What to wear in Lapland

Three layers, each with one job

Visit Finland’s advice is what Finns give each other: layers, starting with wool. Each layer has its own job, and whoever is cold has nearly always skipped one.

Next to the skin goes a base layer, and it must not be cotton. Visit Finland names merino wool, bamboo or silk, and says wool “stays warm even when wet”. Cotton holds your sweat against the skin, and a cotton t-shirt under an expensive coat will still leave you shivering on a husky sled.

In the middle goes insulation you can take off. A wool jumper or a fleece, plus a second thin one for the coldest day, so that walking into a warm room means shedding a layer instead of sweating into your base layer.

Outside goes windproof and waterproof, with a hood. Visit Finland says a coat should be windproof and waterproof, names down and feathers among the fillings, and calls a hood “a must-have feature in any good coat”. Wind is the variable people underestimate, and it is strongest on the open fells and along the coast.

What to wear under a snowsuit in Lapland

On a safari the operator’s suit replaces your coat, and your base and middle layers stay on underneath. Lapland Safaris’ own dressing guide asks you to arrive in long thermal underwear, your own socks, loose trousers, a loose shirt with a high collar and a wool or fleece jumper. Your jacket and shoes stay on a hanger in its dressing room.

Then the guides hand the kit over in order: woollen socks to pull over your own, boots at least one size bigger than your usual size with an inner boot of compressed wool, the one-piece overall, a balaclava, mittens, a helmet, and a hat and scarf if you want them. Its sizes run from children of 1 or 2 to European shoe size 51 to 52 and XXXL overalls. Book three or more activities with it and you can take the set back to your room until the last one.

A UK package that lends suits for the whole stay gives the same advice for underneath: thermal base layers, a fleece or roll-neck, and several light layers over one thick one. It also asks you to bring liner gloves for under its mittens. Loose is the word both use.

What to wear on the plane to Lapland

Wear the layers you will later wear under the suit, in a form you can peel off, because the plane and the terminal are heated.

On a package that hands out boots on arrival, fly in ordinary shoes: one UK operator tells its guests to bring “sensible shoes” for the flight and gives out thermal boots in the resort. Travelling on your own, wear your winter boots and your heaviest coat on board instead of packing them. They are the bulkiest things you own, and the same operator’s charter flights allow one hold bag of 20 kg or 22 kg a person, depending on the airline.

If you are renting, you can go without the bulky layers altogether. Visit Finland says rental clothing can be pre-ordered to collect at the airport.

Feet, hands, head, face, eyes

A day outside ends when the feet, hands or face give up, hardly ever because the body under the coat got cold.

Gloves, boots, socks and thermals, item by item

Each piece, with what a safari operator hands out and what stays your job.

For a family, the same list times each child, plus a spare set of socks and gloves for every small pair of hands. Swimwear is worth packing too if you will use a shared sauna.

What a tour lends you, and the hours it does not cover

Safari operators list what each tour includes on its own booking page, and warm outer clothing is a common inclusion. Check that line before you buy anything, because it varies by operator and by tour, and we found no single rule covering all of them.

Borrowed kit covers the safari and nothing else. The rest of the day is longer: waiting for a bus, walking to dinner, watching the sky outside your accommodation, all in your own clothes, and those are the hours when people get cold.

If nobody in your party wants to buy a winter wardrobe for one week, Visit Finland points to winter clothing rental, including pre-ordering a set to collect at the airport. We have tested no rental company and we recommend none.

Buy, borrow or rent your Lapland clothes

Rent the outer layer, buy what touches your skin, borrow what a friend who skis already owns. The outer layer is the bulky, expensive part you will not wear again at home, and it is what the rental shops lend. The base layer is small, packs easily and is yours to keep, and none of the rental sets we read includes one. Ski trousers, a ski jacket and ski gloves from someone you know will do for the middle of the day, though not for an hour standing still under the sky.

Two rental shops that publish their prices on their own sites, as a sample and not a recommendation:

Wild Nordic prices 2 days at 50 EUR and counts a day as 24 hours; it also holds the renter liable for loss or damage, at a minimum of 150 EUR. North Wind Lapland’s ladder runs 41, 54, 67, 79, 88, 94 and 99 EUR for one to seven days. Neither publishes a price for base layers, which both expect you to bring.

How cold it gets, and how cold that feels standing still

Visit Finland puts the average Lapland winter temperature at -14 °C, with occasional dips to -30 °C. The month-by-month figures we use come from the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s 1991 to 2020 normals for Rovaniemi airport, and they are averages: a normal January day runs from about -14 °C to -7 °C, and the coldest reading at that station in those thirty years was -38.1 °C.

Dress for standing still. Aurora watching means an hour at a time in one spot, and clothes that keep you warm on the move will not do it when you stop. The coldest nights are also the clear ones, so the night you most want to be outside is the night you will need the extra layer.

When to go sets out the months, and each month page carries its own figures, for example Lapland in January and Lapland in March.

What people get wrong

Buying a heavy coat and thin socks. The coat is rarely the problem.

Packing one pair of gloves. Wet gloves stay wet all day, and a second pair is the least expensive comfort on the whole trip.

Jeans. They soak up snow, hold it against the skin and take a day to dry.

Dressing for the activity and nothing else. The suit comes off when the safari ends, and the walk back to the car happens in your own clothes.

Overdressing indoors. Finnish buildings are warm, and sweating into a base layer before you have even gone out is the most common way to spend the evening cold.