Bring a card rather than cash, do not worry about tipping, and save two numbers in your phone: 112 for a life-threatening emergency, and the health advice line for anything else, which you call before turning up at the emergency department. Stay off the frozen rivers unless a guide takes you there, keep off the ski tracks when walking, wear reflectors and good grip, and never stop on the road to photograph reindeer or the aurora.
Most practical guides to Finland are written for a summer weekend in Helsinki.
A winter week in Rovaniemi raises a shorter, different list of questions, and
the city’s own tourist board answers most of them.
Paying
Finland uses the euro, and cards and mobile payments are accepted almost
everywhere, Visa and Mastercard most widely. It is still worth carrying a few
coins or small notes, because some rural places prefer cash. When you do pay
cash, the total is rounded to the nearest five
cents.1
The price on the label includes VAT, and tipping is optional and never
expected: service is included in the bill. If you want to, rounding up or
leaving a couple of euros for good service is plenty. Visitors from outside the
EU who spend over 40 euros in one shop can claim the VAT back when they leave
the country.1
If someone is ill or hurt
Two numbers, for two different situations. For a life-threatening emergency,
call 112. For anything else that needs urgent care, call 116 117, without a
country code, before going to the emergency department, which is at Lapland
Central Hospital. Less serious problems go to the private clinics in
town.2
The order matters: the advice line is there to send you to the right place,
and for many problems that is not the emergency department.
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.
The ice is not a path
The rivers through Rovaniemi freeze, and from the bank they look solid. The
tourist board is blunt about it: walking on the ice can be life-threatening,
there is no way to tell whether it is thick enough, and you should not go onto
it at all. Activities on the ice belong with a professional guide who knows
where it is
safe.2 It is one good reason to do
ice fishing in Rovaniemi as a guided tour
rather than on your own.
On foot in the dark
Three local rules surprise visitors. Walking on ski tracks is prohibited, and
dangerous for you and the skiers. Sledges are not for roads or for crossing
streets, because drivers cannot see them; the old market square, Vanha Tori, is
one of the places meant for sledging. And in the dark months, reflectors and
footwear with good grip, or ice cleats, are worth sorting out on the first
day.2
Yes. Finnish tap water is clean, cold and free, and asking for a glass of it in a café or restaurant is entirely normal. On a winter day it is worth carrying some with you as well, because a tour's hot berry juice at the campfire is not a substitute for drinking through the day.
What do we do if we lose something?
Report it to the Rovaniemi police, which the city's tourist board names as the place for lost items. If the loss happened on a tour, tell the operator first, because a glove or a phone dropped at a kennel or in a minibus is far more likely to turn up there than at the police station. Keep your phone in an inside pocket, as the tourist board advises: it stays warmer and safer there than in an outer pocket, and it is one less thing to drop at a campfire stop.
Can we drive ourselves in winter?
Yes, if you are comfortable with winter roads, and the tourist board's advice is mostly about patience. Braking distances are longer than in summer, the car's air recirculation fogs the windows, and the one rule broken most often by visitors is stopping on the road to photograph reindeer or the aurora. Pull over only where it is safe, and assume that a reindeer near the road will step onto it.
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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