After a wonderful experience making memories, new friends and enjoying everything Reykjavik and the picturesque south of Iceland had to offer, we felt ready to go it alone, planning our own winter adventure.
We were far from experts but felt confident making some independent travel plans given what we’d seen and learned. On reflection, our naivety was something to behold!
Having proposed to Amy not long after our first trip to Iceland, our honeymoon gave us the excuse we needed to embark upon another winter adventure. Having enjoyed Iceland so much, we found ourselves wondering if there were any similar opportunities and experiences to rival our first icy adventure.
It had to be somewhere with beautiful snowy landscapes, a sense of smallness and on a similar latitude for aurora hunting potential. It didn’t take long to conclude that Finnish Lapland had the scope to deliver on all fronts. But we struggled to choose - do we go back to the place we loved so much? Or do we want to try something new? Charter flights and organised tours to Lapland looked expensive - out of our league expensive - potentially thousands of pounds for a few days. So it looked liked our decision was made.
Whether luck or judgement, we found a combination of cheap flights in the depths of January that allowed us to visit Iceland for a few days, head off to New York for a bit more winter wonderland, return to Iceland for a few more days and with a brief turnaround in the U.K., to head on to Rovaniemi in Lapland via Helsinki for our very first Finnish experience.
Thankfully direct flights to Lapland are becoming more frequent from the UK, but even for an extra couple of hours of flying time, we’d still take this route today if it helped us to get there for a sensible price.
Here are the top ten things we learned from our first combined winter trip to Iceland and Finland:
Cheap flights are possible - direct return flights to Reykavik for under £60 return and indirect flights to Rovaniemi in Lapland (via Helsinki) for under £100.
Deep winter daylight is short - perhaps tying in with the above (and outside of the main holiday period), travelling in early January meant no more than three hours of daylight per day from around 11am.
A Suzuki Jimni is not a 4x4. Make sure you never rent one in winter in Iceland. Ever.
Iceland car rentals are sometimes not as new as you’d think - imagine ten years/100.000km+… and they even have an honestly named rental company called Sad Cars 😔
Check Iceland road conditions and closures before you set off - save a journey taking a lot longer than it should! This service tells you how many vehicles have passed on the last hour too.
New York can be a good value flight option with a shorter flight time from Keflavik airport in Iceland - ideal if you fancy a two-centre stay with a difference.
The Ion adventure hotel deserves all of the praise it gets for lovely food and comfortable accommodation. It’s a wonderful getaway location for couples.
Snow is wonderful - and the enemy of aurora hunting due to the dense clouds that fill the sky and cause havoc with levels of daylight and clear night skies… use an app or online service such as Vedur.Is to keep up to date.
Steer clear of gimmicky accommodation experiences such as ice hotels and glass igloos. Whilst novel, it’s difficult to beat a traditional Finnish log cabin or heritage house with an open fireplace and sauna. And the value for money for these tourist traps is a big issue.
Buy your car hire excess insurance in the U.K. before you travel to avoid hefty charges at the airport desk or the risk of significant costs if anything were to go wrong - for which there is some increased risk given changeable weather and challenging driving conditions. Finnish roads are so much better maintained than Iceland, especially in rural areas.
If you have any questions, feel free to post them!
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