting directly over the fell on a clear night.
Every Levi day out →
In Finland the frozen lake becomes the road, the swimming pool and the fishing spot.
From roughly January the ice carries a snowmobile. Holes get drilled through it for fishing, floating suits get handed out at the shore, and the sauna sitting next to the hole exists so that you can get back in a second time.
- 1Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls Tourfrom $136
- 2Snowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with Lunchfrom $222
- 3Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealisfrom $142
What a day out in Finland actually costs.
Every tour in the country, grouped by price. The cheap end is not the thin end here: a sauna evening or a city walk costs less than lunch.
City walks, sauna evenings, museum entry and the short reindeer farm visits.
The Lapland standards: aurora hunts, husky teams, snowmobile safaris and ice fishing.
Private guides, all-night photography chases and the full days that stack three activities.
Three things that only happen this far north.
Ski slopes and snow parks exist all over Europe. Floating on your back in a hole cut through lake ice, a post office for Santa Claus standing on the Arctic Circle and a canyon of waterfalls frozen mid-fall do not.
Ice Floating
A hole is cut in the lake ice and you are zipped into a dry suit that keeps you warm and floating, then you lie back on the water and stop moving. The suit does the work, so it turns out to be less an endurance test than a very quiet half hour. Guides in Rovaniemi run it after dark, which puts the aurora directly above you.
- 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
Santa Claus Village
Eight kilometres north of Rovaniemi the Arctic Circle crosses a cluster of log buildings, marked on the ground with a painted line that everybody photographs. A working post office there answers letters addressed to Santa Claus from all over the world, entry costs nothing, and the sleigh rides beside it are booked out through most of December.
- 1Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,543 reviews
- 2Santa Claus Village and Arctic Circle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 355 reviews
- 3Santa’s Village & Snowmobiling to Reindeer Farm★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 272 reviews
Korouoma Canyon
A fault line splits the forest south of Posio, and the streams dropping into it freeze standing: columns of blue-green ice up to fifty metres high, with climbers on ropes beside them. The trail in runs a couple of hours over snow, the ice only stands from January, and by April the whole canyon is running water again.
- 1Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,489 reviews
- 2Frozen Waterfalls of Korouoma Canyon & Pro Photos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 248 reviews
- 3Korouoma Frozen Waterfalls Hike & Hot BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 90 reviews
Four Finnish bookings that run on a season or a slot.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over a beer. These four answer to daylight, lake ice and a fixed number of dogs, and Christmas week fills months out.
- 01Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus VillageDecember afternoons at the Village are the busiest hours in Lapland, and the sleigh and workshop slots beside it go weeks ahead.
- 02Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsThere is nothing to hunt in summer. The season runs from the end of August to early April, and the clear nights inside it are the ones everybody wants.
- 03Apukka Husky AdventureA kennel runs a fixed number of teams a day and the dogs only work in winter, so a Christmas-week sled is booked long before the flights are.
- 04Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls TourThe ice columns only stand from January to March, the drive is two hours each way, and the minibus leaves on one departure a day.
In Rovaniemi the sun stays below the horizon from early December to early January.
Kaamos is not blackness. It is a few hours of blue twilight around midday and then long dark, which is exactly why the aurora season peaks around it. Put the outdoor hours in the middle of the day and give the dark to fire, sauna and the sky.
By place — Lapland and the south
By kind of day — sled, engine, ice or sauna
Helsinki, then north: the run most first trips to Finland make.
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