Why, When, and How Long we Stayed at Kakslauttanen
Kakslauttanen Hotel & Igloo Village
Firstly, a great deal of time was spent working out exactly when we would go. There were a lot of conflicting reports with regards to the best time of year to witness the lights, so it seemed to a certain extent to always carry a degree of luck. We booked our stay to coincide with the new moon (so no moonlight to detract from the Northern Lights), and as close to the winter solstice as possible (for the maximum number of darkened hours). In hindsight I think the latter may have been a bit misguided as while the sun never rises, there was still a "twilight" most of the day where it was quite easy to see without any additional lighting. The daylight hours while we were there was approximately 10am to 4pm. And irrespective of the level of daylight, it appears the peak viewing time for the lights is always between the hours of 10pm and 2am. So long as whenever you are going, it's dark during that period, then I think you're in luck.
Most other sources I could find suggested that given how far into the arctic circle Kakslauttanen is and the time of year we were going, given clear weather we had a 1 in 4 chance of a sighting. So we booked for 4 nights, guessing that gave us an even money shot, weather permitting. A slight contradictory note though on arrival at Ivalo Airport the local paper claimed that Saariselkä, the town closest to Kakslauttanen, had 200 viewings a year, which rates your chances well above 1 in 4.
The next task was to actually pick a location, and the number of choices you have here is quite large. I wanted somewhere that was far enough north to carry a high probability of a viewing, so that naturally ruled out southern Scandinavia. We also wanted something that provided us a few options for activities during the day to keep us occupied. Many of the Swedish destinations were quite remote and desolate, so they were out too. Rovaniemi, Finland, looked like a good option but it was a bit further south than I ideally wanted. Tromsø in Norway was another candidate quite high up. Ultimately we ruled both out as they're quite large towns so the amount of light pollution would cut down the visibility for the northern lights at night so we'd need to take an excursion out of town to see them. So I finally decided on Saariselkä.
Saariselkä is tiny little town, about 250km north of Rovaniemi. Speaking to a few of the locals, they thought the permanent resident population was somewhere around the 500 mark. The closest airport is Ivalo, approximately a 30min taxi away, so it was easily reachable, quite far north, and not so large to suffer from light pollution. Best of all, it had a downhill ski field so we could easily fill our waking hours with activities and not spend all day shivering in anticipation of the evening light show.
So then the task of choosing a somewhere to stay; I very quickly decided on Kakslauttanen Hotel & Igloo Village. It was 15km south of Saariselkä so even further removed from distracting light, offered a good range of activities, but most impressive of all it had glass igloos! Decision made, but was it worth the price?
- Kakslauttanen Hotel and Igloo Village
- Getting to Kakslauttanen
- Activities around Kakslauttanen and Saariselkä
- Review of Kakslauttanen Hotel and Igloo Village
