KimKim and Moonika are amazing!

Finland | Jan 7 - Jan 15, 2025

The accommodations were perfect to get me to Lapland and make the most of my time there.

It was a nice boutique hotel in the city center, within walking distance of all of my activities. They even took my clothes for donation.

This was my bucket list item. I did not see the Northern Lights in the night that I stayed, but it was not for lack of a beautiful view. I saw a beautiful sunset and sunrise, though. It also has heated floors, and adjustable bed to watch the show (if it appears), and an Aurora alarm

This was a cute boutique hotel near the center of Helsinki. I did a city walking tour from here and afterwards found my way back. There is a lot of shopping nearby and it’s close to the train station

Niko was our Aurora hunter (as well as my transfer driver to and from the train.) The tour was very long, we were out for 8 hours searching for the elusive Aurora, not for lack of Niko’s efforts. This was the first night I crossed the Arctic Circle. Niko provided some juice and snacks. It was my first taste of the hot berry juice and I was hooked. I will learn how to make it.

This was so much fun. I have had dogs and I know how much they like to play. I had my own sled and 4 dogs who wanted to do nothing but pull and play. They were having as much fun as I was. Afterwards, I gave them some loving and my lead girl was very affectionate.

This was a very active tour as well. You know they mean business when they hand out spikes for your shoes before you get started. It was very scenic and COLD. But you are going to see frozen waterfalls. I had an “influencer” or “Instagramer” in my group and we were always waiting for them to finish their pictures.

This was an interesting experience. It was not as cold as I expected or as cold as some of my other activities. They had a vegan option, which I had. I could not eat all of my food because I had a sausage on the previous tour. It’s really interesting how the snow hotel and ice restaurant are built.

This was also an Aurora hunting experience, but no Aurora. Still, the snowshoeing was great. It had been a long time since I was on snowshoes. The snowshoeing was fresh, so it made the trek much better. Of course there was excellent hot berry juice. This was the “gloggi” version with the extra spices.

I paid extra for the single supplement, so I had my own sled. I had never driven an electric snowmobile, but have experience with a gas powered one. It was hard getting used to the lack of noise. The tour itself was great, partially on the frozen lake and a good path through the woods. We stopped at a cabin for a fire, sausages, hot juice and dessert pastry. We did not have to cook our own sausages this time, however by this time I was a sausage cooking pro!

This was a private tour and a bit pricey for what we did. Ainhoa (sp) did a really good job telling me about the city and country even though she is not Finnish or a native. Since it was a private tour, I asked all the questions, we got sidetracked on multiple conversations, but it was still informative. The second part of the tour was on Suomenlinna, which I took the ferry to get there. The ride was cold, but the view was amazing. The tour of the fort was a bit short because the sun was going down and there was no lighting. The tour started late in the day, 1:30 pm (1330 hrs), if it would have started earlier, we could have seen more, especially at the fort.

I learned a lot about reindeer on this tour. They are very docile creatures. Also, the females have antlers, albeit not as large as the males, just like certain bovine breeds. They need to keep their numbers at a certain level, so some are used as meat. I did not try any because I am a non-meat eater.