Two hundred nights of aurora, and one week to spend under them.
Which chase actually keeps driving until the cloud breaks. What a husky team costs before December takes the slots. Whether Korouoma is worth four hours in a minibus. Reviews of every tour you can book in Rovaniemi and across Finnish Lapland.
Four bookings that decide a Rovaniemi week.
One night under the lights, one day with the animals, one out on the frozen lake, one four hours south in a canyon of ice. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The aurora nightNorthern Lights Tour with Guaranteed SightingsThe most-booked night out in Lapland. A guided chase with a sightings guarantee, which in practice means the guide keeps driving until the cloud breaks.
02The animal dayReindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus VillageReindeer, huskies and the Arctic Circle village in one run. The day most first visits are built around, and the first to go in December.
03The day on the iceSnowmobile and Ice Fishing Adventure with LunchSnowmobile out to a frozen lake, drill through it, and eat lunch beside the hole. Nothing about it works in summer.
04The long driveKorouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls TourThe waterfalls in Korouoma freeze standing up, in a rift in the bedrock south-east of the city. Worth the minibus, and only there from about January.
Four ways to spend an aurora night out of Rovaniemi.
The forecast is only half of it. What decides the night is how far your guide is willing to drive, and whether you want to be in the photograph or asleep under the glass.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · Lapland Northern Lights Tour with BBQ
The chaseGuides drive until the cloud breaks, however far that is.
With a photographerSomebody else works the camera in the dark; you stand in the frame.
From the Levi fellsTwo hours north, and usually above the valley cloud.
Under a glass roofNo chase at all. You lie in bed and watch the ceiling.
All 95 aurora nights →
Rovaniemi first, then whichever fell you can reach before dark.
The Arctic Circle town everything departs from, two ski fells that sit above the valley cloud, the far north at Saariselkä, reindeer country out east towards Kuusamo, and the coast at Kemi where the Gulf freezes solid. Six bases, and the best day out from each.
Lapland still runs on animals that were working here first.
A husky team pulls hard and loud from the second the brake comes up. A reindeer walks, and will not be hurried. Book both, in that order, and put the farm visit in whatever daylight you get.
- 1Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Villagefrom $213
- 2Apukka Husky Adventurefrom $237
- 3Apukka Reindeer Journeyfrom $206
The days out of Rovaniemi that fill first.
Every Lapland tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than anything else in Lapland, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightings
Chase the Northern Lights from Rovaniemi in a small 4x4 group, with expert guides, DSLR photos, warm gear, and flexible mileage.
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
2-Hour Snowmobiling Experience
from $148
A snowmobile is how Lapland gets past the last road.
Forest tracks under snow-loaded spruce, a river that is a road for four months of the year, and lakes wide enough to lose the shoreline on. Most of what is worth reaching around Rovaniemi in February has no road to it.
Rovaniemi drew a line through the forest and built a post office on it.
The circle runs through the village eight kilometres north of town, and the whole Christmas apparatus sits on top of it. Walking in is free. Everything with a reindeer, a husky or a certificate attached is not.
Every day out at the Circle →
Lapland is expensive. This is where the money actually goes.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Under a hundred dollars buys daylight — a farm, a sleigh, the wildlife park. The middle band is where the aurora chases and the husky teams sit. The top is private guides and glass roofs.
Reindeer farms, short sleigh rides, the Circle and the wildlife park — the things that fit in the few hours of daylight.
- 1Lapland Northern Lights Tour with BBQfrom $81
- 2Reindeer Experience with Sleigh Ridefrom $99
- 3Snowman World Entrance Ticketfrom $49
Where most of Lapland lives: aurora chases, husky teams, snowmobile safaris and a hole cut in the ice.
Private guides, a photographer working the dark, the frozen canyon by minibus, and a night under a glass roof.
Three things you cannot book south of the Arctic Circle.
Snow and cold are ordinary in plenty of countries. A canyon of standing ice, a hotel carved new every January, and a hole cut in a lake for swimming in are not.
The Korouoma Waterfalls
Korouoma is a rift in the bedrock south-east of Rovaniemi, and the streams coming off its walls freeze while they are still falling. By February they stand as columns of grey and blue ice tall enough that climbers work them on ropes. The walk in takes a couple of hours over uneven ground, and by late spring there is nothing there but wet rock.
- 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
A Hotel Made of Snow
Lapland cuts these from scratch each winter and lets them melt in April, so no two years share a floor plan — the castle on the coast at Kemi, the snow hotel out past the Arctic Circle at Rovaniemi. Rooms hold a few degrees below zero whatever the weather outside is doing, the beds sit on ice blocks under reindeer hides, and the restaurant serves off plates cut from the same material.
- 1Snow Hotel Tour and Ice Restaurant Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 345 reviews
- 2Arctic Snow Hotel Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 302 reviews
- 3Arctic Snow Hotel Tour and Snow Sauna Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 75 reviews
Ice Floating
The drysuit takes the cold out of it, so what is left is lying on your back in a cut lake looking straight up. The suits float you without any effort at all, the water underneath is a metre of black, and the better operators run it after dark so the sky has something to do.
- 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
Four Lapland bookings that will not wait.
Most of a Rovaniemi week can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on a short season, a fixed room count, or a December calendar that starts filling in September.
- 01PRIVATE Party dinner in a Glass Igloo Under Northern LightsThere are only ever a handful of glass igloos at a property, and one aurora season to sell them in. Christmas and New Year go first, by a long way.
- 02Meet Santa Claus, Reindeer Sleigh Ride & HuskiesMeeting Santa runs on timed slots through the busiest fortnight of the Arctic year, and the Christmas week is spoken for long before anyone lands.
- 03Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls TourThe waterfalls need a hard freeze to stand up, and they are gone by spring. Roughly January to March, and nothing worth the drive either side of it.
- 04Snow Hotel Tour and Ice Restaurant DinnerThey are carved fresh every winter and open around late January. Once they melt in April there is nothing there to visit until the next one is cut.
Cloud, a full moon, and the summer when Rovaniemi gets no night at all.
The aurora needs darkness and a gap in the cloud, and neither is promised on any particular evening. From late May to late July the sun does not set here, so there is nothing to hunt. Both problems have one answer: book the days that work in any weather, and treat a clear sky as the bonus it is.
- 1Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Villagefrom $213
- 2Apukka Husky Adventurefrom $237
- 3Apukka Reindeer Journeyfrom $206
By place — the town, the fells and the far north
By kind of day — harness, throttle, ice or sauna
Rovaniemi, the Circle, Korouoma, Levi, Saariselkä: the week almost everybody does first.
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