Best husky tour from Kilpisjärvi, by how you are travelling
Illustration photo: a husky in winter, not at the kennels named here.
The short answer
Without a car, book the Skibotn day: it is the only one that collects you in the village. With a car and a first-timer in the party, drive to Hetta for the short safari. If time on the runners is the point, Hetta's twenty-kilometre safari gives the most of any Hetta day trip. With young children, Hetta is also the one that prints a child fare. For privacy, the Muonio company's short ride is sold only to your own group.
From Kilpisjärvi every husky tour starts with a journey, so choose by the journey first.
If you have no car
Take the Skibotn day. The bus leaves from outside two of the village hotels in the morning and brings you back in the afternoon, with an hour and a half on the sled in the Norwegian valley.1
If it is a first time on a sled
Drive to Hetta for the short safari: six kilometres and about three quarters of an hour of driving the team, enough to know whether you want more.
If you want the most time on the runners
Hetta’s longest day safari runs twenty kilometres with about two and a half hours of actual mushing out of three and a half, and the kennel prints that split for every safari it sells.2
If you are bringing young children
Hetta again, because it prints a child fare and a sled a guide drives; the Skibotn and Muonio listings print no child fare.
If you want the dogs to yourselves
Muonio’s eight-kilometre safari is sold only to private groups, with a pick-up from your accommodation in Muonio.3 The four options are set out together on husky safari in Kilpisjärvi.
Questions people ask
Is the Skibotn day cheaper than driving to Hetta?
This site cannot say, because the Norwegian day is priced in kroner and converting it would be our figure, not the operator's. What can be compared is what each price covers: the Skibotn price includes the bus from the village, a hot meal and an insulated suit, while a Hetta safari is priced for the safari itself and the 132-minute drive each way is yours to make.
Can a non-driver in our party still go?
On the Skibotn day guests go out in pairs, one driving and one riding, and swap during the ride, so a passenger is part of the design. Hetta prices a sled a guide drives, which lets someone who does not want to steer come along. Ask when booking in Muonio, where the shared ride also swaps drivers halfway.
Should we book before we arrive in Kilpisjärvi?
For the Skibotn day, yes if your dates are fixed, because the bus runs from the village hotels at a set time and depends on the booking. For Hetta or Muonio, book once you know which day you will drive, since the drive itself is the larger commitment. None of these listings says how quickly its dates fill.