Lapland with children

The ages the operators will not bend

None of the limits below are ours. Every one is an operator’s own booking rule, and they are the first thing to check before you build a week around an activity your child cannot join.

The age nobody publishes is the one that matters most. We looked for an official minimum age for a Lapland holiday and did not find one, so what follows is our view and not a rule anybody enforces. A child who knows who Santa is, and who can say when their hands are cold, gets the most out of the trip. Under about three, the trip is mostly for the adults. That can still be worth doing, planned around naps and short outings. It is worth knowing before you pay for it.

Two activities a day, because the day is that short

An average December day at Rovaniemi airport runs from -10.6 °C to -4.9 °C, and on about 15 days of the month the low falls below -10 °C. On 21 December the sun is up for about 2 hours 15 minutes there, with a usable blue twilight either side of it: civil twilight runs from about 09:15 to 15:15, which is the six hours you actually get to spend the day in. Further north it does not rise at all.

So: two activities a day at most, one of them in the light, and an afternoon back at the accommodation before the evening starts. Children get cold faster than adults and mention it later. Visit Finland’s advice is layers, wool next to the skin, and waterproof, windproof outer layers. Where a tour includes warm outer clothing its own booking page says so, and what it covers is the activity. The standing about between activities is on you, and that is what what to wear is for.

If the light is what you care about, February and March give you eight hours or more and the same snow on the ground, which is where we send most families. December has one argument in its favour and it is Christmas itself, covered on Christmas in Lapland.

What to drop

Most disappointing family weeks are over-booked ones. Three things we would cut first.

The second long safari in a day. A husky trip is two to three hours door to door once you count the dressing and the transfer, and two of those in one short day leaves you a tired child and no daylight.

The aurora night with small children. The aurora is a night activity and the youngest children are asleep for it. One attempt on a three-night trip is realistic; the Northern Lights guide explains why nothing but more nights improves the odds.

A base picked for the sky when the transfers are what will decide your week. Around Inari the sun does not rise at all from early December, which makes it the better aurora trip and the harder one with a five-year-old, because everything there is further from everything else.

Rovaniemi first, Levi if you ski

Rovaniemi is the base we would choose for a first trip. The airport is 10 km from the centre, Santa Claus Village is about 8 km north on a local bus route, and on the morning a tour is cancelled there is a museum and a town to walk in, which is worth more than it sounds. Levi suits families who want to ski, with the slopes and the restaurants in one place. The two are set against each other on Rovaniemi or Levi, and the bases further north are on where to stay.

Whichever you choose, a ground-floor room or a cabin with somewhere to dry snowsuits is worth more on a family trip than a view. Nothing dries overnight in a hotel bathroom.

What it costs for a family

Lapland’s hotel prices are published by region and not by town, and December is the peak: Statistics Finland’s revised table puts the Lapland average at about 324 EUR a night that month, against 160 EUR for Finland as a whole. A family of four is usually paying for one family room or a cabin instead of two rooms, which helps. The activities do not work that way. They are priced per person, so a husky or reindeer safari for four climbs faster than the bed does.

The full breakdown, with what drives each figure, is on what a Lapland trip costs. Not every attraction publishes a family ticket, and we did not find one for all of them, so that page carries what each operator prints rather than a total we made up.