Chasing the Northern Lights in Rovaniemi, Finland

Welcome to the Arctic Circle! Are you cold yet? Let’s take a visit to Santa Claus Village. After a short 10-minute ride from the airport, you’ll arrive to your room – a suite booked at Santa Claus Holiday Village. These suites are situated towards the back of the property with a sauna in the room – what’s better than that?

On your way to your suite, grab a glass of glogi, stop by and write some postcards to your loved ones back home at Santa Claus’ local post office, say hi to the reindeer at Santa Claus Reindeer, eat dinner at Santamus and enjoy your first evening in Lapland.

Start your morning with breakfast, which is included with your stay at Three Elves. Enjoy a morning shopping in the village and make your way towards Santa’s Salmon Place for lunch. There might be a bit of a wait outside, so bring your gloves and scarf. You’ll enjoy bread, salad and a piece of salmon cooked on an open fire in the middle of the hut. After lunch, take a quick two-minute walk to Santa’s Husky Rides to begin your 2.5km husky adventure. This is just enough time to grab your photos, chat with your musher and end up with a freezing face! Take a nap after dog-sledding because in the evening, around 6 or 7, your guide Romain is going to pick you up to go chase the northern lights. Being one of the unique companies that does not put time constraints on their tours, they will take you to clear skies (wherever that may be) and take professional pictures of you while viewing the northern lights (warning: this can last until 3 or 4 am, depending on the activity of the auroras). It will be an AMAZING night.

Sleep in after your long night of watching magic in the sky. Catch the last hour of breakfast before checking out and moving to your next hotel, Santa’s Igloo Arctic Circle. Take your bags over to have them held for the day while you jet off on a snow mobile tour at Apukka. After your tour, head back to check into your igloo. Enjoy dinner at the resort and after dinner, head back to your igloo to turn on the heaters of your glass roof and enjoy the night sky. This is a perfect night to relax and watch a movie.

After breakfast at Santa’s Igloo, you’ll check out and head into downtown Rovaniemi to check into Hotel Santa Claus (are you seeing a theme here?) Walk around town and explore the shops while you wait for check-in time. Once you’ve checked in, get your warmest clothes on for a night at Arctic Snow Hotel.

You’ll be picked up from Hotel Santa Claus and driven the 30 minutes to Arctic Snow Hotel where you’ll begin with a guided tour of the property. You’ll be shown the ice sculptures and snow sauna (yes, a sauna made out of snow) and taken through the ice hotel where each room has its own theme. The hotel is made every November and is left to melt down at the end of March. You’ll be amazed at all of the different themes of the rooms.

After your tour, you’ll end up at the ice bar, where you can grab a drink before dinner (if you opt for a shot, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, you can even throw your glass at the wall). At dinner time, you’ll be seated on ice benches at your ice table and served a three-course meal starting with soup, a choice of entree and a dessert brought out on an ice plate. Take plenty of pictures – this is quite the unique experience. After some free time, you’ll head back downtown to your hotel for the night.

(If you’re brave, you can opt to stay in the Arctic Snow Hotel for a night!)

Enjoy one last breakfast buffet and start your journey to the airport. You’ll leave Lapland with lasting memories and a lot of great photographs. Thank Santa for welcoming you to his hometown. Rovaniemi will see you next time!