A midwinter adventure to Rovaniemi; a snowy wonderland within the periphery of the Arctic Circle in Lapland, Finland.
Having grown up in Canada I've seen my share of the Aurora Borealis, colloquially known as the Northern Lights. My wife and daughter, however, had never seen them before despite several trips to higher latitudes where they are more prevalent. Earlier in the summer we had already decided on spending New Years Eve in Finland as we were intending to visit family there, so I decided to start doing some research about where we might be able to go to improve our chances at viewing the Aurora.
I was absolutely thrilled when I came across the name Rovaniemi in my searches. Not only was it fairly famous for the Northern Lights, but it was most certainly famous for its Christmas village. The village itself is just a short drive north outside of Rovaniemi and there is also a public bus that goes from the city center to the village several times through the day. It takes about a half hour to make the bus trip and costs under 4 Euros.
Rovaniemi basics and accommodations
Rovaniemi is the capital of Lapland, a province in the northern region of Finland. It has a population of just over fifty thousand so it is not very large. Nonetheless, it has an airport located about ten kilometers north of the city which is actually the third busiest in Finland, mostly due to the Christmas village tourism. There are numerous options for hotels located both in the city as well as all around the Christmas village. Some accommodations around the village offer glass igloos to sleep in so one can gaze at the northern lights from the warmth of your bed. Naturally these are some of the most expensive options you can choose from, around a thousand US dollars a night, and you will need to book them well in advance especially if traveling there around Christmas. For example, at the time of this blog writing in late July, there is no availability for the upcoming winter.
If you aren't looking to shell out that much money for rooms (I certainly wasn't!) there are many other options. Because we were a group of seven I wanted to go with a house rental so we could all stay together. I opted to search on booking.com and found an absolute gem called Villa Kataja that offered three bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and a sauna (everyone in Finland has a sauna!) and the total cost was about $600 per night which was amazing for the space we had. We were a 5 minute drive to the city center and train station and even had a nice grocery store within walking distance.
Getting there
With accommodations settled I needed to then figure out how to get there. I looked
at the flights from Helsinki to Rovaniemi which would run around $400 per person at that time of year, but upon reading some reviews of Rovaniemi I found out there is only one true way to get there: the Santa express night train.
The train trip is about 12 hours overnight and costs about $400 per cabin, so it is about half the price of flights if you are a group of 2. If traveling alone, you will still pay full price for the cabin as it is not a per person deal. These basic cabins consists of a two beds and is really the only way to take the trip to Rovaniemi because in effect you are getting transport and accommodation all in one shot.
You can splurge about $30 more and get a cabin+ which has a private bathroom. The regular cabins don't have a bathroom so there are a couple of public ones in each car. The other option is taking a higher speed train which makes the trip in about 8 hours, and just getting a regular seat which is closer to $150 per person ($170 business class) depending on day of travel. These are not overnight trains and have a few different departure times through the day.
I opted to book the overnight cabins for our trip to Rovaniemi and then took the daytime train as the return with the upgrade to business class which I recommend simply because the Wifi is much better and the seats are pretty spacious. I booked everything through Rail Ninja about 4 months in advance and would recommend doing the same, again especially if traveling around Christmas. Even that far ahead, I was not able to book the cabin+ as they were already fully booked on our travel dates.
The train trip itself is wonderful. Snowy landscapes flow by your window, and the diner car was full of partygoers who had made a weekend trip into Helsinki to partake in the nightlife. Most of these patrons departed at Tampere, which is about 2 hours into the trip and is one of two stops the train makes. The other stop is at Oulu at under 3 hours to Rovaniemi and is around the time you are waking up. There is enough time to grab a quick nosh and a coffee in the diner car before you arrive in Rovaniemi.
I should make a note here as well that on our train tickets there was this cryptic little message stating that "Connections for commuter trains are valid 80 min. before/after the long-distance trip." As we were actually taking a train into Helsinki from the suburbs I took this to mean that our ticket included the cost of the commuter train as well.
I was wrong. Fortunately the commuter train's officer was an understanding woman and even more fortunately the rail service in Finland has an app that I was able to quickly download and purchase the required tickets on the spot and present the barcode to the officer for scanning. I highly recommend getting this app, HSL, as it makes buying tickets for trams, buses, and trains VERY easy.
