The best northern lights tour from Posio: one pick for each party
Illustration photo: the aurora near Rovaniemi, not in Posio.
The short answer
A group of five to eight should book the private car from Posio: it collects you, chases clear sky for seven hours and is the only tour that starts where you are staying. A couple or a family should drive to a shared evening instead, Salla's sleigh ride for the lowest price and child fares, or Ranua's car tour for photographs of yourselves. On a clear night with a forecast in hand, the village's own dark edge costs nothing.
Posio has one aurora tour for sale and a handful within driving distance. Which is best comes down to the size of your party.
Five to eight people
Take the private car. It is priced for the group, 1,850 euros for up to eight, so a full car comes to about 231 euros a head and six people to about 308, and it is the only tour that starts in Posio.1 Seven hours gives the driver time to find a gap in the cloud.
A couple on a budget, or a family
Drive to Salla, an hour and a half away, for the sleigh ride behind a snowmobile to a hut near Ruuhitunturi: 89 euros an adult and 46 for a child of three to eleven, about two hours.2 It is the cheapest guided evening in reach and the only one of these with a child fare.
Photographers
Ranua is the nearest place with a tour built around pictures: six hours in a car with a campfire meal and photographs taken with a professional camera, at 269 euros a head, 65 minutes from Posio. Kemijärvi’s evening, 85 minutes away, has the guide photograph you for 149.
Anyone with a clear forecast
Walk or drive out of the village lights. Posio’s tourist information names the hours between ten and midnight as the likeliest and open or high ground away from street lights as the place.3
What the Posio tour includes, and the exact wording of its refund, is set out on northern lights in Posio.
Questions people ask
Is it worth driving an hour for a shared evening?
It depends on the sky and on your party. Salla's sleigh ride is an hour and a half from Posio and Ranua's car tour just over an hour, so a two-hour evening becomes a five-hour outing with the road. For two people that is still far cheaper than hiring the Posio car; for six or more, the private car from your own door costs about the same per head as the dearer shared tours and saves the drive.
Which of these lend warm clothing?
The two long car tours do: Ranua's lists winter outerwear and Kemijärvi's lists warm winter clothing in the price. The Posio private car asks you to bring warm clothing, and our record of the Salla sleigh ride mentions a hot drink and sausages in a hut but no clothing. For a night spent partly standing in the snow, that difference is worth a question before you choose.
What if we have to cancel?
The Posio car and the two car tours from Ranua and Kemijärvi are sold on a booking platform that refunds in full up to 24 hours before the start. Our record of the Salla sleigh ride, which is sold on the operator's own site, does not include its cancellation terms, so ask for them when you book, particularly if you are deciding on the day by the forecast.