If you’re looking for a winter long weekend break that ticks all the boxes – snow, Santa, saunas and sleigh rides included – then a trip inside the Arctic Circle to Lapland is just what you need. This part of the world is like a Christmas card come to life. But Scandinavia has a reputation for being one of the most expensive places to travel in, so how much does it really cost to visit Lapland? Here I share my budget breakdown for four nights in Rovaniemi in Finland.
Note: these costs are based on my travel style – mid-range with a touch of affordable luxury – so I keep costs down where I can to can splash out on special experiences. There’s usually a mixture of hotels and apartment rentals, cooking and eating out, free activities and paid excursions.
Read more: A winter wonderland trip to Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland
Budget breakdown for four days in Lapland

Snow and sparkling lights
Accommodation
Accommodation in Lapland is really mixed – on one end of the spectrum there are inexpensive hotel rooms in the main centres like Rovaniemi for around €110 a night. Or there’s an array of bucket-list-worthy places to stay like forest cabins and glass igloos where you won’t get much change from €500 a night. Prices vary through the winter too – the period before Christmas is peak season so you’ll pay a premium versus visiting between January and March.
We were visiting Lapland as a group of eight so it made sense to rent a house so we had a lounge to hang out in together, and could also cook some of our meals. We booked a five-bed house through AirBnB which sleeps up to 11 people and cost €1789/£1568/$2020 for four nights (including AirBnB fees). The location was perfect – quiet but only 10-minutes’ walk to Santa Claus Village where there are a lot of activities, a few restaurants and a bus into town.
Total accommodation cost: €223/£196/$253 per person – €56/£49/$63 a day each on average.

Rovaniemi’s Husky Park
Transport
There are direct flights from London to Rovaniemi with Norwegian and easyJet, as well as indirect Finnair flights via Helsinki. We paid £100 return for our easyJet flights from London Gatwick, booked three months in advance. But that was a new route and prices rose to over £300 a month before, so it’s good to book as early as you can as flights are limited.
Rovaniemi airport is only around 9km outside of town and 3km from Santa Claus Holiday Village. There’s a bus service which connects all three of them and an airport shuttle, but we pre-booked a minibus taxi to take us to our rental house, costing €23 each way. We also travelled into central Rovaniemi by taxi (€15 each way) and bus (€3.50 each way).
Total transport cost (excluding flights): €23/£21/$26 per person – €6/£5/$7 a day each on average.

The best way to travel
Activities
I don’t usually spend a lot on activities when I travel, but Lapland is one of those places where there are a ton of cool things to do to tempt you – snowmobiling, husky or reindeer sledding, Northern Lights tours, ice fishing, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. None of them are cheap though (think €100 per person for a half-day excursion or €55 for a 30-minute snowmobile safari) and prices can really add up if you want to try everything.
So we picked a couple of things we really wanted to do – a visit to the husky farm (€10), a short 500m ride on a husky sled (€30) and a 15-minute reindeer sleigh ride (€29). We also visited the Moomin Snowcastle ice sculpture park (€30) and the Arktikum environment and culture museum in Rovaniemi (€12). Unfortunately the weather conditions weren’t good for the Northern Lights so we gave that a miss, but a tour would’ve cost €99 per person.
There are lots of free things to do in Lapland too – cross the Arctic Circle, meet Santa Claus and visit the Christmas Museum, go for a walk through the forest, warm up in a sauna, sit by the campfire, watch one of the gorgeous pink sunrises or sunsets, go sledging (a lot of accommodation has a sled you can borrow), build a snowman or have a snowball fight.
Total activities cost: €112/£98/$127 per person – €22/£20/$25 a day each on average.

The Arktikum Museum
Food and drink
Our original plan was to mix up self-catering and eating out in the evenings, but we didn’t take into account how hard it would be to drag ourselves back out in the cold after it’d gotten dark by 3pm and we had a nice roaring fire going! So we we did a big food shop at the large K-Citymarket superstore in Rovaniemi at the start of the week (€57/£50/$64 per person) which gave us enough food for four days of breakfasts and dinners plus a few snacks.
Our house came with an amazing BBQ hut in the garden, so we cooked a side of salmon over the fire out there one night. We did eat out for lunch and warmed up with a hot chocolate a few times when we were out and about (total €34/£30/$38 per person) If you want to eat out more, an average main course at a restaurant will set you back €25–€30 in the evenings, or there are often special offers at lunchtime, with simple dishes like burgers for around €16.
This wasn’t my first trip to Scandinavia, so I already knew that alcohol was going to be pricey, so I stocked up on a couple of bottles of wine in duty free on the way out (€18/£16/$20). Finland sells alcohol through state-run Alko shops, which are the only place you can buy spirits, wine and beer over 5.5%. Or a bottle of wine in a restaurant costs around €30.
Total food and drink cost: €109/£96/$122 – €27/£24/$31 a day each on average.

