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Family snowmobile safari in Salla

A painted wooden sleigh with fur rugs over its back rail carries hooded passengers along a snow-packed track between bare birches

Illustration photo: passengers in a towed sleigh, not from one of the outings priced here.

Lapland Handbook Staff How we research this

The short answer

The cheapest outing for two adults and two children is the aurora sleigh ride at 270 euros, where nobody drives and the children have their own fare of 46 euros. Among the trips you drive, the two-hour run to Ruuhitunturi is the cheapest family day at 334 euros, and the ice fishing safari the dearest at 466, partly because its child fare is the least generous of the four. The longer safaris publish no child price, so a family cannot price them from the site.

How the operators compare

Prices are the operators' own published starting prices as of the date this guide was updated, and they change through the season.

Ruuhitunturi, 2 hLapp hut, 3 hIce fishing, 3–4 hAurora sleigh, 2 h
Adult, two per sledge €110 €135 €141 €89 – the lowest adult fare
Child, ages 3–11 €57 €76 €92 €46 – the lowest child fare
Child's share of the adult fare 52% 56% 65% 52%
Two adults, two children €334 €422 €466 €270 – the lowest total for a family of four
Duration 2 h 3 h 3–4 h 2 h
Who drives An adult, two per sledge An adult, two per sledge An adult, two per sledge A guide tows the sleigh

Highlighted figures are the best in that row: the lowest adult fare, the lowest child fare and the lowest total for a family of four. The family total puts two adults on one sledge at the operator's sledge price and adds two child fares; on the sleigh ride, where there is no sledge to share, it is two adult tickets and two child tickets.

Where these figures come from
  • Ruuhitunturi, 2 h: The short trip to the fell with coffee and a bun. The cheapest of the driving trips for a family, and the shortest time in the cold.
  • Lapp hut, 3 h: The one the operator describes as ideal for beginners and families, on forest trails at an easy pace, for 88 euros more than the fell trip.
  • Ice fishing, 3–4 h: A ride out to a pond and a try at the fishing, with something to do once you arrive. The child fare here is the closest to an adult's.
  • Aurora sleigh, 2 h: Nobody drives: a guide tows the sleigh to a hut near Ruuhitunturi for sausages and a hot drink. The cheapest family outing, with no aurora promised.

Salla’s resort operator sells eight winter outings and prints a child’s fare on four of them. That, more than the adult price, is what decides where a family with young children can book.

Where the child fare appears

The two-hour trip to Ruuhitunturi charges 57 euros for a child aged three to eleven, the three-hour Lapp hut run 76, the ice fishing safari 92 and the aurora sleigh ride 46. The national park safari, the Arctic Circle day, the moonlight safari and the reindeer farm safari give only adult prices, so a family reading the site cannot work out what those four would cost them.

What a child actually saves

Against the adult fare when two share a sledge, a child is 52 per cent on the fell trip, 56 on the Lapp hut run and 52 on the sleigh ride, but 65 per cent on the ice fishing safari, where 92 euros buys the same hours as an adult’s 141. For two adults and two children that comes to 334 euros at Ruuhitunturi, 422 to the Lapp hut, 466 for the fishing day and 270 for the sleigh ride.

The outing where nobody drives

The sleigh ride is the only one of the four in which no guest handles a machine: a guide tows the sleigh to a hut near Ruuhitunturi, where there are sausages and a hot drink by a fire, and the page says plainly that northern lights are not guaranteed. For a family whose children are too small to hold on behind a driver, that is the one outing here whose seating needs no explanation.

What riding alone costs, and what the sledge prices mean for two adults, is worked out in snowmobile safari prices in Salla, and the routes themselves are on snowmobile safari in Salla.

Tours you can book

Questions people ask

Where does a child sit on these safaris?

The listings do not say. Each of the four gives a fare for children aged three to eleven, but none of the pages we read states whether that child rides behind an adult on the snowmobile or travels in a towed sleigh, and the difference matters a great deal on a five-hour day in the cold. It is the first thing to ask when you book, and the answer may vary by trip.

Is there a fare for a child under three?

Not on any of these pages. Every child price we found is labelled for ages three to eleven, and nothing is said about younger children: no infant rate, no free-of-charge line and no rule forbidding them either. Families travelling with a toddler will have to ask directly, and should ask about the sleigh ride as well as the snowmobile trips.

Do bigger families get a group price?

None is published. Every figure on these listings is a price for one sledge or one person, so a family of five pays five fares and a party of eight pays eight, with no discount named for booking several at once. The sledge prices do mean that two adults who share a machine already pay less each than one adult riding alone would.

Written by

Lapland Handbook Staff

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.

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