How To Have The Best Five Days In Lapland

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Visiting Lapland during winter is the perfect time to see the most magical white Christmas looking place! Yes Lapland is beautiful. Spending four full days in Lapland is the ideal amount of time to fit in the best things to do in Lapland whilst also being able to appreciate its natural beauty. From speeding through the snowy landscape on snowmobiles to riding in a sleigh drawn by huskies, there’s so many awesome activities you can do.

The Northern Lights are naturally a huge draw-card for why people visit Lapland, and yes we saw them! However Lapland was SO MUCH MORE. With four nights and five days in Lapland, we discovered a lot. This post details our trip – from the accommodation to the activities and of course seeing the aurora!

Our Lapland itinerary at a glance

Day 1

Arrive in Kittila, Finland for Lapland Adventure

Visit to Snow Hotel in Finland and drive to accommodation in Sweden

Stay at Pinetree Lodge via Xplore The North

Day 2

Cross Country Skiing and Snowmobiling

Stay at at Auroro Hideaway via Xplore The North

Day 3

Husky Adventure, Reindeer feeding and Snowshoeing

Stay at Pinetree Lodge via Xplore The North

Day 4

Snow hike, Ice Fishing on frozen lake and Sauna evening

Stay at Pinetree Lodge via Xplore The North

Day 5

Sunrise and departure

Where Is Lapland?

Good question! When I mentioned to people we were heading to Lapland, quite a few of them were not 100% sure where it is – so let me tell you. Lapland is a region that spans 4 countries – Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Iceland is NOT part of Lapland! The people up in Lapland are still classified as Norwegians if they live in Norwegian Lapland etc. 

The local people are called Saami (“Sah-me”) and used to travel across the four countries based on seasons and seasonal produce. These days, they are no longer a nomadic people and have permanent houses. 

Interesting: All reindeer in Lapland are owned by the Saami people collectively. You cannot own a reindeer if you are not a Saami, even if you live up in Lapland. 

Tour Agencies Lapland

As visiting Lapland is on many people’s Bucket List’s, many tour agencies will send you to Lapland for the perfect adventure. For my fiance’s father’s 60th, we travelled together to Lapland via a tour agency – Xplore The North. 

Why use a tour agency?

What makes tour agencies really handy is that they have already organised your entire trip, so all you have to do is show up! And that’s exactly what we did. We received a packing list which was really helpful – also noting what gear we’d be given at our lodge. Thankfully we were given lots of warm clothing and Sorel boots for our time in Lapland as it can get seriously cold.

Upon arrival at our Lodge in Lapland, our next few days were explained to us. We were also given a schedule so that we knew when our activities were. This required very little thinking which made for a really relaxing trip.

Seeing the Northern Lights in Lapland

Seeing the Aurora Borealis has been so high on my bucket list and I can finally tick it off! We saw the Northern Lights 3 nights in a row during our Lapland Adventure – not something we expected! The thing about the Northern Lights is that it does not happen so often and a trip to Lapland does not guarantee you seeing them! 

There are a lot of factors involved, but basically, having a clear sky is the main one. The lights can be very strong, but if there are clouds in the night sky – you won’t see the aurora! During our experience we had low chance every single night. However, as soon as the clouds cleared we had them dancing above us. 

Another thing I need to share: please don’t expect to see green light as you see in photographs. The light is green, however as it is so faint to the eye, we found each night we saw a grey/white cloud-ish light dancing across the sky. It wasn’t green to our eyes at all! Yet with a 30 second exposure on our camera – we captured the classic Northern Lights photo with bright green across the sky. My iPhone X could not see them at all, so make sure if you want to photograph the Aurora, that you have a decent camera that you can alter the shutter speed of!

Regardless of the lack of green to the naked eye – seeing the light dance across the sky was still an amazing experience! 

PineTree Lodge & the Aurora Hideaway

Our tour to Lapland took us to the Pinetree Lodge where we stayed for four nights total. The Lodge has sufficient rooms with comfortable beds, large bathrooms, clothing hooks and wardrobes. This is important as you have a lot of clothing to hang up! 

The Lodge was located on the edge of a frozen lake (90cm thick!) which made for an absolutely stunning location! The lodge is completely made of wood and with a completely charming and cosy interior design. 

As we came here on our tour, we found the lodge had everything we needed, with warm and helpful staff. But my favourite feature of the lodge was the huskies. At Pinetree Lodge they have around 194 husky dogs – all of which are absolute darlings. Every single day I visited, cuddled and pet the dogs during down time. They also have a book-able sauna and spa.

Also, for those seeking the northern lights, you received a door hanger which could notify if you wanted to be woken up if they northern lights came out! 

