Finland

Finland is on this site for one reason, and it is a good one: Finnish Lapland in winter is the best-odds, best-value place in the North to see the aurora, and the road from Rovaniemi up the E8 to Tromsø is the route that puts it directly against Iceland. The rest of the country, which is large, lake-filled and flat, is not a journey in this site's sense, and is left to others.

#Getting there

From Iceland: Icelandair flies Keflavík–Helsinki; Finnair flies the same route. From Sweden: the Tornio–Haparanda road border at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, the E8 along the border river, and the Stockholm–Helsinki and Stockholm–Turku ferries. From Norway: the E8 from Skibotn to Kilpisjärvi, and several smaller crossings further east. From Denmark: through Copenhagen by air; by road it is the long way round through Sweden. From the Faroes and Greenland: through Copenhagen. Rovaniemi and Kittilä have direct winter flights from a handful of European cities and Helsinki connections otherwise.

#Car, ferry or flight

A car, collected at Rovaniemi on winter tyres, which the hire firms fit by law in season. The roads of the Lapland route, the E75, road 79 and the E8, are main roads, ploughed and sanded, with fuel at the towns and nothing between them. Cross-border one-way hires into Norway exist but are limited; ask before booking flights. Trains run overnight from Helsinki to Rovaniemi and Kolari, with car carriages, which is the slow way north with your own vehicle. Internal flights link Helsinki to all the Lapland airports.

#Money

Euro, the only one on this site. Statistics Finland publishes monthly average fuel prices; its October 2026 release put petrol 95 E10 at 2.28 euros per litre and diesel at 2.49, a record for diesel, which is the figure the ledgers use. Accommodation and food are mid band, with Levi upper in the February to April ski and aurora season. There are no road tolls in Finland.

#Driving rules

The Finnish Police state the default limits: 50 km/h in urban areas and 80 km/h outside them, applying wherever no sign says otherwise. Main roads carry signed 100 and motorways 120, and Väylävirasto, the transport infrastructure agency, reduces those to the winter limit from autumn until the switch back at the end of March or beginning of April, so the Lapland ledger uses 80 on the main roads. Traficom requires winter tyres between November and March when weather or road conditions call for them, with at least 3 mm tread and the three-peak mountain snowflake symbol on non-studded tyres. Headlights or daytime running lights are on at all times. Reindeer are on every northern road and are the owner's property; a collision is reported to the police.

#Seasons

Late November to March for the aurora, with the cold settling the sky from January; June to July for the midnight sun north of the Arctic Circle; September for autumn colour on the fells. Rovaniemi is just south of 66.5°N and keeps about two hours of sun at midwinter; Kilpisjärvi at 69°N has a polar night from 2 December to 12 January (computed, NOAA). The season planner has the month-by-month detail.

#Its journeys

Lapland aurora week, Rovaniemi to Tromsø; and the comparison Iceland or Lapland for the northern lights.