How We Planned our Amazing DIY Christmas Trip to Lapland

*Affiliate Links

Lapland has always been on my travel dream list, even more so since having children but as we all know, having young children costs… a lot! And even though we had talked about making this trip happen years ago, we couldn’t ever afford to. This year, however, I decided we just had to go what with our eldest turning 11. So I carefully (and secretly) saved up and announced to my husband in September that life is too short and that we needed to organise a surprise Christmas trip to Lapland for the boys. He may have reluctantly agreed at the start but as soon as he started researching everything he was completely invested and between us we worked hard to make our DIY Lapland trip happen…

Location

When people talk about Lapland, the most popular destination that crops up is Rovaniemi, the home of Santa Claus’s Village. However, Lapland isn’t just one place, in fact, the region covers 100,367 km² across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. It is a vast area within the Arctic Circle and the internet tells me it consists of 92,667 km² dry land, 6,316 km² fresh water and 1,383 km² seawater! So, there is a large snowy world out there for you to choose from when you opt to holiday here.

Before doing anything, I would really recommend looking into all of the locations and carefully choosing what would suit you and your family. After all, we do all have different needs and wants from a holiday. Personally, for us, Rovaniemi seemed too tourist-heavy. It gets extremely busy at Christmas and is overly commercialised so we ruled this out right at the start. We wanted a more unique feel to our Lappish break and from a little bit of online research, we liked the sound of Äkäslompolo, Levi and Saariselkä. All quieter, smaller areas where we felt we would enjoy the magical and peaceful side of Lapland.

Package Deals or DIY?

With us leaving this trip idea fairly last minute my initial thinking was to go with a package holiday, having everything arranged for us so we wouldn’t have to think too much. I started making enquiries with different companies/agents for a Christmas stay but I was really surprised by the quoted costs that were coming back. Some examples for you (a family of 4): hotel for 3 days at £7.5k, another hotel for a week at £9.7k, 3 nights in a hotel at £5.4k, 7 nights in a self-catering apartment at £5574 (no extras included such as snow gear or excursions). We did come across one holiday venue in Levi (The Northern Lights Village in case anyone is interested**) which we were quite eager to get and at £3.9k it seemed far more reasonably priced than the other packages we had looked at but we missed out on this twice due to the high demand at Christmas (everyone jumps when a cancellation comes up). At the time this was really disappointing but after some further thought and discussions, we decided this was probably for the best as we felt we needed a little bit longer than 3 days.

So, my next step was to join some Facebook groups to get an idea of what others were doing – there are loads of helpful groups out there from DIY to clothing, groups run by travel agents and ones for reviews. It seemed that doing a DIY trip was actually pretty simple allowing you to spend as much or as little as you wanted whilst having the freedom to tailor your holiday to your needs. As we always do our holidays like this when we travel within the UK we felt it would be something we could definitely pull off within a couple of months.

**We did see this accommodation during our visit (Searching for Santa Experience) and to be very honest it just seemed like an upscaled holiday park. The photos we saw made it look much smaller and exclusive, a premium holiday destination but there were far more igloo pods than we had realised there were going to be. On stepping inside the main building we were met with a crowded space, screeching children, fighting children (I had to step over them on the floor to get to the toilets!) and a lot of noise. It wasn’t at all what we were expecting. So we were quite relieved we missed out.

DIY Steps For Booking Our Lapland Trip

Accommodation – We began our search by looking through the available options on Airbnb to get an idea of what would be suitable both in terms of needs and affordability. Once we had one we really liked we went in and checked flights…

Flights – We chose to go on a Sunday which unfortunately meant we couldn’t get a direct flight to Kittilä but due to the dates of the children breaking up and where Christmas fell, we decided this was our best option for departing so we went for it and booked flights from Heathrow to Düsseldorf then Düsseldorf to Kittilä for Sunday 22nd. For the way back on Friday 27th we booked flights from Kittilä to Frankfurt and then to Heathrow. This also allowed for checking 4 suitcases at 23kg each which was needed as we were taking out Christmas and birthday gifts too (we didn’t use all that weight allowance but it was there if we needed).

