- We wanted somewhere with winter and snow
- We wanted to try some place in Europe
So in the end, we thought, "Why not try to see the aurora, since it's disappearing?" Upon checking the airfare prices, they were extremely reasonable, and so we booked our trip.
We chose to fly by Qatar airways. I've taken their flights before and their service is excellent. We're intending to fly into Helsinki and then out via Stockholm, so we cover 2 countries.
Then came the planning itself.
The route:
The original plan was to go up to northern Finland, cross the border to Sweden and then come down to Stockholm. However, after reading up a bit more, I realised that no commercial train goes past the Finnish-Swedish border, so that option was out.
Hence, the plan was to go up from Helsinki to Lapland, come back down to Helsinki, take a plane to Stockholm and then fly out from there.
Accommodations:
Helsinki - Read up a bit and decided to stay at Kallio because it's a more hipster area with interesting nightlife and I felt that it would be more happening than the other areas. It's also not too far from the other attractions. I went for an Airbnb for this!
Rovaniemi - I booked the accommodations a bit late and hence, there weren't many options within my budget. In the end, I settled for Hotel Aakenus (through Agoda) which offered a more reasonable price for its location. I didn't bother with the Ice hotels and stuff because those are way too touristy and a bit too cold for my liking. My recommendation is plan and book this part early (at least more than 3 months in advance)
Stockholm - I managed to find an Airbnb at an interesting location. I chose it because it was within walking distance to a forest and it had very nice scenery surrounding it.
The programme:
It's easy to settle the itinerary in the cities (Helsinki and Stockholm) because transportation there is a lot more convenient and easier to navigate. However, I was slightly worried about Lapland because there isn't much daylight in winter and I don't know how lit up the area will be. Also, chasing the auroras can't be done on our own since we did not opt to self-drive. Hence, I searched up day programmes instead.
Things to take note when planning for a trip up in Lapland:
- Do you want to book a package tour for the lapland trip? Some travel agencies offer 5d4n tours up to Lapland from Helsinki. These are worry-free as they cover accommodation, meals and transport. I would highly recommend groups and students to book using Timetravel.
- If you wish to go free and easy like I did, then you will need to select for the day trips you want to do.
- Booking everything is too expensive so my suggestion is to choose what exactly you want. There are a few main categories: snowmobiling, huskies, reindeers, ice fishing, auroras. Check out this website for a more comprehensive list. The visitrovaniemi.fi official website is actually really good and you should take a read before deciding.
- Since auroras are not guaranteed every night, I highly recommend that you book more than one aurora trip.
These were my final decisions:
- Arctic Snowmobile Park Day B programme: Snowmobiling, reindeer and husky farms (plus rides) and Santa Claus Village - this is a programme that is extremely value for money, though both the rides are not the longest.
- Lapland Welcome aurora hunting by car and on foot: A simple one night aurora hunting
- Lapland Welcome overnight aurora hunting in an apartment: This saves us a night of accommodation and also increases the chance of seeing auroras through the night.
Transport to and from Lapland:
This part wasn't easy because the train booking websites were not user friendly.
There are 2 companies you can book the tickets with - VR or Eurail. My original plan was to go with VR because for Eurail, you had to buy a pass first before the seat reservations, whereas for VR it was just the ticket price. However, VR was too expensive (266 euros for 2 pax for a single sleeper train trip and the other one was 534 euros for 2 pax). You can check out their online shop here. Take note that you can only book the tickets 2 months in advance.
As I was only taking one trip up and one trip back, I booked the 3 day flexi pass. The 3 days need not be consecutive. For a night train that leaves after 7pm and reaches the destination after 4am, it is considered as 1 day. Hence, I only needed 2 days and the 3 day flexi pass for one country would suffice. I managed to get the passes on a 20% discount, hence it was 128 euros for adults (28 and over) and 105 euros for youth (up to 27). After purchasing the pass, proceed to the reservations portal to reserve seats on the train (approximately 30-40 euros per seat depending on what you get). The reservations portal is intermittently down. I had problems at first but after that it was fine. You should try to click the logout button if it doesn't detect your pass when you first purchase it.
Total cost for 2:
I managed to get everything to $6600 for 2 pax - inclusive of air tickets, accommodation, transport, booking of programmes. I thought this was rather reasonable and all my purchases were rather value-for-money. You'll need to be prepared to spend quite a bit as Scandinavian countries are the most expensive European countries to travel to!
I hope that this post would help you in your planning for Lapland! Stay tuned for a review after my trip!