Northern Lights at the Aurora Cabin
Three ways to spend a northern lights evening at Snowtrail's Aurora Cabin: transfer only, electric sled or snowmobile. What each costs and what is not.
From €109
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- Duration
- 3–4 h
- Minimum age
- 3 years
Snowtrail’s Aurora Cabin is a cabin in a village outside Rovaniemi, away from the city lights, and three of its tours end there. The evening is the same one in each: a fire, hot glögi, Finnish snacks and a dark sky. What differs is how you get there and what it costs.
| Tour | Getting there | Price | Length | Winter clothing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Lights Evening at the Aurora Cabin | Hotel pickup, no machine to drive | €109 | 3 h | €15 a person on top |
| Electric Reindeer safari to the Aurora Cabin | Electric sled, self-driven from 15 | €149 | 4 h | Included |
| Small Group Snowmobile Safari to the Aurora Cabin | Snowmobile, self-driven from 18 | €149 | 4 h | Included |
The snowmobile route runs alongside the Pisavaara Nature Reserve. The electric sled is Snowtrail’s name for an electric snowmobile — an e-Scort Comfort, made in Finland — which is battery-powered and near-silent, and that quiet is the reason to choose it over the petrol machine rather than the price, which is the same.
The fixed cabin, and when it is the wrong choice
This is the thing worth understanding before you book, and it is the one difference between the Aurora Cabin and the tour most people picture.
The cabin does not move. You are driven to one dark place and you stay there for the evening. If the sky above it is clear, that is an excellent way to spend a night. If it is not, there is nothing anyone can do about it, because the programme is built around a destination rather than around a forecast.
A chasing tour is the opposite arrangement. Snowtrail’s Northern Lights Tour With Snacks is three hours of being driven by a guide who picks the stops from that evening’s cloud and aurora forecasts, and who will move to find a gap. It buys you a second and a third chance on a patchy night, and it is the better booking when you have one evening and the forecast is broken cloud.
Book the cabin when the forecast is clear, when you would rather be somewhere than be driven around, or when you want the fire and the quiet as much as the sky. Book the chase when the sky is uncertain and the aurora is the point. Our northern lights guide explains why cloud, not solar activity, is the number that decides a Rovaniemi night.
The fifteen euros that change the arithmetic
The three-hour evening is the only tour we have seen from this operator whose price does not include winter clothing. Snowtrail rents thermal overalls, boots and gloves for €15 a person.
That matters more than it sounds. Standing still outside for an evening in Lapland is colder than driving through it, and a city coat is not enough. If you have not brought proper gear, the €109 evening is €124, and the four-hour tours that include the clothing are €149 — a gap of twenty-five euros rather than forty, for an extra hour and a drive through the forest.
If you have your own gear, the €109 stands and it is comfortably the cheapest way to spend an aurora evening out of town that this operator sells.
What nobody publishes
Three things, and they are the same three across all of these pages: how large the group gets, how far the cabin is from Rovaniemi, and how long you actually spend at it rather than travelling to it.
For the three-hour evening the last one decides whether it is worth booking, because if an hour of it is the drive then the cabin is a short visit. Ask before you pay.
What is included
- Pickup and return transfer from Rovaniemi
- A local guide
- Hot glögi or hot drinks and Finnish snacks at the cabin
- Time at the cabin with a fire, away from the city lights
- Thermal clothing, boots and gloves — on the two four-hour tours only
What is not
- Winter clothing on the three-hour evening, which is rented on top for €15 a person
- Any promise of aurora: Snowtrail's own answer is that nature decides
Questions people ask
Is the Aurora Cabin the same place as Santa's Hidden Cabin?
Nobody says. Snowtrail sells tours to both, describes each as a cabin in a small village outside Rovaniemi surrounded by forest, and never states on any of the pages whether the two are the same building with two names or two cabins in different places. If you are thinking of booking both — a Santa evening and an aurora evening — that is worth asking first, because the answer decides whether you would be driven to the same spot twice.
Can small children come, and where do they sit?
All three take children from three, and on both driving tours the small ones ride rather than drive. On the snowmobile safari, children under 145 cm travel in a sleigh pulled by the guide's machine, and anyone over 145 cm may ride as a passenger. On the electric sled tour, children under fifteen are not allowed to drive and travel in the snowmobile sleigh instead. The three-hour evening involves no vehicle at all beyond the transfer, which makes it the simplest of the three with a small child.
Do we have to drive, and is a licence needed?
You never have to. Snowtrail says driving is completely optional on the snowmobile safari, and an adult who would rather not can ride as a passenger or sit in the sleigh for the whole way. Whether you need a licence depends on the machine: the snowmobile requires a valid driving licence, and the electric sled requires none at all. That is the practical argument for the electric tour for a group where only one person drives a car, and the two tours cost the same.
What happens if there is no aurora?
Nothing, in the sense that matters: there is no second attempt and no refund. Snowtrail's own wording is that the northern lights cannot be guaranteed and that what it offers is the best possible chance, and none of the three pages mentions a repeat night or money back for a blank one. Cancellation is free up to 24 hours before departure, so that is the only lever you have, and an aurora forecast a full day out is not reliable enough to use it well.
