Lapland after dark, Helsinki in daylight.
Which aurora night will actually drive far enough to find clear sky. Whether the husky ride is five kilometres or twenty. What an archipelago afternoon costs once the ice goes. Every tour in Finland, reviewed.
The days people fly to Lapland for.
A night out chasing the aurora, a team of huskies, a reindeer sleigh, a snowmobile across a frozen lake, the village on the Arctic Circle and twenty minutes floating in a hole cut through the ice. Six ways a Finnish winter day gets planned.
Northern lights in Lapland: pick the night that fits.
All 382 aurora nights →
A minibus that will drive two hundred kilometres to get out from under the cloud. A snowmobile convoy onto a frozen lake. A heated camp with a fire, a photographer and no driving at all. These three carry the most travellers; the rest of the list splits by how far you are willing to go and how long you want to stand still.
Guaranteed sightings, unlimited mileage
The guide watches the cloud map, not the clock, and keeps driving until there is a hole in the sky. Long night, hot drinks in the boot, and a second trip free if the aurora never shows.
Someone else works the camera
Phone cameras lose the aurora to noise. On these the guide shoots you against it on a tripod, sends the files the next morning, and you spend the night looking up instead of down at a screen.
Levi, above the treeline
Ride out of the resort onto open fell where nothing blocks the northern horizon, kill the engines, and wait. Colder than the minibus and considerably better for it.
Everything in Lapland leaves from Rovaniemi.
One airport, one river, and the Arctic Circle running through the car park of the village eight kilometres north. Huskies, reindeer, snowmobiles and the aurora all pick up from the same handful of hotels, which is why most first Lapland trips start here.
Finland’s most popular tours.
Every review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country — and what makes each one worth its day.
1
Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightings
Rovaniemi aurora hunt in a 2025 luxury 4x4 van, small group, unlimited chasing, and DSLR photos with guaranteed viewing or refund.
From · $164
Read our review →
2
Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Village
from $221
3
Northern Lights Rovaniemi: Guaranteed Viewing & Unlimited Mileage
from $228
4
Drive New 2025 Snowmobiles on Arctic Safari & BBQ
from $105
5
Lapland Northern Lights Tour with BBQ
from $81
6
Small-Group Northern Lights Wilderness Tour
from $136
7
Apukka Husky Adventure 7km, self-driven
from $246
8
Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls Tour
from $136
Helsinki is small enough to walk and wet enough to sail.
The whole centre fits inside an afternoon on foot, and the interesting half is offshore: a sea fortress on six islands, an archipelago of ferry stops, and Tallinn two hours across the gulf. In summer the boats run late; in winter the same water freezes hard enough to walk on.
Three things you can only do in Finland.
Snow and reindeer belong to the whole north. Lying in a hole in a frozen lake, riding a working icebreaker through sea ice and crossing the Arctic Circle in a car park belong to this country.
Ice Floating
A hole is cut in a frozen lake, you are zipped into a drysuit, and you lie on your back in water that is technically freezing. The suit keeps you dry and floating, so there is no swimming and no shock — just twenty quiet minutes staring straight up. Sessions run from roughly December to April, once the ice will take the weight of a person walking out to the hole.
- 1Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 797 reviews
- 2Icebreaker Cruise with Ice Floating and Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 453 reviews
- 3Icebreaker Arktis Cruise with Ice Floating★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 355 reviews
The Icebreaker
Sampo spent thirty years keeping the Gulf of Bothnia open for cargo before it started carrying passengers. It still does the same job the same way: rides up onto the sea ice and breaks it with its own weight, loud enough to feel through the deck. The trip sails from Kemi, takes most of a day with transfers from Rovaniemi, and finishes with a float in the channel it just made.
- 1Icebreaker Cruise with Ice Floating and Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 453 reviews
- 2Icebreaker Arktis Cruise with Ice Floating★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 355 reviews
- 3Icebreaker Sampo Cruise with Ice Floating★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 212 reviews
Santa Claus Village
The Arctic Circle runs straight through the site eight kilometres north of Rovaniemi, marked by a painted line and a row of signposts. Meeting Santa is free; the photograph is not. December is the crush and the queues are real — a November or January afternoon buys you the same reindeer yard, the same husky kennels and Snowman World with room to move.
- 1Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,334 reviews
- 2Snowman World Entry Ticket in Santa Claus Village★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 1,081 reviews
- 3Santa Claus Village Husky Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 873 reviews
On the Levi fells the aurora has nowhere to hide.
Two hundred kilometres north of Rovaniemi the forest gives out and the fells start: bare, rounded and high enough that the northern horizon is simply open. Levi runs the lifts and the nightlife, Ylläs keeps the quiet, and both put you above the treeline in twenty minutes.
- 1Snowmobile Northern Lights Hunting Tripfrom $187
- 2Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightingsfrom $211
- 3Easy Snowmobile Safari into the Naturefrom $144
Book these before you fly to Finland.
Most of Lapland can be booked from the hotel lobby the night before. These four cannot. They run on short seasons, fixed sailings and buildings that melt in April.
- 01Icebreaker Cruise with Ice Floating and TransferTwo icebreakers sail out of Kemi and each takes a set number of passengers per departure, through a season that ends when the sea ice does.
- 02Arctic SnowHotel TourRebuilt from packed snow every December and gone by spring. The dinner sittings and the snow rooms are capped from the day it opens.
- 03Bear watching eveningThe hides near Kuusamo open only for the spring and summer bear season, and each one holds a handful of people a night.
- 04Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus VillageDecember afternoons at the village are spoken for months ahead — the elf sessions and the reindeer slots go first.
What an Arctic day actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. Lapland is not cheap — but a good day out here starts at the price of a museum ticket, and the gap between the cheap end and the splurge is mostly diesel and daylight.
Village entry tickets, city walks, wildlife park days, sauna sessions and canal boats — the whole afternoon for less than dinner.
The standard Lapland evening: an aurora chase, a snowshoe trek, a couple of hours on a snowmobile, or a reindeer sleigh with the farm visit attached.
Full-day icebreakers with lunch, self-driven husky teams, private aurora cars and the frozen-canyon hikes that eat the whole daylight window.
Lapland does its best work in the dark.
All aurora nights →
Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis
Read our review →
In midwinter Rovaniemi the sun never really clears the trees.
From mid-December to mid-January the Arctic Circle gets a few hours of blue twilight and no sunrise worth the name. It is a schedule to work with rather than a problem to solve: the daylight things happen between ten and two, the ice and the dark get everything else, and the low sun makes the best photographs of the year.
By base — where you sleep decides what you book
Rovaniemi986 tours
Helsinki283 tours
Levi & Ylläs248 tours
Saariselkä & Inari102 tours
Ruka & Kuusamo47 tours
Kemi26 tours
Pyhä-Luosto9 tours- Every tour in Finland →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
Seven days from the Arctic Circle back down to the Baltic.
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