Lapland nights, Helsinki days.
Which aurora hunt drives far enough to get out from under the cloud. What a husky team of your own costs in Rovaniemi. Whether the icebreaker earns ten hours. Every tour in Finland, reviewed.
Northern lights over Lapland: pick the night that fits.
All northern lights tours →
Cloud decides everything, so the nights that deliver are the ones willing to drive for hours to find a clear patch of sky. These three carry the most travellers; the full list splits the rest by how far they go and what they feed you.
Minivan, forest clearing, fire going
The standard Rovaniemi night out: a guide watching the cloud map, a clearing off a forest road, and sausages over a fire while everyone stands with their necks bent back.
A camera that can actually see it
The lights read greener to a sensor than to an eye. On a photography night someone sets your exposure, frames the tree line for you and hands the files over the next morning.
Sleep under the glass and wait
A heated glass roof at the end of a snow track. No minivan, no schedule, and the aurora alarm goes off above your bed if it happens at three in the morning.
The days people fly to Finland for.
A green sky, a team of dogs with your hand on the brake, reindeer in harness, a frozen river under a snowmobile, and the man in the red suit on the Arctic Circle. Five or six days carry most Finnish itineraries. Here is how each one books.
Rovaniemi is where a Finnish winter starts.
The Arctic Circle runs through the edge of town, the kennels and reindeer farms sit ten minutes down the road, and the aurora minivans leave from the same square every evening. Nowhere in Finland packs more into one base.
Finland’s most popular tours.
See all reviews →The tours more travellers take than anything else in Finland, and what each one gives you for the day.
1
Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightings
Guaranteed Northern Lights tour from Rovaniemi in heated 2025 4x4 van, max 8 guests, unlimited chasing, pro DSLR photos.
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
From Tallinn: Return Day Trip Ferry Transfer to Helsinki
from $50
6
Lapland Northern Lights Tour with BBQ
from $81
7
Small-Group Northern Lights Wilderness Tour
from $136
8
Apukka Husky Adventure 7km, self-driven
from $246
What a day in Finland actually costs.
What Finland charges, from a sauna ticket that costs less than a tram fare to a day on a working icebreaker. Helsinki fills the bottom of the ladder; the Lapland safaris sit at the top of it.
Sauna tickets, canal cruises, walking tours and the Helsinki day that costs less than lunch does in Lapland.
The core of a Lapland trip: aurora hunts, snowmobile safaris, reindeer sleighs and the Korouoma ice walk.
Self-driven husky teams, private aurora chases, the glass huts, and the icebreaker with its ice float.
Three things that only happen in Finland.
Snow and reindeer belong to the whole Arctic. A working icebreaker that takes passengers, a löyly hot enough to hurt, and the post office that answers Santa’s mail belong to this country alone.
The Icebreaker
Finland keeps a fleet of icebreakers to hold its winter shipping lanes open, and outside their working season two of them take passengers out of Kemi. The ship rides up onto the pack ice and its own weight breaks it. Afterwards you pull on a survival suit and float in the channel it just cut. Ten hours, and the most expensive booking on this site.
- 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
The Löyly
There are more saunas in Finland than cars, and the country disagrees about nearly everything inside them: wood or electric, birch whisk or none, lake or sea. What is not up for debate is löyly, the wave of steam thrown off the stones, and the swim through a hole in the ice that is supposed to follow it.
- 1Traditional Sauna and Ice Swimming Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 431 reviews
- 2National Park Hike & Finnish Smoke Sauna Experience with Campfire Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 182 reviews
- 3Best Of Lapland: Sauna, Ice swimming, Dinner & Northern Lights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 158 reviews
The Santa Claus Village
Eight kilometres north of Rovaniemi the Arctic Circle crosses a car park, and Finland built a village along the line: a post office that answers letters from children in a hundred countries, reindeer in harness outside the door, and a man who has held the same job, in the same red suit, since the 1950s.
- 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 and Arctic Circle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 355 reviews
Helsinki does the sea, the sauna and the granite.
A capital built on rock and water, where the ferry out to the sea fortress costs about what a tram ticket does and the public sauna on the waterfront is a piece of architecture in its own right. Two days is enough; three if the archipelago boats are running.
Levi holds its snow long after Rovaniemi has thawed.
Well north of the Arctic Circle, Levi sits on a bare fell above Sirkka village with a season that opens in November and runs into May. The trails leave from the village and so do the kennels, and the sky above the treeline is darker than anything you get near a city.
- 1Snowmobile Northern Lights Hunting Tripfrom $187
- 2Northern Lights Tour with Guaranteed Sightingsfrom $211
- 3Easy Snowmobile Safari into the Naturefrom $144
In Lapland the December sun never clears the fells.
All aurora nights →
Ice Floating in Forest Lake with Aurora Borealis
Read our review →
Best Of Lapland: Sauna, Ice swimming, Dinner & Northern Lights
Read our review →Book these before you fly to Finland.
Most of Finland can be booked from the hotel the night before. These cannot. They run on two ships, a few dozen beds and a season that starts selling in October.
- 01Icebreaker Cruise with Ice Floating and TransferTwo ships, a handful of sailings a week, and the seats gone weeks ahead right through the winter.
- 02PRIVATE Party dinner in a Glass Igloo Under Northern LightsLapland has a fixed number of heated glass domes and the aurora-season slots go months ahead.
- 03Reindeer, Huskies & Santa Claus VillageChristmas week at the Arctic Circle fills months out, and the reindeer sleighs sell out along with it.
- 04Korouoma Canyon and Frozen Waterfalls TourThe frozen-waterfall canyon has a short window either side of midwinter, and it is a seven-hour day before you count the drive.
Finland has a second season and hardly anyone books it.
From June the lakes open, the fells turn green and the sun refuses to set. Archipelago boats run out of Helsinki, kayaks go in on the Ounasjoki at Rovaniemi, and a smoke sauna at the end of a national-park hike costs less than an aurora hunt does in February.
By region — south coast to the far north
Helsinki206 tours
Rovaniemi706 tours
Levi & Kittilä154 tours
Saariselkä & Inari76 tours
Ruka & Kuusamo33 tours
Kemi20 tours
Ylläs15 tours
Luosto & Pyhä6 tours
Oulu7 tours- See every region →
By experience — snow, water or city?
Helsinki to Inari, the way most first trips run.
The newest Finland tour reviews.
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Snowmobile safari to forest kota with a family company
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Northern Lights Snowmobile Safari with Transfers
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Northern Lights Ice-Floating Experience with Transfer
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Guided Nordic Skiing Tour in Lapland Wilderness
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LEVI Winter Snowshoeing in the Wilderness (ALL INCLUDED)
Read our review →
Ultimate Helsinki & Porvoo Tour– Private Car & Local Stories
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Turku Archipelago: 3-hour Sailing Trip Around Källdö Islands
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Traditional Reindeer Farm Visit with a Short Sleigh Ride
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