Rovaniemi Tourist Traps: Mistakes to Avoid When Booking Your Trip

Santa Claus Village is undoubtedly one of Rovaniemi's most famous attractions—and if this is your first visit to Lapland, it is certainly worth seeing. You can cross the Arctic Circle, meet Santa Claus, send a postcard from Santa's Main Post Office, visit shops and restaurants, and enjoy several activities in the area.

But here's something many first-time visitors don't realise: you don't necessarily need to book a guided tour to experience Santa Claus Village. The village is free to enter, crossing the Arctic Circle is free, and meeting Santa Claus does not require an entrance ticket. Optional photographs, videos, activities, food and other services are charged separately.

Santa Claus Village is also located only a short distance from central Rovaniemi and can be reached independently by public transport, taxi or car. This means that if your main goal is simply to explore the village and meet Santa, you can comfortably organise the visit yourself and spend as much time there as you like.

Before booking a package, check exactly what is included and ask yourself whether those additional experiences are worth the price for you. 

Our local tip: Make the most of your day by combining Santa Claus Village with another morning experience. If your tour passes nearby, ask your guide if they can drop you off at Santa Claus Village after the activity instead of taking you back to your accommodation.

You can then explore the village independently, meet Santa Claus, cross the Arctic Circle and take your time without paying for a separate guided visit or additional transfer

Rudolf and his friends (the famous "Santa's reindeer") are a sorry sight, spending their entire days pulling tourists along a 400-meter track (the famous "safari"). If you would also like to experience reindeer, huskies or Lapland's wilderness, consider booking those experiences separately or choosing a small-group combination tour that gives you enough time to genuinely enjoy each activity.

In the heart of of December, you risk spending more than an hour in an interminable queue before reaching Santa Claus. You can, however, keep yourself busy by calculating how much you're charged per minute of waiting for this attraction, which, remember, is basically free.

And what about all the tours whose title highlights food as if to prepare you for the disappointment of not seeing the Northern Lights...

Some Northern Lights tours are designed around the overall Arctic experience rather than actively searching for clear skies. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but travellers should understand the difference before booking. If seeing the aurora is your priority, look for a tour where the guide actively monitors cloud cover and aurora conditions and is prepared to travel to locations offering better viewing prospects.

If you fall into this tourist trap when booking your holiday to Rovaniemi, you'll be taken on packed buses to a field owned by the agency, 15-20 kilometres from the town centre. You'll be served a sausage around the fire or salmon soup from the supermarket (the famous "picnic"), and you'll stand there for two hours waiting for something to happen (and too bad if it snows!)... before going back to Rovaniemi on the same packed bus.

It's true that it's possible to see the Northern Lights on these excursions (as it is everywhere else in Lapland, if you're slightly lucky!). However, these "Lappish picnics" and "Lappish barbecues" offer no services that could optimise your chances of seeing the Northern Lights: no weather analysis, no checking of spatial conditions, no hours-long chase in the most promising directions, few explanations, no photography, and huge groups (which further increase the light pollution emitted by cell phones, headlamps, etc.).

Before booking, ask whether the tour stays at one fixed location or actively searches for clearer skies.

If you're interested in a good dinner, head to one of the many restaurants in town (e.g., Nili, Gustav, Taiga, etc.), which offer typical and delicious menus for a much better price!

And if you want to maximise your chances of seeing the auroras, opt for a real Northern Lights hunt with a camera (and as a bonus, a typical barbecue snack around the fire is included!). Our Northern Lights hunts are designed around one priority: giving you the best realistic opportunity to see and photograph the aurora under the conditions of that particular night.

Snowmobile tours are one of the most popular tours that people book on their holiday in Rovaniemi. On the agenda: hop on your snowmobile and explore the vastness of Lapland with your guide! The excursion is definitely worth it, and you'll get to discover even more of the snowy landscapes!

Here are some tips to avoid the tourist traps when booking your snowmobile tour: first be careful when choosing the company you go with! Some high-volume snowmobile tours operate with large groups. You risk finding yourself travelling at 20 km/h behind an endless queue of snowmobiles (probably the only traffic jam in Lapland) on overcrowded (and therefore not at all pleasant!) trails.

Always read the snowmobile operator's insurance and damage policy before booking. Even a relatively minor accident can result in additional charges depending on the operator's terms and the insurance option selected.

How can you avoid choosing the wrong tour company?
The best way is to go with our partner guide specialised in snowmobile safaris who offers private tours for a price similar to open group tours. This way, you'll go at the pace you want and can enjoy the tour in complete privacy! Don't hesitate to contact us to discuss a tailor-made offer.

The other option is to venture out on a longer excursion (be careful, these are also more difficult and tiring) or an electric snowmobile safari, since the groups are smaller. Here are three examples we recommend:
– Snowmobile safari to the Ice Hotel
– Morning electric snowmobile safari
– Afternoon electric snowmobile safari

Our tourist trap #4 is to avoid peak season when booking your holiday in Rovaniemi. Indeed, the capital of Finnish Lapland is a popular winter destination, and hence particularly busy during the holiday season (remember, this is where Santa Claus officially lives!). Christmas and New Year are generally the busiest and most expensive periods of the winter season in Rovaniemi. You'll sometimes even have to book several months in advance to enjoy activities with limited availability (such as reindeer or dog sledding safaris)... Not exactly what you imagine when you think of the white, peaceful and wide-open spaces of Lapland...

December offers very long nights, which is excellent for aurora darkness, but winter weather can also bring extensive cloud cover and snowfall. Northern Lights visibility therefore depends heavily on the conditions of each individual night.