Santa Claus Village
The grand total
The overall cost for our four days in Lapland came in at €467/£411/$528 per person. This works out at around €117/£103/$132 a night each, not including flights (funnily enough almost the same as I paid for my last trip to Scandinavia, visiting the Norwegian fjords). It was a really magical trip with some of the most beautiful scenery I’d ever seen, so was well worth it.
Lower budget? Lapland’s not easy to visit on a low budget. There’s a hostel in Rovaniemi but a dorm bunk still costs €50 a night, so unless you’re travelling solo, an apartment rental is likely to be the cheapest option. You could save by cooking your own food and avoiding alcohol.
Higher budget? If you’ve got cash to splash then Lapland is a great place to do it. You can sleep under the stars (and the Northern Lights if you’re lucky) in a glass-roofed igloo, do a day on the ski slopes at Ounasvaara Ski Resort or take a private aurora hunting or husky sled tour.
25 Comments
Sartenada
February 14, 2019 at 9:57 amExcellent travel report. Thank You. The wine which bought was pricy! Normally when buy the best German white wine, it costs about 10 -11 Euros.
Very nice that You visited Rovaniemi and the Arctic Circle. You could have made a nice train trip to Kemi. There is world biggest snow castle:
Best Snow Castle photos
Also, if You would have been in Finland on the first weekend after mid-February, then could have participated in a unique happening in the world:
Reindeer race 1
Reindeer race 2
This happening is once in the life time experience! Reading local photoblogs as mine, people get information which is told only in blogs!
Happy and safe travels.
Lucy
February 16, 2019 at 4:14 pmThanks for the tips – hope to get back and see more next time as this was just a taster, but the reindeer race looks amazing if I visit in February sometime.
p.s. the wine price was from a restaurant not Alko (not one I bought but that seemed to be the going rate on the menus!)
John
February 15, 2019 at 2:14 pmThanks for the detailed breakdown, Lucy – this is great! I’m actually not really that put off by the high price tag. It’s definitely over and above what I would usually pay for a four-day trip, but it’s not as if this is the kind of trip you would be forking out for again and again. I will definitely think about it for January 2020.
Lucy
February 16, 2019 at 4:15 pmThanks John – it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected either, though did make it cheaper being in a group, and as you say it’s a special experience that you’re not going to be doing every year!
Cassidy
February 15, 2019 at 3:14 pmI’ve wanted to do a trip like this but when I started looking into it all I was seeing were the 500Euro igloos and didn’t really look much further than that. Reading your post I am definitely going take your advice and look into renting a house with my friends to make the trip more affordable! Thank you for the breakdown and mentioning all of the activities you can do while there !
Lucy
February 16, 2019 at 4:16 pmThis glass igloos do look amazing – maybe one day! Until then it’s definitely possible to visit on a reasonable budget and still get the amazing experiences.
Jayme
February 19, 2019 at 2:51 pmLapland looks incredible! I’ve always wanted to spend the night in one of the igloos. $528 seems really reasonable for a 4 night stay. Unfortunately I think my plane ticket from the US might cost more than £100!
Lucy
February 25, 2019 at 2:06 pmYes unfortunately that’s going to be a bit more pricey! There are some good deals to Helsinki though from the US and you can often pick up a reasonable connecting flight.
Victoria@TheBritishBerliner
February 22, 2019 at 5:08 amI love your write-up Lucy.
I went to Norway for 3.5 days in January, and the prices were pretty much the same. I’ve been to Denmark many times, Finland and Sweden, and their prices are not as bad as you’d think!
When in the Nordic region I usually travel with our teenage son.
I sometimes opt for a boutique hostel so that he has some young-ish company, but the prices are so outrageous, it’s cheaper to book an art hotel or boutique hotel instead! So we usually do that and at €120-€150 per night, I find it more than reasonable!
Lucy
February 25, 2019 at 2:11 pmHostels are so expensive in Scandinavia aren’t they! For a group of us it’s been much better value to book an apartment but you do miss out on the social aspect if you’re travelling solo.
Kathy@DavesTravelCorner
February 24, 2019 at 8:52 amThank you for sharing this, Lucy. Thanks for the itinerary. I always dream to go in Lapland, ‘coz I love Christmas even if it’s not Christmas season. Lapland looks incredible and relaxing.
Lucy
February 25, 2019 at 2:14 pmIt’s definitely a great place for Christmas fans!
thedriftingmillennialblog
March 3, 2019 at 11:56 amI’ve been here, this brought back some great memories! So magical isn’t it ✨
Lucy
March 5, 2019 at 9:48 pmIt is a really magical place!
Oman Trips
March 5, 2019 at 10:53 amI went through your article and it’s totally awesome. I am searching for a blog about lapland, and my search ends with your blog. We are making a plan to go there in next week, this will hep us. Keep on updating your blog with such awesome information. Thanks
Lucy
March 5, 2019 at 9:50 pmThanks – so glad it was useful!
Jenny chong
March 25, 2019 at 3:26 pmHello. Lucy .
May I know which website can I pre booking / advance booking for all this activities such as
husky farm (€10), a short 500m ride on a husky sled (€30) and a 15-minute reindeer sleigh ride (€29) ? Is this all in Artic Circle ?
Lucy
March 30, 2019 at 7:05 pmHi these were all at the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi – you don’t need to book in advance and can just turn up on the day.
Jenny chong
April 8, 2019 at 8:35 amHi. Thank you for your kind reply 😉 I’ll travelling to Rovaniemi on Dec so I just walk in to Santa Claus Village to book all this activities ? Will it fully booked ?
Lucy
April 15, 2019 at 8:52 pmHi it does get busy in December but for the main activities like the husky and reindeer sleds you can’t book so you should be fine to just go along, though might be good to go early in the day to avoid queuing.
Keagan
August 28, 2019 at 8:26 amHi, Could you explain on ‘crossing the arctic circle’ ?
Lucy
September 2, 2019 at 2:15 amHi, there’s a line in the middle of Santa’s Village in Rovaniemi which marks the Arctic Circle so you can literally just cross it! There are some tours you can do with more of a ceremony too.
Dubai Tours
October 16, 2019 at 7:25 amis it safe to visit Lapland in December ?
Lucy
October 16, 2019 at 12:09 pmI think Lapland is pretty safe all year! The weather is cold in December but if you wrap up warm and don’t stay out too long you should be fine.
B
November 29, 2019 at 9:21 amGreat report! Did you manage to see the northern lights whilst there and if so, how? Would you recommend late December or late March? Really want to try see northern light!