Accommodation – With flights booked, we could go ahead and book our accommodation. We really struck lucky with our 2 bed cabin in Äkäslompolo. This was near to restaurants, the shopping centre, ski resorts etc. We opted for 5 nights which gave us 4 1/2 days to enjoy.

Car Park – We chose to drive to Heathrow and paid to park our car for the 5 nights.

Hire Car – We did consider public transport but when we started to research excursions and getting around, we decided that a hire car would work better for us as a family (trying to get 2 children out on time, to a bus/taxi on time didn’t appeal). The hire car desk is found just after baggage claim at the airport and is a smooth process once there. **Note we did need to pay extra for booster seats and insurance.

Excursions – The last step was to decide what we wanted to see and do. On the top of my list was a Husky ride. This was something I wished we had done during our trip to Tromso (another amazing place to visit by the way!) and it is a popular excursion in Lapland. As a member of the affiliate scheme at MANAWA, I knew I could go straight to their website and find exactly what we needed. Using their search bar you can type in your chosen location then you can select which activity you are interested in and from there you can read about the excursions, view images, compare prices and read reviews. In the end, we chose this Family-Friendly Self-Drive Dog Sledding Safari. But across Finnish Lapland, they have 36 to choose from which you can view here.

• Read my Honest Review: Family-Friendly Husky Dog Sledding Safari, Lapland Here

The next must-do for our trip was of course to see Santa. From reading posts in the Facebook groups I had joined, the Searching for Santa Experience at The Northern Lights Village seemed to be a popular and positive choice. This is a 3-hour long event for all the family which includes cookie making, a short reindeer ride, a hot chocolate stop, entertainment throughout from elves, a snowmobile taxi ride, meeting with Santa plus gift finished off with toasting marshmallows with more elves. I booked this directly via their website here.

• Read my (very) Honest Review of The Searching For Santa Experience at The Northern Lights Village Here

We did also try to book a snowmobile tour via MANAWA but unfortunately, it was fully booked, however, with the limited time we had in Lapland this wasn’t too much of an issue and is now on our to-do list for our next visit!

Our final, very last-minute booking was for Arcandia – Artic Adventure Park which my husband stumbled across during his research. The reviews were really good and the images looked spectacular so around 2 weeks before we left we added this to our itinerary too. Again, we booked with them directly on their website here.

• Read my Arcandia – Arctic Adventure Park Review Here

Free things to do included walks/treks and sledging at the nearby Ylläs Ski Resort.

• Read About How We Spent Our Magical 5 Night Stay in Lapland Here

Costings

I have to admit that when we first started looking into this I had read blogs from people who had done their trip for £3k or under and I thought yeah I can do that too… But no, I didn’t. We didn’t want to go for a budget flat/apartment, we felt we needed to truly experience the best of Lapland and a cute cabin with two bedrooms, all the amenities including a sauna ticked all of our boxes. We knew we wanted to be away for Christmas (and my son’s birthday) which automatically pushed prices up and we wanted to do some really good days out/excursions. Considering all we did, where we stayed, the fact we had the freedom of having a car I am happy with what we spent (having said that I wouldn’t book the Santa Experience again simply because we have done it now and it was fairly pricey).

Our breakdown of costs:

Flights – £1,820

Car Park Heathrow – £116

Accommodation – £1,070

Car Hire – £1,140 (Hybrid estate with full insurance and 2 booster seats)

Clothing Hire – £265 for 5 days (we hired 4 pairs of snow boots, a jacket for me, a jacket and trousers for the eldest and all in one for the youngest)

Husky Safari – £415 (I was given a 10% discount for being with their affiliate scheme)

Searching for Santa – £399.20

Arcandia – £290

Total=£5,515

This total does exclude food and drink but we did most meals at our cabin and purchased this from the supermarket. We spent around £150 and this was too much as we didn’t need it all (Finnish prices are high by the way). We ate out around 3 times and always had two bottles of water on us as well as snacks.