So when is the best time to plan your winter holiday in Rovaniemi?

The second half of January is usually the "low" part of the high season and therefore a very good time to visit if you want to enjoy winter activities in peace. The only problem is that it's also the coldest time! February and March offer excellent winter conditions together with considerably more daylight. But if you really want to go around December, choose the first half of the month instead.

And why not go to Rovaniemi in summer or autumn?

Lapland is a playground for outdoor enthusiasts, whatever the season! In fact, each season offers its own unique atmosphere! Coming to Rovaniemi in summer means admiring the golden light of the Arctic during the Midnight Sun. Midnight Sun can be experienced around early June to early July, while the nights remain remarkably bright for a much longer period around midsummer. Do you love the pink colors of sunsets? Come in late July/early August when sunsets and sunrises are very close together, and you might just be able to admire this beautiful show for hours on end! Summer is truly the perfect time to explore the rivers and lakes (did you know there are 187,888 lakes in Finland?). Canoeing, cycling, or hiking... the possibilities are endless!

In autumn, Rovaniemi is bathed in a soft light as the birch leaves turn gold and crimson. This explosion of colour occurs in September during the season Finns call "ruska." It's Lapland's best-kept secret and a favourite time of year for Finns travelling north from all over the country. And ruska also means the return of the Northern Lights! Indeed, this natural phenomenon can be seen as early as late August (and as late as early April)!

By October and November, the long dark nights provide plenty of opportunities for aurora viewing whenever skies are clear and solar activity is favourable. Depending on the year, snow may already be present at this time, making it perfect for enjoying winter activities without the crowds!

Read our article on the best times to observe the Northern Lights here. 

Getting off the beaten tracks and going to Rovaniemi outside of the winter season has a lot of advantages: tranquillity, the unexpected beauty of the landscapes in summer and autumn, mild weather (yes, temperatures can reach up to 25°C in summer!), and great deals.

However, we do not recommend the period from mid-April to mid-May: the weather is unstable (the famous second winter!), and most travel agencies are slow or even closed.

In short, as you can see, Lapland is a destination worth experiencing at least twice: in winter and in summer/autumn!

Read our article: When to go to Lapland? by clicking here. 

The calendar shows natural conditions and the different activities possible according to your holiday period

Dog sledding or reindeer safaris are very popular on a holiday in Rovaniemi, and you'll find a plethora of offers of all kinds. Be careful, however, to do your research before booking your tour, as it is easy to find safaris which are not truly authentic or ethical: our pitfall #5.

To accommodate ever-larger tourist groups, some agencies have set up safaris with infernal pace for both the animals and the tourists themselves, with continuous and timed departures (the reindeer at Santa Claus Village are unfortunately a good example). Sometimes, they have even created their own "farms," to which they transport their packed buses every morning and afternoon. 

So how do you choose your dog sledding or reindeer safari?

Make sure the farm or kennel you choose is a reasonable size, has a long family history, and respects the welfare of its animals by adapting the safaris. There are ethical, family-run kennels near Rovaniemi that offer high-quality services: you can often take your time and enjoy with the dogs, who will be just as excited to meet you as you are.

Similarly, traditional reindeer farms have been established for generations in the Rovaniemi region; the herders will be happy to share their craft, lifestyle, and passion by answering your questions.

Generally speaking, by asking a few questions, you'll quickly know if you're dealing with an authentic place or if it's just a tourist scam.

At Nordic Odyssey, we carefully select the reindeer farms and husky kennels we work with and prioritise small-scale experiences where animal welfare and genuine interaction are central to the visit.  So you can safely take a look at our 10km dog sledding adventuresand our reindeer farm experiences!

It's no secret: Lapland (and Rovaniemi) is an expensive holiday... A trip often dreamed of for a long time and for which one sometimes saves for years. And rightly so: flights, hotels, restaurants, but also tours and guided activities quickly increase the budget, even if we don't necessarily have luxurious tastes!

A lower price doesn't necessarily mean a lower-quality experience. However, if one tour is significantly cheaper than similar alternatives, take a few minutes to understand why. Compare group size, duration, transportation, equipment, guide services, cancellation conditions and what is actually included in the advertised price.

It might then be tempting to turn to cheaper tours that, on paper, seem to offer similar services to the more expensive tours. A good deal? Not really. The case of "night barbecue" tours has already been mentioned above. They are symptomatic of a destination that is attractive for the beauty of its landscapes and which, inevitably, encourages mass tourism and scams...

Unfortunately, tours with overly attractive prices often hide a very disappointing reality: crowded buses that unload their tourists onto unattractive parking lots, tours that take place without any consideration for the conditions in the field (cold, snow, low chances of seeing the Northern Lights, etc.), little concern for safety (especially for children!), an experience that is in no way personal, untrained "guides" who are new and often know nothing about the region, poorly treated and poorly paid seasonal employees, outdated and poorly maintained equipment..

Before booking your tours, be sure to do some quick research on the company, read some recent traveller reviews, carefully read the descriptions (and if there is no precise description, be wary!), and don’t fall for the pretty photos (often borrowed from stock photos)...

Whenever possible, check the activity provider's own website before booking through a marketplace. Booking directly often makes communication easier, especially when you have questions about clothing, pickup arrangements, weather conditions or special requirements. It also allows you to understand exactly who will be operating your experience. 

Finally, if you're looking for good deals, you can always take advantage of special offers that are occasionally applied to certain tours. Here, we list tours that we feature, based on the time of year, with reduced prices.