Lapland -one of our favourite holidays ever (and most expensive even when self booked!)
Lapland summarised:
What we loved:
- the skies – it’s permanent sunrise or sunset so the sky is always stunning.
- Proper crisp snow
- Messing about with the kids in the snow – they absolutely loved it
- Snowmobiling across country
- That Akaslompolo was empty – you’d think the week before Christmas would be the main week but apparently it’s the two weeks after Christmas that are the busiest around Kittila!! Paying group price for private trips always goes down well with me 😊
- the light – great for photos
What we didn’t like so much
- That our flights weren’t ideal. Changing in Helsinki lost a lot of time – book earlier!! We also had to do car hire with a different pick-up and drop off point which cost more due to this.
- The price of meals out there – one course for four with a drink each was about 100EUR!! Thank goodness we were self-catering!
Can a trip to Lapland be affordable?
A trip to Lapland is probably on a lot of families’ wish lists, but most have probably looked into it and baulked at the price. A typical 3 day package trip for a family of four seems to be around £5,000-£7,000. £5,000!!?? That’s not even all in and you only get one full day after flights! They pack all the activities in but it all sounds very rushed.
We were never going to join one of these holidays but we knew Lapland was something we wanted to do with the kids before they got too old. So I got my laptop out and started planning. Here’s what I came up with for less than £4,500 all in for 6 nights. And it can definitely be done for less if booked far enough in advance.
We want to show that you can have a more relaxed family holiday for less than a package tour and show you how we did it. This article covers:
- Our itinerary and travel journal to show you what we did and inspire you
- Reviews of our chosen activities
- Details on how we fed ourselves
- trip costings
- tips for booking your own trip to Lapland
Our Lapland itinerary with kids and travel journal
Saturday – flight to Helsinki
We got an early flight out. We’d told the kids we were going to visit their grandparents so they were pretty confused when we pulled into a multi-storey and then walked into an airport! I think they were still a little too sleepy to realise quite what we meant when we told them where we were going and my daughter’s first question was ‘but where are we going to sleep?’. Not quite the reaction we were after initially but they got excited eventually!
We’d booked late (October) so the only flights left (not taken by the package tours) were via Helsinki. After a 3 hour flight to Helsinki we had an overnight stopover and thought we’d get a chance to get out into Helsinki but by the time we got there (our flight was delayed by an hour or so) it was about 4pm, getting dark and we were hungry. The trip into Helsinki from the airport was not super short. So we wussed out and headed for the hotel. We didn’t want to eat in the hotel so enquired about local restaurants. Bad luck – not an eating area. Our only eating option was to walk to the Jumbo Shopping Mall. Still – at least there was a fine coating of snow, which was what we’d come all that way for. After an overpriced (but yummy) pizza we headed back to the hotel for a kip. Not the best first day – book earlier and get direct flights! This probably means 6-9 months in advance at least!!).
Sunday – flight to Kittila
Up the next morning and then off to the airport for our final leg to Kittila – a little airport close to where we were staying.
Our late booking also meant that there were not many places to stay left and we don’t like hotels – we always opt for self catering. We lucked out with a cabin in Akaslompolo from Owners Direct (now part of Home Away?). Our second flight landed into Kittila airport around midday. We had a car hired, picked this up and headed out onto the roads. We were nervous having committed to this given that we’d never driven on snow except for in England, which is notoriously difficult. Winter tyres make all the difference it turns out. We started off pretty slow but picked up after being overtaken a few times. We had no issues driving out there at all.
We arrived at Akaslompolo hungry so headed to one of the restaurants there – the Ravintola Rouhe. Great food but 100EUR for four mains and four drinks! By this point it was all a bit too much for Aiden who fell asleep at the table. A quick trip to the shops on the way to the cabin and an early night!
Monday – Akaslompolo lake and snowmobiling
Our chalet was great and came with a couple of sleds and a sort of chair on runners. As the chalet was uphill from the town and the roads were almost empty we simply rode the chair down, pulling the kids in sleds – what a way to travel!
Sledding down the hill to Akaslompolo – the only way to travel!
There’s not a lot in Akaslompolo – a supermarket complex (pretty big food shop great for self catering) with a soft play area (free?) and a café/restaurant where we actually managed to get some cheapish pasta (more like 50EUR for a meal). There are a couple of restaurants dotted around and a gift shop.
There are about four tour operators all in a line near the Lapland Hotel Yllaskaltio. We enquired with all four but ended up doing everything except the husky sledding with the one furthest to the right (as you’re looking at them). I think they were called Scandinavian Adventures. The lovely gentleman there caters more for the smaller groups rather than the package tours so had more availability and could be more flexible. For example on this first day we enquired with them in the morning on the way down to the shops and the lake and booked in for ski-mobiling just after lunch. As he created this trip so late no one else joined so we got a private trip for group prices 😊.
The snowmobiling was amazing. We’d just hired one so Chris and I shared and took turns driving. The guide had the kids on his one, one in front and one behind. We headed out into the trails following him. It felt like we were in a Bond movie chasing someone who’d stolen our kids through the snow covered forest – super fun! Even when Chris left the trail and the snowmobile fell over ditching me in a drift – at least it’s a soft landing. The trip took us to a perfect little snow covered hut with a massive warm fire in the middle where we were given fresh doughnuts and hot drinks to warm us up (yum 😊). Then we were off again. As our guide had nothing else planned he took us on a slightly longer route back, up to the top of a nearby hill so we could see the lights (as by this point it was dark – there are literally only 5 hours of daylight and even that’s more like twilight). The kids fell asleep on the snowmobile – I have no idea how they didn’t fall off!