Arrival
The train station is rather small, and chaotic. If, like me, you are renting a vehicle, this is where you will pick it up and that is no easy task. The rental agencies don't have counters there, or at least most of them don't. I think Sixt and Europcar may have but I cannot recall. All I know is that the majority of the rental companies do not. I was informed via email that my rental car would be at the station and that an agent would meet me, but that is not exactly how it worked out.
The trick is that the agents are just kind of milling about with everyone else in the room and some are wearing their brand on a shirt. Others are not. You pretty much need to ask anyone carrying a folder if they are the agent for our rental company. After 15 futile minutes of searching I finally found my agent. Once I found one agent, I was able to ask them to point out other agents. Like I said, it was chaotic.
At least my car was there waiting for me in the parking lot just outside and to the right of the station entrance. It was completely snow covered but fortunately there was an adequate brush/scraper inside so I was able to clean it off and shoot a video of the condition of the car. Note: Always do this for car rentals. It is the only way to prove that any damage was preexisting. Car cleaned, video shot and we were on our way. As we weren't able to check in for a few hours yet we made our way to a nearby indoor shopping mall, Kauppakeskus, wandered around there and had lunch.
Santa Claus Village
The village has many activities as well as a bunch of dining and shopping options. It is a fairly large outdoor complex with free parking available in a few places. There is no fee to explore the village, but there are several places within the area that require entrance fees. The list below will give a rough guide as to some of what is available there. My personal experiences with them are based on a Christmastime visit so obviously I was there at peak season and things such as wait times were at their max. You can find a map to the village here.
Attraction: Santa's Post Office
Cost: Free
Description: Just what it says. This is a post office that sells post cards, among other things, and where you can mail them to friends and family with a stamp from Santa's post office. You can choose to mail it straight away or you can put it into the special red post box and have it held until delivery just before Christmas.
It is very crowded inside and you will need to be patient when trying to find somewhere to sit and write out your cards but it is worth the effort.
Attraction: Santa's Workshop
Cost: Free (but with add-ons)
Description: A visit with Santa. You will need to stop in here hours in advance and book a time to visit Santa. You will be given a time to queue up, by which I mean that they open a separate section for guests to get in line. The time you booked only means that is the time that they will let you get in line. You are going to wait probably an hour before you actually get to visit Santa (for all of a minute). If you want a picture, you'll need to spend between 30-50 Euros depending on the image quality you want. They give you a nice big bag to hold your coats and such because it gets hot, very hot, waiting with everyone else. There is very little to do apart from a few mini windows to peek through showing videos of various elves at work, so make sure you have iPads and the like ready to keep you and your family entertained. I would also highly recommend having a couple of water bottles at the ready.
Attraction: Mrs. Claus' Cottage
Cost: 5 Euro +
Description: A visit with Santa's better half. The cottage is charming, beautifully decorated, and you can buy a photo with Mrs. Claus for an additional 20 Euro. The wait time was very small at around 10 minutes. Unlike the Santa visit, in which you are rushed through, you can sit and chat a bit with her.
Attraction: Snowman World
Cost: 29 Euro entrance, plus 24 (lunch) or 79 (dinner) Euro to dine at the Snow restaurant
Description: A park within the park this area has a couple of large snow tubing areas, a very small skating rink, an ice slide for the little ones, and the snow restaurant. Book well in advance and make sure to do the restaurant. It really isn't worth spending the 29 Euro entrance fee unless you are going to do the lunch/dinner add on. Our lunch consisted of bread, a choice of soup or pasta as the main and a dessert as well as a drink voucher for the ice bar. I had the sautéed reindeer and smoked cheese soup. Yep, I ate Rudolph, and it was awesome!
The snow restaurant is very cool, literally and figuratively. You'll be eating at a table in an igloo and the temperature is probably around 2-3 degrees Celsius so you'll want to keep your coat on. You finish up your meal and then head to the amazing ice bar for some libations. It is mostly flavored vodka served in a shot glass made of ice, but there are some other warm options (not in an ice glass) like mulled wine and hot chocolate.
Attraction: Reindeer sleigh rides
Cost: Various depending on track selected (22 - 84 Euros)
Description: Pretty self-explanatory, you will get pulled around in a sleigh by a reindeer. You can choose from one of three tracks: 400m, 1000m, or 3000m. The shortest track is located right beside Mrs. Claus' cottage and you actually pass over the track on a bridge to get to her cottage. Unfortunately we didn't realize it closed earlier (~17:00) than some of the other attractions in the village so we missed out on this attraction. In my defense, it does get dark there by around 14:00 so time feels a bit arbitrary!