The Pinetree Lodge also offers 2 Aurora Hideaway cabins, which are built of wood and have walls and a ceiling of glass. Located in the woods, they are the perfect place to spend an evening (hopefully) watching the norther lights! We had an upgrade for one night to the cabin, which had a bed with comfy bedding, reindeer skins, and two bedside tables. Very minimalist, this cabin is not meant to do anything but give you a good nights rest under the stars!

Eating in Lapland

The Lodge also served us 3 meals per day. Breakfast was a hot and cold buffet, with eggs, bacon, smoked salmon, cheeses and other deli meats, yoghurt and toppings. Lunch was generally numerous salads, soup and breads, and dinner was 3 courses. First course was always the lunch salads again, followed by a fancy main and dessert. During our trip we ate moose stew, a moose burger, salmon and roast beef and all of the meals were super delicious!

We try to eat as little carbohydrates as possible as we are dieting for our wedding – however this was quite difficult at the Pinetree Lodge. Everything is very bread based, and all salads had carbs in them too, as well as all of the soups. After a couple of days, we decided to eat carbs as we were burning a lot of calories per day with all of the activities. 

Our four-night itinerary for a Lapland adventure in Sweden

Day 1

Arrival

Our flight to Kittila in Finland left Amsterdam at 6am (super early for me!!), landing at 10:30am in Finland and we were soon greeted by one of the tour guides from Xplore The North. A coffee drank and our bags off the plane, we made our way to our coach bus which would drive us to Sweden. 

Snow Hotel

A short drive away from Kittila, we visited the Snow Hotel. Within the Snow Hotel were passageways, a slide, bedrooms, a bar, and a restaurant all made from snow and ice! However what made it even cooler for me was the theme of the hotel being Game Of Thrones! As some of you may have realised – I love Game of Thrones (see Costa Brava post for more info!) so all of the sculptures were extra amazing for me!

Checking in to the Pinetree Lodge

After we all arrived at the lovely Pinetree Lodge, we heard the plans for the next 4 days of activities and asked to go and grab our warm gear. What was great about this is that if you don’t have much in the way of warm clothes (like me!) then you are still going to be warm when you are outside! We also had a walk of the property, visiting the husky dogs, walking some of the tracks into the wilderness and enjoying the on-site pub/tavern for a few local beers. 

Day 2

Sunrise

We chose to wake up early on our first morning in order to watch the sunrise from the frozen lake. At about 6:30am we headed out onto the lake, finding a good spot to watch the sun rise.

Cross Country Skiing

After breakfast we headed straight for the ‘shed’ to grab our ski’s and poles and learn how to cross-country ski. We were taken to a snow field where a track had already been made for us to practice, given the run down of what to do, and then we tried it! Some of our group were more confident than others (me being the not-so-confident one!) and found cross country skiing a walk in the park. They left for the 4km track to  challenge themselves, whilst little old me stayed to do another lap of the track. On my 2nd lap I worked out how to do it and actually really enjoyed it! Definitely not something I expected to like doing, but I would love to give it another go at my next available opportunity!

Visiting the dogs

Ohmygod these dogs. I fell in love with the dogs immediately, how could you not?! Their happy faces and cuddly nature made them an instant heart warmer! 

Snow Mobile

Our afternoon activity was a good one! After getting our helmets fitted, we chose our snowmobiles and readied ourselves for a few hours drive through the stunning landscape! We glided along the track looking for reindeer and admiring the views. Riding up and down hills, crossing frozen rivers/lakes and driving over snow-covered bridges. It was pretty cool.

As we were riding across a large frozen lake, my partner drove off the track accidentally and we fell into the deep snow in slow motion! Thankfully no cuts, just a couple of bruises, we continued on our way. I took the reigns in the later stages of our drive and found driving the snowmobile was exhilarating! I was too scared during the first half of the ride to give it a go, but once I did I wished I’d driven from the beginning! It is not very hard at all, you just need to concentrate on keeping to the track! 

Once we finished our snowmobile adventure, our tour guide gave us all some warmed berry juice – a typical drink in Lapland – to warm up! 

Aurora Hideaway

We walked from our Lapland Lodge along a quiet pathway through the wilderness in the pitch black to our ‘Aurora Hideaway’ to spend an evening under the stars. The cabin was built from wood, but had glass on all sides and the roof so that we were completely surrounded by the wilderness. We drank our complimentary bottle of champagne & ate our Swedish chocolate as we watched the Northern Lights dance across the night sky from the warmth of our glass cabin – a pretty surreal experience.

In the morning, we woke up to the most humbling view. Gorgeous, peaceful, beautiful surroundings. Waking up in the middle of nowhere was my absolute highlight of our trip to Lapland!

