10-Day Finland Winter Itinerary: Lapland, Helsinki and Tallinn

I wanted to share my 10-day winter itinerary through Finland, built around a Christmas and New Year trip.

The route splits neatly in half: five days in the north for winter activities, and five days in the south for cities and day trips. We finished with New Year's Eve in Helsinki, but you can just as easily run it the other way around and start in the south.

At a Glance

• Days 1–5 — Rovaniemi and Levi (the north). Santa Claus Village, husky and snowmobile safaris, snowbiking, snowshoe hiking and saunas.
• Days 6–10 — Helsinki (the south). Porvoo, Turku, Suomenlinna, a ferry day trip to Tallinn, and Helsinki itself.

If you're mainly here for the winter activities themselves, I've written about each one in more detail in my guide to the best things to do in Lapland.

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Part One: Northern Finland (Days 1–5)

Day 1: Rovaniemi and Santa Claus Village

A quick tip to start: we flew into Helsinki the day before and took the overnight train up to Rovaniemi, which saves you both a night's accommodation and a domestic flight.

On arrival we went straight to Santa Claus Village and spent the whole day there. This was December 23rd — the last day it was open before Christmas, since the village closes on the 24th — so we were deep in the polar night and it was bitterly cold.

We wandered the village, met Santa, and got a photo with him — worth knowing that a copy of the photo costs €50. Exploring the whole area takes a couple of hours, and we had lunch there too, so we ended up spending about six hours in total. If you're not travelling with kids, two to three hours is honestly enough; I've put everything worth knowing in a separate Santa Claus Village guide.

From there we drove to Levi, where we stayed for the next four nights. Levi is a ski resort town and makes an excellent base for every winter activity in the region.

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Day 2: Levi

• Morning — Reindeer safari at a nearby farm. The farm itself was beautiful, but the safari was short and slow. I preferred the husky safari we did the next day. Still worth doing once.

• Afternoon — Ice karting in Levi. A genuinely unique experience; there are only two rinks like it in Finland.

• Evening — Aurora hunting. Unsuccessful, thanks to heavy cloud cover.

Tip: Don't plan to be outside for more than about three hours at a stretch in winter. It gets brutally cold, and it creeps up on you.

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Day 3: Levi

• Morning — Husky safari at a farm that also kept reindeer and arctic foxes. This was exhilarating. Riding out over frozen lakes and through snowy forest felt like being dropped into Narnia.

• Afternoon — Snowmobile safari through snow-filled forest and across frozen lakes. Highly recommended.

• Evening — a traditional Sami sauna. You dip into a hole cut in a frozen lake, then warm straight back up in the sauna. It's said to do wonders for your metabolism, and it's one of the most memorable things we did — I've written more about the ice dip itself here.

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Day 4: Levi

• Morning — Snow biking through the forest on e-bikes. The best activity of the entire trip. We fell constantly and had an absurd amount of fun doing it.

• Afternoon — Snowshoe hiking in the forest, where we spotted wild reindeer and arctic foxes. If you'd rather ski, I'd take cross-country skiing through the forest over downhill here.

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Day 5: Rovaniemi and the night train south

We drove back toward Rovaniemi to catch the overnight train to Helsinki, stopping on the way at the Ice Hotel — a hotel built entirely from ice, rebuilt to a new theme every winter. The year we visited, the theme was Norse gods. Well worth the stop.

Then it was on to Rovaniemi and onto the night train.

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Part Two: Southern Finland (Days 6–10)

Day 6: Porvoo

Porvoo is a charming town about an hour from Helsinki, and its old town looks especially good under snow. We explored, had lunch, and headed back to Helsinki.

One surprise discovery: the restaurants in Helsinki are excellent. Every evening we took a sauna at our accommodation and then went hunting for somewhere good to eat.

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Day 7: Turku

Turku sits about two hours from Helsinki and was once the country's capital, so it's dense with history. We visited:

• Turku Castle
• Turku Cathedral
• The old town

A perfect day trip from Helsinki.

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Day 8: Suomenlinna Fortress

Suomenlinna is an enormous sea fortress spread across islands off the coast of Helsinki, reached by a short ferry. Exploring it properly takes a full day.

Tip: It is windy and freezing out there. Break the day up with the island's museums so you have somewhere to warm up.

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Day 9: Tallinn, Estonia

Tallinn is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe, and it's only a two-hour ferry from Helsinki. An absolute must-do, even as a day trip — we took the 7am Tallink sailing out and the 5pm back, and I've written up the full day trip here.

We explored:

• The old town
• The Christmas market
• The city walls
• The Fotografiska museum

This was New Year's Eve, so we headed back to Helsinki for the celebrations — the atmosphere was fantastic.

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Day 10: Helsinki

Our last day. With an evening flight, we spent it in Helsinki itself, visiting:

• Helsinki Cathedral
• Uspenski Cathedral

Honestly, while Helsinki is a big, comfortable city, I didn't find a huge number of standout sights. After lunch we checked out and headed for the airport.

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Final Thoughts

The northern half of this trip was the clear highlight — the winter activities around Levi were genuinely magical, and if you're short on time that's where I'd spend it. For a fuller breakdown of each one, see my guide to the best things to do in Lapland.

The south is well worth seeing, but I suspect it's better in summer, when you can actually enjoy the coast and the islands.

Hope this helps with your planning!