3-15 Jan 2025 Scandinavia adventure
First time to travel with a tour group.
Our usual travel kakis decided we want to fulfill our goal to view Northern lights,
and we wanted to go to Finland for it.
As the country is unfamiliar to us and winter roads are difficult to maneuver,
we decided to book with a tour group instead of doing it on our own.
We visited the NATAS fair on 2 March 2024, and checked with EU, LGE and Chan Brothers.
Our final choice - LGE 12D Aurora Lapland Sweden/Finland/Norway.
Managed to secure a good deal, being the early birds, first to sign up on the trip for Jan'2025:-
Trip price: S$6,099
Airport tax: S$150
Early bird discount: -S$800
Additional for tips to be paid in euros: €340
Final to be paid to tour agency: S$5,449 + €340
Additional Tallinn cruise & tour: €189
Tour booklet shared by the tour manager
Final revised itinerary
A week before the trip, our tour manager, Joseph Seng (JS) contacted us.
He will be meeting us only after we touched down at Helsinki,
where we will have a connecting flight to Ivalo.
Booked flights
Time difference between our countries
3rd Jan Fri night flight from Singapore to Helsinki
Packed and ready to go in the evening!
Flying from T1 by Finnair.
Meeting point with check-in staff at 7pm at row 14.
For our economy flight, we were only allowed 1x 23kg luggage and 1+1 8kg carry-in baggage.
Ops! We just managed to pass.
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Someone bought something cute!
Boarding on time
A little impressed by Finnair, they provided a schedule for flight and meals.
Our first flight meal was so so
😋
Eggs for breakfast makes meals taste better
Checking out our connecting flight time
4th Jan Sat morn Arrival at Helsinki, transfer to Ivalo, Utsujoki Artic Igloo
(Hello) "Hei".
Arriving 15mins earlier than scheduled.
We had a short connecting time of 1 hour so, an additional of 15mins helped.
Going to meet our tour manager at gate 21
Bye for now, Helsinki.
The domestic flight will take around 1hr 45mins.
Only juice was served, biscuit was provided by the stewardess from previous flight.
Arrived around 835am
Everyone started to put on clothes upon arriving.
The temperature outside👇was really cold, and believed some did not put on enough clothes.
Excited faces.. but our hands were freezing cold.. even its for a little while without gloves.
We used the toilet, collected our baggage and were about to leave when I found that my luggage had been damaged. A whole wheel has dropped out leaving a hole at the bottom.
There is no baggage lost/damaged counter at this small airport, and we can only file the damage report online. With heavy hearts, we had to leave the place first, with the tour manager helping me carry the luggage to the bus.
About an hour later, we arrived at Inari for toilet break and lunch.
JS asked us to be back at the bus by 1145am.
The lunch places he recommended - either buy pastries, cooked food at K-Market, or have kebab at PaPaNa, both have WC that we can use.
We bought some pastries and found baked chicken.. but decided later we wanna have some hot food.
Beautiful colors of the rising sun.. or is it the setting sun? This is what we get during polar nights.
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Opposite us is the frozen Inari river
PaPaNa opens only at 11am.
We ordered 3 items, mash potato with sausages, reindeer pizza and hot kebab,
which we realised later is beef. Portions were very large, we could not finish by 1145,
so we did a take away.
Our first meal, about €17 per pax
Our "tabao" is there 👇
We hurried back to the bus but JS gave us more time to go down to the river 😍
It will be ~2hrs' drive to our exciting igloo stay.
Utsjoki Arctic Igloo Resort, situated along Utsjoki river, which borders Finland and Norway.
The bridge to cross the border to Norway is in the background.
Waiting for keys to be assigned
We were given the single igloos facing the river, rooms 2 & 3.
Our rooms were at the lower floor, so we took a lift down.
Here we are, the igloos facing the river.
First cheers
Just as we stepped out of our igloos to head for dinner at 630pm,
we lifted our heads and saw the amazing lights!
It was a faint green seen by the naked eye, but when captured on camera it was a deeper green.
Our dinner, being served at the resort - salmon with rice, soup and mash pot.
The aurora alarm sounded again just as we were finishing our dinner.
This time the whole tour group was called out.
While they were taking photos in the other igloo,
I was busy taking photos of my damaged luggage and submit the online report.
I hurried to take a few funny ones, but was too tired from not sleeping during the flight earlier.
We also used the sauna but only for 5mins? 😂
Credits to Andy for the beautiful stars trail
Cute ice duckies by Andy
Photos shared by other tour mates
Travel route for day one
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