Mum, we want to see the northern lights, go dog sledding and see ice and snow everywhere! We want to go to Lapland.
Aurélie
When I was a child, my dad always chose our holiday destinations. Most of the time they were great, but every now and then I would have liked to have a say myself. So I always tell my children that their voice counts too …
And then they come up with one of the coldest places in Europe and probably one of the most expensive destinations as well.
Daniel shook his head, but if you as a parent aren't there to make your children's dreams come true, what's the point …
With an eldest daughter who had just decided to rebel fiercely against everything her parents did, this felt like exactly the right chance to make the most beautiful memories right in the middle of that tricky teenage phase.
That evening I put the shorts back in the wardrobe and started thinking … Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria … But the northern lights …
I spent the whole night doing research and the next morning I knew! A week driving to Lapland, 10 days on site and a week back to Belgium! Let's go!
En route to 66° north
Less than 2 weeks later we were in the car; destination THE ARCTIC CIRCLE! Was it easy? Simply put, no. Not only had we planned a hefty road trip in two weeks, we also set off with an angry, crying teenager. One who didn't want to go anywhere with her parents anymore.
We went on a city trip to Copenhagen, where we stayed at the affordable Island hotel. Copenhagen was super cool: the museums, the restaurants, the anarchist freetown of Christiania, …
Every step closer to the north, by the way, was also a step through our eldest daughter's resistance.
Further along our road trip we visited one of the coolest family hotels ever in Västerås: the STEAM hotel! A luxurious family hotel done up entirely in steampunk style; good food, wellness, swimming pools, games, …
Lulea, gateway to Lapland
After roughly five days of driving we arrived in Lulea, the last 'city' before the Arctic Circle.
To keep costs down a little, we booked the Sunderby hotel there. When we arrived late in the evening, exhausted, it was completely deserted; a building site. According to the instructions there should have been a key waiting and our room should have been ready.
I found the key quickly, but at the same time I also found myself face to face with a strange man, in the middle of the night on a building site full of old dolls and painting gear. I wanted to scream, but luckily he greeted me kindly and asked whether I was looking for the rooms too. After a short chat and a fruitless search we walked out of the hotel together in search of a Scandic. Scandic is more or less the standard in Scandinavia. They're everywhere, the beds are good, children sleep for free, their breakfast is unbeatable, there are games, always a gym or a pool, and the class ranges from solid to moderately luxurious.
So together with this strange man we arrived at 1 a.m. at the Scandic Lulea. A post-communist building with a simple check-in and a warm welcome. Once in the room we fell asleep exhausted. The next morning a bright sun glittering on mountains of snow woke us up. Suddenly the world looked a whole lot prettier. I even saw the familiar sparkle back in my daughter's eyes.
After one of those epic Scandic breakfasts we headed for the ice. We were in Lulea for a reason, after all! The sea freezes over here and every year a gigantic ice-skating track is laid out on it. You do need to bring your own gear, but luckily you can also rent or buy second-hand through Decathlon. Given how long we were away, we went for the second option.
On the ice
The ice track in Lulea is completely free, there are kicksleds (Pulka) you can use, there's a sauna, a campfire and a BBQ picnic area with firewood. Together with the bright sun and the friendly greetings, it didn't take long before Lulea stole our hearts and our teenager's.
Curious? Here is the Instagram reel of our skating adventure in Lulea.
Fika
In Lulea we also discovered the phenomenon of free water, tea and coffee with biscuits. In restaurants you can simply help yourself to (tap) water and a simple but good cup of coffee or tea. If you're travelling on a small budget like us, it's definitely worth checking which restaurants offer this. Want more budget tips for Lapland?
Have a look at my article on budget-friendly travel to Lapland.
Dog sledding
And we went dog sledding for the very first time!!! Lulea Adventure is a small father-and-son business. Call it the hobby that got out of hand of an Italian who fell in love with a Swedish beauty. He went to live in the Lapland wilderness and discovered his love for dog sledding. 20 years later he started a small business with his son, through which he touches other people's hearts too.
Needless to say, in the BBQ hut, over fika, we had the warmest conversations with these passionate men. It takes some doing, moving as a warm-blooded Italian to the coldest corner of Europe.
On Instagram there's a short video of our dog sledding adventure.
Sleeping among the treetops
A little under an hour east of Lulea lies one of the most extraordinary hotels in the world. The Treehotel.
Treehotel Harads, magic in the trees is the story of our stay at the Treehotel.
A vintage guesthouse that a few years ago decided to build completely crazy treehouses in the middle of a forest. Don't think of traditional cabins, but of wonderfully quirky designs like a bird's nest, a UFO, a mirror house, …
The cabins are pricey and usually fully booked, but you can also simply visit the grounds on a walk for a fee.
Since we were there at a quiet time, we hardly saw any visitors. The cabins are set in a private forest, after all. It may sound too easy, but the walk of barely 15 minutes to our cabin brought such an enormous sense of calm. For the first time in weeks I saw my daughter run, shriek with laughter and genuinely enjoy herself. The fact that the walks from the car park to the cabin often took an hour instead of fifteen minutes, because of the endless sledging up and down the slopes, only made the stay more magical.
It was there among the treetops in Lapland that my little girl fell asleep happy again for the first time.
