I had an early start this morning to hitch a ride from the hotel driver to town so I can do a Husky ride! Insert excitement of hanging with dogs for a few hours here. The hotel will make you a takeaway breakfast bag but you have to request it and get it from reception the night before.
I had a bit of time before my excursion so I stopped in at a cafe and had a pastry and coffee. Just a side note for anyone hauling luggage around, there are places you can pay 5 euros to store luggage per day and don’t be afraid to ask if your excursion offices will hold your luggage until later. Safartica is the company I booked my activities through, it seems like they also work as a broker between some of the tourism companies. I had no issues with this company and I would book with them again.
**Side note for solo travelers, sometimes you have to pay an additional fee because they won’t pair people up with strangers so you have to go solo and incur the additional charge, stinks I know!
The driver took 5 of us on a 15 minute drive out of town to the Raitola reindeer and husky farm. At the husky farm they have 200 dogs and they feed them around 12,000 calories of food a day. Two of their meals are warm soup with meat and veggies. They run them multiple times a day but it is based on the km not the duration. The facility was clean for 200 dogs, they know the dogs by name, their personalities and seem to really care for their well being. Interesting fact is the females are more the leaders so they run in the front and the males which are the strongest ride in the back. The husky farm tries to have 15-25 puppies per year and they retire dogs from running at the age of 10 and use them for training young pups and breeding. It takes a few years to train them up to be great runners. The have three types of huskies at their farm and the dogs also get a vacation in the summer where they don’t work as hard. Our ride was a good hour long and you switch with your partner if you want..ride or drive. Make sure you bring some warm gloves because it can get chilly! The tour companies will give you warm boots, socks and a snowsuit to keep you warm, take advantage of this because it is probably better than what you have. After your husky ride you get warm berry juice and cookies inside the cabin while they give you time to ask questions and they tell you all about the farm. Highly recommend this excursion!
Next up was Santa Claus Village to make sure I got my shopping in, snowman world (free ticket included with my stay at the arctic snow hotel) and eat at Santamus. At snowman world they have an ice restaurant and bar, snow tubing, ice skating on a pretty small rink and you can slide down an ice slide. It was 24 euros to get in, as an adult with a free ticket it was something to do but I probably wouldn’t spend the money unless I had young kids that would participate in the activities. They have a cafe with food and hot cocoa to enjoy after or before your fun begins! There is a crazy number of shops and restaurants all over the village. The restaurants can get pretty busy during lunch so it might be best to eat early or a little later in the day to avoid long lines. They have a husky farm you can visit and go on rides, reindeer rides, ice karting and an elf academy for kids. The busiest time to visit Rovaniemi is in December and from the videos and pictures I have seen it is packed but looks magical. In February you still get the Christmas feels since it’s year round without the crowds and more daylight! Win win! Definitely go to SCV at least once!
I grabbed dinner at a great spot called Gustavs with wine, cheese and a great salad. The service and food was delicious and right across from my evening excursion of riding snowmobiles and chasing the northern lights. Our tour guide was fantastic, we went 45 minutes into the woods and across a lake to a cute little cabin to roast hot dogs, cinnamon sticks and have warm berry juice around a fire. We did ride electric snowmobiles which they say are only available in Finland, very quiet but a little slower than gas powered. This excursion starts at 9 and we didn’t get back until 12:45am so drink coffee before hand! The northern lights were barely visible but I still had fun meeting new people and trying something new!