Other Attractions
In addition to sleigh rides there are also snowmobile tracks and husky dog sled rides you can partake of in the village. There are several other attractions I have not included since I don't have any first hand experience with them but I suggest a visit to the Santa's Village webpage to explore for yourself.
The website also lists the numerous restaurants in the village, but apart from the lunch at the snow restaurant we did not dine in the village. As well as several restaurants there are plenty of little shops scattered around the village with a small indoor mall right by the post office. Be forewarned, the shopkeepers don't like photos being taken inside their stores.
Finally, don't leave without posing in front of the webcam that is located at the structures marking the threshold of the Arctic Circle. It is streaming live on Youtube so you can catch yourself on your phone for a unique selfie.
At Last, the Aurora Borealis
While Santa's Village is a charming diversion and great fun for the children, the Northern Lights are the main event and what the bulk of tourists are heading to Rovaniemi to see. Rovaniemi gets the Aurora very frequently and can see as many as 150 days with them occurring. The best times to visit to see them are in late Autumn, in particular because the skies are typically clearer then, but anytime in September through April will offer the chance to see them light up the sky.
There are quite a few tours, guides, etc. that are available if you want to spend the money to do so. You certainly don't need to though as there are plenty of tools that you can use to get the chance to witness their brilliance. I did not want to spend the money on any service especially since there is absolutely no guarantee you'll see anything. In fact, we very nearly didn't because it snowed constantly every day and while the Northern Lights were in fact dancing overhead, we couldn't see anything due to the heavy cloud cover.
We were a little disappointed on the eve of our departure from Rovaniemi, Jan 1 2023. I was really hoping that my family would get a chance to see the lights. We'd finished dinner, had all but the essentials packed for the train trip back to Helsinki in the morning and were getting ready for bed when one of those aforementioned tools gave me an alert. About 5 minutes later I received a WhatsApp message from our wonderful host that she'd also received an alert on her phone. I've listed the apps used at the end of the blog.
A quick check at the weather showed a break in the clouds in a long swath around Rovaniemi and it appeared it would stay that way for a few hours. A very brief discussion ensued and it was quickly decided we'd go for it. I pulled up my Google map and found a location that was ideal for viewing and. not too far. It was on the roadside by a large lake a few minutes further down past Santa's village. There was a small parking loop which I could make out on Google maps so we headed there.
25 minutes later we had parked the car (along with dozens of other tourists in cars, vans, buses etc.) and strolled out towards the lake. Even though there were a lot of other people, there was plenty of space at that time of year because the lake was frozen over. We simply wandered out on to the ice and found our own little spot near the shoreline.
We only had to wait about 5 minutes before the display started. We were treated to about a 40 minute show of the lights before they dwindled. It was not as spectacular as these displays can be but it was still amazing to watch and for any first time viewers it was mesmerizing. Check out the video of the Aurora on my YouTube site. You can hear the wind blowing and the people cheer. There are also couple of videos from Santa's Village.
Quite content, and more than a little cold, we jumped back into the car and made our way back to the house. The following morning we dropped off the car, much easier this time since it was just putting the keys into the appropriate drop box in the train station, and hopped on the train for our return journey to Helsinki.
Final Thoughts
Overall we were absolutely delighted by our trip to Rovaniemi and are considering a summertime visit at some point in the near future. I learned a few valuable lessons on this trip and one odd one. Planning ahead, WAY ahead sometimes, is essential to a successful trip (accommodations and transportation) and can vastly reduce the cost. Also, making use of available technology can make things go much smoother (thank you HSL for helping me avoid that train fine!).
The oddity I encountered was when it came to booking cars. I needed to book two cars, one for our time in Helsinki which bookended our Rovaniemi and of course the car in Rovaniemi. It turns out that it is, or at least was, cheaper for me to book the car in Helsinki for the full duration of our stay rather than two separate bookings even though we weren't using it for 4 days. And I don't mean a little cheaper, it was a difference of 100+ Euros. We were even able to find a underground parking spot in a mall complex for free so it really worked out well.
And that's it. I know this was a long blog but hopefully it provided some good tips and ideas if you are looking for a wonderful winter adventure. If you are planning to go to Finland, or another cold weather destination be sure to check out our packing list to help you prepare. Thanks for reading and happy travels!
Apps and Websites I used if you too are trying to view the Aurora Borealis (Good Luck!):
Hello-Aurora app
Aurora Alert Realtime website
NOAA 30 minute Aurora forecast website
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