We’d told the kids that the reason we were coming to Lapland was to find Father Christmas as we’d forgotten to write letters to him that year and so needed to get them to him in person. As Akaslompolo is not as touristy as other areas there were not many options (no sleigh rides out to a hut in the woods to meet him although I think this was available in Yllasjarvi (the next village over)). The place to meet him in Akaslompolo is at the restaurant on Sivulantie – Yllaksen Lapinkyla Oy. This just happened to be about 50m from the cabin I’d picked so we set off across the snow, took our ticket and time slot and waited to be seen. We had dinner in the restaurant whilst we were waiting which was delicious – we had bear casserole and reindeer stew. Again – super expensive at about 100EUR for the four of us for a meal and a drink. Yikes!
The Father Christmas experience was up a curved wooden staircase and into a small wood panelled room, decorated with fairy lights and toys. The jolly man awaiting the kids was a proper Finnish santa, so he had grey trousers on rather than red, but he had the big beard. The kids were spellbound – they have never believed the ones that come into school etc are real but this guy had them convinced. Chris and I had to try hard to keep a straight face as he kept saying ‘hmmm’ after everything which reminded us of Yoda!
Wednesday – Snowmobiling again, snow shoeing and the northern lights
We’d had such a good time on the snowmobiles that we hired one again, this time with a trailer, for four hours and took off by ourselves down the trails with a map and an idea to get to a café on a lake. Possibly one of the greatest days of our lives. Beautiful skies, beautiful scenery, fun in the snow, exploring, sledging down a hill onto the lake on the collections of sledging devices at the café – just perfect!
Then we picked up some snowshoes and tried them out for a while. All from the same tour operator, who was by now giving us pretty good prices.
So far we’d not done well in our Northern Lights spotting. We were checking the apps each night, and there seemed to be a lot of activity. The skies were pretty clear for the first few days so we were checking every hour or so, sticking our heads outside to see if we could see anything. Nothing. And then the next morning we heard that there had been loads of activity the night before and were fuming – how did we miss it? So in the evening we headed down to the lake for a late dinner, checking outside every now and then for the lights (but this time heading out onto the lake to avoid the light pollution).
We ate at the Evaskori Restaurant (behind the Joiku pub), sharing one massive pizza to save some money. It was just about big enough to feed all four of us!
After a while the kids were tired and we’d seen no activity so we headed home. I went outside to check again about 10pm and walked away from the houses a little. There was something in the sky, some sort of line of clouds which were faintly glowing. Leaving Chris with the kids I walked down to the lake, there were other people there too, camped out watching the skies. It was patchy cloud unfortunately but there were stars visible. There was some activity – mainly what looked like streaky clouds which glowed faintly green and did seem to move but nothing really close. Until midnight when one hit right above me. It was pretty amazing but over very fast, and not as clear or colourful as the pictures normally make it – possibly partly obscured by cloud? It was like a yellowy-green snake above us, wiggling its way north and sending tendrils out. It moved off across the sky and things went quiet again. I’m not sure whether that was just a fairly poor sighting or whether most of the colour comes from special lenses and filters but I feel like I need to see it again and Chris and the kids missed out. We’ll have to catch it some other time.
Thursday – husky sledging and the ice hotel
We’d booked a ride in a husky pulled sledge. This was by far the most expensive trip we did, but we felt that this was sort of a must do whilst in Lapland.
This was our worst day for weather, closer to -15 than the balmy 0 to -5 we’d experienced so far (we’d rarely been cold in all our layers), and it was cloudy and snowing lightly.
As well as being the most expensive this was the biggest group tour we’d joined. About 40 people in about 12 sledges. Unfortunately for us, we were in one of the front sledges, which meant walking between two rows of sledges with 6 highly excited and vocal huskies tied to each, and huskies in pens the other side of that. For Evie, who was scared of dogs at the time, this was not fun.
She took a bit of persuading to sit in one of the sledges behind the dogs. Once we were off though she was better. We got to stand on the back ‘steering’, although, in reality, the dogs follow the sledge in front and it’s in a run in the snow so you don’t really need to bother. It was fun pretending you were doing it though and trying to see if you could stop the sledge from hitting the sides of the trail. With the weather the visibility was poor and the snow whipped in our faces; definitely a missable experience for the money compared to the other days!
Later we drove ourselves to the Snow Village – an ice hotel a 30 minute drive away in Vesikkovaara. It’s a 3 star hotel with a bar which you can pay a little to go look round. Every room has a theme and carved sculptures in the room and on the walls – pretty impressive. There’s also a slide and drinking warm chocolate sat on reindeer skins on ice benches was pretty cool. Definitely worth a trip.
Friday – flying home
Time to go home. A two hour drive south to Rovaniemi airport (the main one most people go to on package tours). Bye bye beautiful skies.
Budget
In case anyone’s interested this is how the costs broke down. I’m pretty sure if you booked up much more in advance than our two months ahead you could save on the flights, accommodation and car hire…