We recently visited Rovaniemi in Finland, in the hopes of seeing the Northern Lights.
We found them, as we had hoped – but what we were not expecting, was to also find so many other awesome adventures!
This is the official hometown of Santa Claus (for real!), you can meet him, hang out at his post office and even see him doing guest appearances at local football games. You can mountain bike through the snow, float in Arctic lakes (special floating suits, not cold at all), go husky sledding, visit the Arktikum Museum (a must!) and of course, Aurora Safari – also known as Northern Lights hunting.
This kind of adventure, certainly does NOT have to:
- Be a mission to get to: You can fly from Helsinki directly to the edge of the Arctic Circle, Rovaniemi has a fantastic airport.
- OR hinge on wether or not you see the lights: In these parts they say there is Aurora activity on about 200 nights per year, so the odds are high. However, even on the 2 nights we couldn’t see the lights, we had been so busy during the day, it was a relief to be able to get a good night’s rest!
People have been asking me for advice on how to plan a trip and I can really recommend Rovaniemi’s tourism office as a resource – go check them out at @VisitRovaniemi.
They arranged all of our activities and accommodation for us.
Want to take a sneak peek into our photo album?
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- When we arrived it was still autumn, but when we awoke the next morning, we suddenly found ourselves in a winter wonderland!
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- Arktikum Museum
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- This iconic museum captures the history of man adapting to life in the arctic, the animals that live there and even Finnish sauna traditions.
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- The actual museum is mostly underground with that glass spine the only part visible from outside.
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- Autumn is downright spectacular in that part of the world.
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- Floating is probably the most relaxing thing you can do for your body. Particularly after frlying to the Arctic from the Southern tip of Africa
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- The lake was already quite iced over.
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- Bobbing delightfully alongside my husband. Bliss.
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- Solo bobbing.
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- Almost too pretty to be true, hey?
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- The Northern Lights require quite a bit of photographic wizardry
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- A tripod is essential, however.
There's 1 Comment
Wow! Jou fotos en stories is altyd so opwindend en mooi! Ek love #masperoadventures. Stunning Elma!