Lapland Bucket List

Ever dreamed of a real winter wonderland holiday? Well Lapland is probably the closest thing to a winter dream you can actually experience in real life!! This winter on my Scandinavian adventure, I wandered up to northern Finland, otherwise known as Lapland!! Taking a short flight from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, I was welcomed with a frosty -26 but super excited for the plans I had coming up for the week!!

Here’s my must do list for Lapland!

Santa Claus Village

I felt like a little kid running around Santa’s Village, it was the end of January when I visited but the Christmas spirit was definitely still in full swing! Here you can officially cross the Arctic Circle, which is pretty damn cool!

I loved visiting Santas Reindeer (I even spotted one with a red nose!) and I even went on a sled ride with a reindeer, through the wintery forest, which in itself is just so magical!

I got to hang out with Santa and hopefully I made a lasting impression, can’t wait to see what he brings me neeext Christmas!!!

And then at Santa’s Official Post Office I sent a bunch of post cards to my friends and family back home!!

This day was my first full day in Lapland and 100% the cooooldest temperatures I’d ever been in!! This day was a mild -23c!!! My biggest tips for managing the cold were some warmmmmm foldable earmuffs, a big down coat, mine was from Mountain Warehouse similar to this one, some proper, well fitted snow boots and good quality snow socks!!!

Husky Sledding

When I arrived and found out I would be driving the Huskies, I must admit I was pretty nervous!! But it didn’t take long before we were scooting through forests and over frozen lakes and I had complete faith in these energetic pups!! Oh how they just love to run!!

This day was suuuper cold, I had on a full survival suit, along with many layers, gloves, a balaclava, the whole lot!! The brisk wind made my eyelashes freeze, and my glasses lenses iced over and the lenses popped out!! The bitterly cold only added to the experience and didn’t even matter as the excitement of zipping around on sleds was far more exhilarating than I could have imagined!

After the sledding, I got to hang out with the dogs and even meet the cutest little husky puppies that were only a few weeks old!!! Over hundreds of years these dogs have been bred to be able to withstand extreme weather conditions and the weight of sleds and goods/ people. It reminded me of the true story of the Huskies running for 6 days through a brutal Alaskan winter to deliver vaccines to a town where a disease had just broken out and was unreachable due to the weather. Truly remarkable dogs!

Polar Explorer Icebreaker

I found out about the Icebreaker in my many hours of research before embarking on this adventure!! Once I read about this experience, there was no way I wasn’t going on that ship! I’ll admit this day trip is a little on the pricy side (€350 to be exact) but this included transfers from and back to Rovaniemi, the 3 hr cruise, a visit to a local Fisherman village in Sweden and lunch! The cruise departs from Axselsvik, Sweden. I found it beyond fascinating learning about the ship which was built in 1976 and has a specially designed reinforced hull which makes it able to withstand the pressure of the ice whereas the shape of it allows it to effortlessly cut through frozen waters up to 2 meters thick!!

I was captivated, leaning over the side of the ship, watching the chunks of ice break away and listening to the powerful noise the ice breaking makes, something that really needs to be experienced to truly appreciate just how breathtaking it is!!

Half way through the cruise I was able to get off and walk around on the ice, which is pretty cool considering I was technically walking around the middle of the sea!! It was then time for a swim!! What?! Yep! I got geared up in a survival suit and then slipped into the frozen sea and floated around for a while, next to some huge chunks of ice! Super cool experience!!

Then once the bus started heading back to Rovaniemi we made a quick stop for lunch at a little old Fishermans Village at Kukkola, where we stoped for some local salmon and delicious Swedish meatballs for lunch!  

Glass Igloo + Ice Hotel stay

Something I’ve dreamed of for so long was to stay in a glass Igloo in Lapland, so my visit to the Arctic Snow Hotel and Glass Igloos was highly anticipated!! (Once again not a super budget friendly experience at about €1000 for 2 nights (in 2019)) I chose their 5 senses of Ice package which gave me a night in a Glass Igloo and a night in the SnowHotel, as well as loads of meals and other add ons!!

I spent the first night in the Glass Igloo and had to pinch myself, I couldn’t believe I was really there!! The igloos were so cozy and luxurious, watching the snow fall outside was a real winter wonderland moment! Inside the Igloo is an Aurora Alarm that you can switch on, and will wake you up if the Auroras are dancing in the middle of the night! Unfortunately they weren’t the night I was there, but it didn’t take from the incredible experience it was!

The full day I spent there included a morning of ice fishing on the lake which the property backs on to! I had to take a big spinny drill thing and use alllll my muscles to make a hole straight through the ice!! We stood there for a bit but didn’t catch anything though, unfortunately!

Then as I was wandering back I stumbled past the two reindeer that resort there in winter! A staff member asked if I wanted to feed them… um of course! So I spent the next hour or so just hanging out with and feeding the reindeer! 

That afternoon was spent in a few different types of private saunas!! When in Finland, right?! The first was just a classic sauna, then an ice sauna… an actual sauna, made of ice!!! And then an outdoor Jacuzzi in the snow!!

That night I slept in the IceHotel!! An entire hotel that’s built up every year, made entirely of ice!! This SnowHotel is one of the largest in the Nordic region, sleeping up to 70 guests!

I loved wandering through, looking at all the artwork carved into the walls, and all the different rooms like the chapel, bar and restaurant all inside!!

Eating at the restaurant was cool (literally hahah) some of the courses were served on plates of ice!!

I stayed in my own little Ice room that night, at -5 degrees, which whilst that was much much warmer than the -30 outside, sleeping in -5 is still quite chilly! I slept in multiple sleeping bags and on reindeer furs to avoid frostbite!! The arctic atmosphere is just amazing, with the ice soaking up the noise so it’s eerily quiet in there! Staying all night in there was definitely not for the faint hearted! When your body is resting and you’re not moving around, -5 is cold! There was a building nearby with bunkbeds that you could resort to if the cold became too much, but I was so determined to make it through the night and I did!! It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience… meaning I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m beyond glad I did it!!

Try to spot the Northern Lights!

The last but certainly not least must do in Lapland is Northern Lights spotting!! Unfortunately spotting the Northern Lights is as much luck as it is anything else!! Lots of companies offer tours though, so if you don’t have a car and can’t go exploring yourself, I’d definitely recommend jumping on a tour!! The guides know all the best spots for the best opportunity to see the lights! The first night we went looking we got soo lucky and got to watch the Auroras dance right in front of us!! I have to be super honest here though as a lot of people don’t know that the Auroras look nothing like they do in pictures, in real life!! A camera picks up a lot of light that the human eye can’t see, which means sometimes you won’t be able to see anything, but a picture will show gorgeous lights!! I did get lucky though and the lights were really visible and I could really watch faint green lights dancing through the sky!! Heres a picture that someone else on my tour took with a pro camera!!

So that’s it! That’s my recommendations you must do when visiting Lapland, and also a why you should visit Lapland list too I guess! Cause if these stories and pictures haven’t convinced you to add it to your bucket list, then I don’t know what will!!

Until next adventure,

Signing off,

Alexx