Day 3

Huskie Adventure

After another delicious breakfast, we headed out to the shed to our morning activity – dog sledding!  After a quick explanation on how to drive the sleighs we were taken into the dog kennels to pick our dogs for the day! The excitement was high for us humans, but even higher for the dogs who were crazy with excitement, shaking, jumping, barking, licking – it was all too much! We picked our lovely dogs, gave them a pep talk and some cuddles, and then got ourselves organised.

We decided my partner would drive whilst I sat helping steer from the sleigh. This also gave me the best opportunity to take photos! Once we were off and running, we found the dogs quite fun! They love to run, and can run over 100km per day – we would do about 20km in the hours we were out. 

Now, my partner was doing a good job of driving and steering the dogs until there was a ditch along the deep snow. Somehow, he drove our sleigh into the ditch tipping our slay over! I was thrown out of the sleigh and he fell from the back into the deep snow at full pace! Yes – two days in a row he steered me into the snow! He was able on our way down to throw the anchor out so the dogs would stop running which was very smart. Falling out of the sleigh was not as slow as falling off the snow mobile and I gained a few more bruises with this fall. I quite like being able to say I fell out of the sleigh and survived though so I’m not mad about it 😉

Meeting Reindeer

Our afternoon activity saw us take the mini-bus and drive 10 minutes away to where the Reindeer are kept during winter. We were able to pat and feed the reindeer and learn about the reindeer and Saami culture a little bit more! The Reindeer are kept in these farms during winter since the food becomes too sparse due to the ground cover of thick ice – so keeping them safe in winter at these farms is the best way to make sure the population stays. When the weather gets nice enough for the reindeer to survive the rest of the year, they are allowed out of the farms. The lead female is chipped making it easy to find her and her pack each winter, when the cycle continues. 

Snow Shoe

Snow Shoeing is for sure the hardest activity we did during our time in Lapland! It is also rewarding and fun! But I definitely had sore muscles the next day! After strapping on the snow shoes, we spent 40 minutes walking up and down steep hills and through meadows in the dark of the night. We all wore head lamps to be able to see which is quite crucial! Snow Shoeing is no joke and you will not need to wear all of your thermal layers during this activity as you will sweat it up! 

Half way we stopped and made a campfire and drank more of the warm berry juice in hopes of seeing the aurora borealis. Unfortunately it was too cloudy so we headed back to the lodge via some very deep snow – which was as high as my hips! 

Day 4

Morning Snow Walk

Our last full day in Lapland was also a free day. It is just so beautiful in Lapland that even though we were tired, we still wanted to get out and explore. We headed for a stroll through the snow and woods for a couple of hours of fresh air and exercise. This is what happens to you when you are in Lapland!

Ice Fishing

With the group all feeling tired, ice fishing was the perfect activity to do on our last day. It’s very simple, you drill a hole in the ice, prepare your fishing pole and sit down for two hours relaxing. We caught nothing! But we did relax in the Lapland sunshine.

Sauna & Hot Tub Evening

After our final dinner at the Pinetree Lodge we donned our swimsuits for another relaxing activity. Swedish sauna and a hot tub were waiting for us! The hot tub was outside overlooking the frozen lake. And we could see the stars from the hot tub, glass of wine in hand.Bliss. Two of the guys decided it was a great idea to run through the snow to the small plunge pool. It was actually the lake with a hole in it. They jumped into the icy-cold plunge pool for that ‘only in Lapland’ feeling. I watched from the warm bubbling hot tub! 

Day 5

Sunrise

I don’t know if it was because I was feeling nostalgic that it was our last morning in Lapland., but the sunrise was the most beautiful of the week!

Departure (drive & Airport)

We threw our gear onto the coach bus to take us to Kittila Airport. After waving goodbye to the staff of Pinetree Lodge I realised the motto which they told us at the start of our adventure was true.. “Arrive as a guest, leave as a friend”. 

The drive back to Kittila took 2.5 hours, yet I couldn’t take a nap. The scenery was too interesting! I’ve seen never-ending landscapes of snow and pinetrees through-out the 5 days in Lapland, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the scenery just yet! 

Keen to head to Lapland? Let me help you!

Make sure you get the cheapest flights via Skyscanner! 

Need accommodation? Get your hotel booked on Booking.com! Or more of an Airbnb person? 

Prefer an organised tour?

We booked out trip with Xplore The North – check them out! And here are some other great options!

Let me know if you are heading to Lapland and if you have any questions for me!

Feel free to share your adventure with me via social media – too! 

And above all – have fun!

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About Lesley

Australian expat, married to a Dutch guy, living in Amsterdam. Previously lived in London for 3 years, too! Lover of travel, coffee, brunch, beaches, fresh flowers, and family. Now a new mum, navigating life with a baby!