A good fit for couples and families who want to drive their own sled in a small group and will arrange the trip out to the kennel themselves. Choose the length by the youngest person in the group, as the kennel itself suggests: the short ride for small children, the middle one for older children, the long one for adults only. The longer rides cost less for each kilometre. Before paying, ask whether the price is per person and whether winter clothing and transport are included, because the tour pages do not say.
Pinewood’s Huskies is a small kennel in the forests around Rovaniemi that sells
self-driven husky rides in small groups, and it is listed with Visit Finland on
those terms.3 What makes its own
pages useful is that they do something few kennels bother with: they say which
ride is meant for which kind of group.
Three rides, priced by distance
Ride
Distance
Length
Price
The kennel’s own advice
Snow Express
5 km
1 h 45 min
€150
Families with small children
Pineforest Pawprint
10 km
2 h 30 min
€190
Couples and families with older children
Mushing Magic
20 km
3 h
€260
Adults only
The prices and advice are from the kennel’s tour
page.1 Per kilometre on the
trail, that comes to about €30 on the short ride, €19 on the middle one and €13
on the long one. The pattern is the same everywhere, and
what a husky safari price includes
explains why: the fixed parts of a visit, from the briefing to the harnessing,
cost the same on any ride, so the short one spreads them over fewer kilometres.
Tripadvisor ratings, 18 Rovaniemi operators
Highest first
Snowtrail Safaris 5.0
Nordic Odyssey 5.0
Nordic Adventures 4.9
Arctic GM 4.9
Book Lapland 4.9
Bearhill Husky 4.9
Arctic Attitude 4.9
StayLapland 4.8
Wild About Lapland 4.7
Wild Nordic 4.7
Lapland Winter Park 4.6
Safartica 4.5
Nordic Unique Travels 4.5
Apukka Resort 4.4
Lapland Welcome 4.3
Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park 4.3
Arctic Circle Husky Park 4.2
Raitola 3.4
<44.04.55.0
Ratings read from Tripadvisor. The shaded compartment left of the divider holds any score below 4.0. We record the score only; review counts and review text are not part of our comparison.
Choose by the youngest
The kennel’s advice runs by age, and it is the right way to choose. The long
ride is closed to children, so a family’s real choice is between five and ten
kilometres. Small children belong on the short ride; children old enough to sit
out two and a half hours in the cold can take the middle one. On the kennel’s
terms, children up to three ride free and those from four to fourteen get a
child rate that depends on the
safari.2
What the pages leave out
Two things matter and are not on the tour pages: whether the price is per
person or per sled, and whether winter clothing and transport to the kennel
are included.1 Ask both before
booking, because together they decide whether €190 is a price for one person or
for two, and whether the morning needs a taxi.
The terms are clearer on the rest. A cancellation from your side less than seven
days before departure gets no refund, and requests have to be made in
writing.2 For the wider picture of
who runs husky rides around Rovaniemi and how they differ,
the names and the kennels sets them
side by side.
The kennel's terms say that if it cancels a confirmed programme because of the weather and it cannot be moved to another time, it refunds the whole booking. That covers the operator's decision, not yours: a cancellation from your side is a separate matter with its own deadline, so check both before you pay, and keep the written confirmation in case the day has to be moved at short notice.
Can we visit without going on a sled?
Yes. The kennel sells a two-hour guided kennel visit for €30, with time to meet and pet the dogs, and outside the snow season a guided walk of two to three kilometres with the huskies and an autumn ride in a cart behind a training team. These are the cheapest way to meet the dogs, and the only ones on the list that do not depend on snow, so they suit late autumn visitors.
Does a toddler need a ticket?
Not on the kennel's terms, which make children up to three free of charge. From four to fourteen there are special child rates, which vary by safari, so ask for the figure for the ride you want rather than assuming a fixed discount. The kennel's own advice is that the short five-kilometre ride is the one for families with small children; the twenty-kilometre ride is for adults only.
Lapland Handbook is written by its editorial staff in Rovaniemi. Every price, age limit and group size in a comparison is read from the operator's own page and marked "Not stated" when the operator does not publish it. Each guide names who should not book, and names the operator that suits each kind of group, whichever it is.
Rovaniemi's winter tours do sell out – December and the week around New Year first, and the small-group ones before the rest. Booking here goes straight to the operator at their own published price, and the code LH10 takes 10% off it.
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