Via this link you can see a reel I made of the cabins.
Rovaniemi, home of Santa Claus
After a week we left the area around Lulea to finally cross that Arctic Circle. The famous Rovaniemi, home of Santa Claus but also a city built on the Arctic Circle. We would stay here for another five days before starting our journey back to Belgium.
Rovaniemi lies just across the border in Finland, a little under 3 hours' drive from Lulea. Finland is a country apart. It's still Lapland (oh yes, Lapland stretches all the way into Russia) but everything there is a bit 'extra'. Not much remains of that solid, practical Scandinavian style. The Russian influences, I think. The Finns are different too; their language sounds like nothing you've ever heard before and they look different.
They have a rich tribal history and you can tell from the diverse facial features. They dress extravagantly and their restaurants and cafés are no longer the epitome of Scandinavian solidity. The cuisine is a mix of primal flavours served in an exotic way. The land of Santa Claus is a beautiful example of that: tradition, but mixed with a touch of European Christmas-market tradition. Nothing, and I mean literally nothing, reminds you anymore of that desolate, wild beauty we saw in Sweden. Everything is full, busy, over the top, flashing and glittering. The funfair of Lapland!
Many families consider this the pinnacle of Lapland with children and I understand that. Within a few hectares there really is everything: an ice hotel, cosy wooden cabins, a traditional restaurant, THE Arctic Circle with its post office (yes, you can send your postcards from the Arctic Circle), dog sled rides, a snow playground, reindeer sleigh rides, an actual snow fun park, sledges everywhere that you can use freely, name it and you'll find it there! So if you're looking for the Center Parcs of Lapland, this is your destination; for us, a day was quite enough.
You can stay at Santa's Sport, Santa's hotel Rudolf, Santa Claus hotel, Santa's holiday homes, Arctic glass hotel, Arctic Snowhotel and many more.
Apukka Resort, the wilderness around Rovaniemi
We chose a middle ground and stayed in the wilderness just outside Rovaniemi at Apukka Resort. A resort with a traditional hotel, glass igloos and above all wonderfully crazy family suites (where we stayed). These little houses sit beside a large lake and are just like hobbit houses. Especially crazy because you can sledge off them.
Resorts like this are ideal if your time in Lapland is limited. Apukka Resort was accordingly full of guests who come back on a regular basis. It's cosy there; there are fires, good food, fun activities and friendly multilingual staff. These resorts also provide all your thermal gear and organise activities like ice fishing, snowmobiling, dog sledding, reindeer sleigh rides, horse riding, tube sledging, ice sculpting, snow biking, hiking, northern lights safaris in every possible variation, …
We spent five lovely but very busy days there. On our penultimate evening in Finland, the reality of leaving this fairytale land suddenly hit hard. A few hours earlier Daniel and I had taken our first snow bath (warming up in the wood-fired sauna and then cooling down in the mountains of snow) and realised very strongly that this destination didn't feel finished for us yet. Our baby enjoyed the walks close to mum or dad in the carrier, Ellis did nothing but roll around in the snow and then warm up with bright red cheeks over a hot chocolate, and teenager Aurélie found her smile again.
Although we were travelling flexibly, our time in Lapland was officially over. Step by step we would drive back to Belgium. In the end it was that evening, under the Lapland starry sky, that we booked a house by a lake for a month in an unknown little village south of Lulea.
The magic of Vistträsk By
We had already spent two nights in our remote Airbnb between two lakes when the doorbell suddenly rang. A thickly wrapped-up mum and baby stood at the door; the landlady! She wanted to drop by to ask how we were getting on. I invited her in and an hour later we were still drinking coffee and nibbling biscuits.
So far from the tourist hotspots, hardly any tourists came here, so the villagers were very curious about us. When I went for a walk across the ice in the morning, I had a chat with every person I met. Every smile along my path showed me just how warm the hearts in this cold land really are.
I spent afternoons having coffee with other mums, we grilled sausages among the locals at the foot of the ski slope, snowmobiled through the mountains, learned traditional crafts like ice fishing, but above all we enjoyed the endless evenings by the campfire, waiting for the magical lights to appear in the sky again.
It was there in the frozen land of Lapland, by the lake, that our daughter healed, that we connected and found warmth in the cold.
When we set off on our journey back to Belgium a month later than planned, it was with hearts full of joy.
On TikTok I shared a mini vlog of what our days often looked like
Home with hearts full of memories
We made further stops in Stockholm, where we had the time of our lives at the Abba museum and spent far too much money at the Ben & Jerry's café. We enjoyed one last highlight at the Ikea Hotell where we ate well, visited the museum and did a craft workshop.
When we got back to Belgium in mid-April, the grey winter was over. In the past we always broke up our winter with a sunny destination; lots of warmth, lots of light. Daniel's and my choice. We thought that was necessary to stay energised.
This year we did it in the darkest place in Europe. Our children's choice. We didn't have the financial freedom to simply book an all-inclusive package. We had to be creative when buying warm clothes. And we set off for almost two months to one of the most remote places in Europe with a daughter right in the middle of puberty. It may not have seemed easy, but it was. Lapland is easy. Lapland is pure, cold and heart-warming.
This blog uses affiliate links. They cost you nothing, but they do allow us to keep sharing this information with you.
