In this blog post I am going to take you through step by step instructions on how you can take your family to Lapland without breaking the bank. So many people get overwhelmed when it comes to booking and planning a Lapland holiday, and because of this many people think that the only way to book a trip like this is via expensive package deals. This is not the case.
We visited Lapland this year as a family of four, the total cost of the trip including return flights from Dublin, 3 nights accommodation, all transfers, and all activities was €1,299 (€324.75pp). The only thing that this doesn’t include is food and drink, but even if you factored this in the whole trip would have cost us less than €2,000.
Let’s jump straight into how you can do the same and take your family on that magical trip to Lapland without having to remortgage the house.
Step 1:
When to go
Decide when you want to go. I would recommend anytime between the beginning of December and the end of March. These are the snowy months in Lapland. Anytime before or after this and you are not guaranteed snow.
Step 2:
How to get there
Since the introduction of the direct route from Dublin to Rovaniemi, Finland with Ryanair it has never been easier to reach Lapland from Ireland.
Fly Dublin – Rovaniemi with Ryanair.
Flight time 3 hours 25 minutes.
To find cheap flights use one of the flight search engines such as Skyscanner or Kiwi.com
I always recommend booking flights directly with the airline, I simply use these websites as a tool to find the cheapest dates to fly.
The below reel will show you how to use the Kiwi app on your phone to find cheap flights. While the reel mentions summer holidays the basics covered are the same for finding cheap flights for any time of year and any destination.
Step 3:
Where to stay
Now that you know when you want to go and you have found cheap flights for your dates, it is time to figure out where you are going to stay.
Once you land in Rovaniemi airport you are only 5 minutes away from Santa Claus Village and 10 minutes away from Rovaniemi town centre. I am going to assume for the purposes of this blog post that you are not planning on renting a car whilst in Finland, so with this in mind your best options for accommodation are either:
- Santa Claus Holiday Village
- Rovaniemi Town Centre
Santa Claus Holiday Village (5 minutes from Rovaniemi airport), is located adjacent to Santa Claus Village on the Arctic Circle. Santa Claus Village is where you will find a lot of the winter activities in Rovaniemi. It is also home to Santa, you can visit Santa in his office in Santa Claus Village for free 365 days a year, and you can also cross the Arctic Circle.
You can see a list of the various activities in Santa Claus Village here.
Santa Claus Holiday Village is definitely a very convenient place to stay for your first trip to Lapland.
The next option is to rent an apartment in Rovaniemi town centre. Rovaniemi town centre is only 10 minutes from the airport and 10 minutes from Santa Claus Village.
Rovaniemi local bus number 8 runs all year between Rovaniemi town centre and Santa Claus Village. View the bus timetable here. From November-March there is also a private Santa Claus Bus that runs between Santa Claus Village, Rovaniemi town centre, and the airport. More info here.
You can find an endless number of self catering apartments in Rovaniemi town centre on booking.com. Type in Rovaniemi, your dates and your party size (number of adults & kids) and hit search. Use the filters to narrow down your search, I always use the ‘Very good: 8+’ filter and then sort by distance from city centre. When choosing an accommodation I will look for one with a good number of reviews too.
Step 4:
What to do when you are there
Now that we have our flights and accommodation sorted we want to put a loose plan together for our time in Lapland. Decide on what activities you want to do and pre book them (especially if going during peak months of Dec and Jan). My advice here would be to book a couple of your non negotiable activities, don’t book back to back activities for every day you are there, it will be exhausting and your kids won’t have time to just chill and play in the snow. Playing in the snow, sledging and building snowmen are some of my kids best memories from our trip.
Here are our 3 favourite activities:
- Husky Park Arctic Circle Adventure – Located in Santa Claus Village
- Elf’s Farmyard – Located in Santa Claus Village
- Snowman World – Located in Santa Claus Village
For a full list of activities available in Santa Claus Village click here.
If you decide to stay in Rovaniemi town centre make sure you take a stroll to the Angry Birds Playground for some free winter fun.
Step 5:
What to bring
I hope by this stage you are feeling less overwhelmed about booking your family trip to Lapland. I promise you it’s all really straight forward and you can 100% do it on a budget.
The fifth and final step is something that I think confuses a lot of people, and that is what clothes you need to bring with you. Would you believe me if I told you that we travelled to Lapland for 3 nights with 1 x 10kg and 4 x backpacks?
Base layer – The most important thing with this layer is that it is not cotton. You can get cheap effective base layers from Decathlon, Mountain Warehouse and Regatta. These base layers are perfect.
Mid layer – Polyester fleece and Merino Wool are perfect for this layer. Most of us have fleeces in our wardrobes that will work perfectly. If you don’t have any fleeces in your wardrobe, these ones are perfect.
Outer layer – Snow suit, or snow trousers and jacket. This layer needs to be waterproof not water resistant. Again, I bet if you check your wardrobe that a lot of you will already have a winter coat that is water proof, if this is the case you don’t need to be going out buying a new one (unless you want to of course).
Other – Snow boots, snoods, waterproof gloves, ski socks, hats.
If you want to see exactly what we brought with us on our trip and where we bought everything from you can check out the highlight on my Instagram page.
Flipflops and Floaties 
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