How you could make extra savings:

• Don’t visit at peak times
• Shop around for flights, the prices can vary depending on when you book (earlier tends to be better) and the times you book for
• Look for cheaper accommodation
• Opt for more free activities (I’ll be honest, our children would have loved to have gone sledging every single day!)
• Shop around for better Santa Experience deals
• Don’t park at the airport (maybe a very kind family member could be a free taxi?)
• Meal plan and budget yourself in the supermarket (and definitely don’t shop when you are tired and hungry! Oops)
• If you plan on going on more winter holidays maybe invest in all your snow gear and take this out with you (there are lots on Vinted if you wanted to save money this way too)

Planning Your Clothing and Tips For The Cold!

I wanted to include this because it was a topic that came up a lot in the Facebook groups and created the most worry. Having already visited Tromso (Norway) and Salzburg (Austria) we were aware that the cold there and the cold in the UK are two very, VERY different types of cold. So, tip number one is don’t be afraid of the cold. The cold in countries like these and in Lapland is a dry cold. Here we get damp, wet and chilly snow days along with ice and slush. The cold here can really get through to your bones whereas the cold in Lapland (and other similar places) is nowhere near the same. The snow stays soft and fluffy, the air is fresh and with the right layering, you will be able to stay out in it for hours without feeling freezing cold. Tip number two, the clothing you will need to take…

Your ideal daily clothing combo includes:

• Thermal base layers
• Thermal/ski socks
• Long sleeved top/t-shirt (you can purchase thermal t-shirts too)
• Good thick jumper
• Ski trousers (the children wore jogging bottoms under theirs)
• Ski jacket
• Appropriate gloves/mittens (mittens are better for warmth, both our kids had these)
• Decent cold weather woolly hat
• Snood
• Snow boots

As I said before it is up to you if you choose to purchase this or hire. We are often outdoors on long dog walks so already own a lot of the right gear which we purchased from Go Outdoors, Mountain Warehouse and Vinted. The right snow boots are a must so hiring these was a no-brainer for us (that and kids grow so fast there didn’t seem much point in buying them). Just bear in mind how much you are allowed to take on your flight.

Some of the gear you could hire from the shop

And tip number three, if budget allows, I would recommend having spare gloves, snoods/scarves and hats for your children. Even if you have a dryer or drying room in your accommodation it can take a while to fully dry these out. Having spares means you can pop back, get changed and go back out. I am so glad we did this.

Write Everything Down

When you are planning your DIY Lapland trip make sure you write everything out on a notepad – flights, timings, phone numbers (for car park/hire), daily itinerary, locations and timings for excursions including how early you need to arrive and keep a good check on your emails for any updates or extra info they may require. Writing it all down is also a good way to keep an eye on your budget. You can then take this with you to refer to and/or update as required.

Final Word

I know it sounds daunting when someone suggests doing a DIY Lapland trip but honestly, I would do this all again in a flash. It wasn’t at all difficult, the whole trip ran smoothly and we had the time of our lives! My only regret is that we didn’t go for longer and that was simply down to seeing that most people were talking about short breaks and me thinking it was for the best due to the lack of daylight (I thought it would affect us – it didn’t!) When we go again (yes that’s a when not an if) we would do 10 days to fit much more in and give us more downtime. Obviously we did book all of this very last minute and were extremely lucky with our cabin and chosen excursions but in order to avoid disappointment I would book more in advance the next time.

Lapland is a wonderfully magical place that I’d highly recommend visiting if you get the chance.

*This post contains affiliate links which means I will earn a small commission if you purchase via them. This does not affect your shopping experience or how much you pay (if I ever get discount codes I will update the post to include them). I received 10% off my booking for being part of their affiliate scheme. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.

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