Ivalo and Inari: Our Budget Lapland Trip with Kids + Map

We headed to Inari in northern Finland after someone recommended it during our previous trip to Lapland and Santa Claus’s hometown, Rovaniemi. If you’re choosing between the two, have a look at my Rovaniemi guide with 2 to 7-day itineraries. Rovaniemi sits on the Arctic Circle and is pretty touristy. Inari, about 280 km further north, is much quieter. That was exactly the point. Escape the crowds! Below you’ll find what we paid for flights, accommodation and a hire car. And don’t forget our downloadable map!

You can spend a fortune in Lapland, but as you’ll see below, plenty of the best bits are completely free: a proper winter wonderland, a frozen lake, spotting free-roaming reindeer and the Northern Lights. All we needed was a hire car, although do read about our little mishap below. We flew out for just three nights and squeezed in loads.

What to sort out before your Lapland trip

• Download our map of places to visit and eat: get the map (in Czech).
• Book your hire car early, and watch out for what happened to us. More on that below!
• Get an idea of the activities and what they cost before you go. There’s a full list below. What do you want to splurge on, and what can you do for free like we did? I recommend booking activities through this app. Check the free cancellation terms for the individual activity.
• A good lip balm and a water-free cold-weather face cream.
• Something to tame static hair.
• Hand and toe warmers for your gloves and boots.
• Proper snow boots.
• A power bank: phone batteries drain faster in the cold.
• Ask your accommodation whether you can borrow sledges.
• If you have lounge access through your card or membership, make use of it during your connection. My free airport lounge guide is in Czech, and the card benefits it covers are mainly aimed at Czech readers.

Flights to Ivalo: the best routes and what we paid

Ivalo (IVL) is a small airport, the northernmost in Finland and the European Union. Summer flights are more limited and can cost more, but winter fares can be reasonable. We flew from Prague with Austrian via Vienna and back with SWISS/Edelweiss via Zurich, booked as one ticket on Austrian’s website, never as separate flights! Our return flights for two adults and two children cost about €730 altogether, roughly €185 each. A pretty good deal!

For winter 2026/27, the simplest option from southern England is British Airways, operated by BA Euroflyer, direct from London Gatwick to Ivalo. Flights run from 2 December 2026 to 26 February 2027, usually two or three times a week. For more flexible dates, look at Finnair via Helsinki, including connections from London Heathrow and other international airports. Helsinki to Ivalo runs year-round. For a short break like ours, compare the full journey time and book the connecting flights on one ticket.

From mainland Europe, winter direct routes to Ivalo include Lufthansa from Frankfurt, Eurowings from Düsseldorf, Edelweiss from Zurich and Transavia or Vueling from Paris Orly. Discover Airlines adds Munich from 23 December 2026 to 24 March 2027, while Austrian’s confirmed Vienna flights run from 6 to 27 February 2027. Flying into Rovaniemi is another option, including direct UK flights, but allow roughly four more hours by bus to Inari. For a three-night visit, I’d prioritise Ivalo. The airport is about 50 minutes by car from Inari village, with hire cars and pre-booked transfers available.

Where to stay in Inari and Ivalo

We decided not to stay in Ivalo and drove about 30 minutes further towards Lake Inari. Accommodation is expensive pretty much everywhere, but we eventually found this cosy little cabin for about €720 for three nights for our family of four. Two of us slept in the bedroom and two on the sofa in the kitchen, and we slept well. For local prices, that was a good find. I watched the Northern Lights above our cabin’s roof, and Lake Inari, another aurora-watching spot, was only about 200 metres away.

Here are my accommodation picks in Ivalo, Inari and the surrounding area. It really is pricey up here, so some of the more affordable options are fairly basic Finnish cabins. That’s part of the atmosphere, though!

• Aurora Husky Hut has breakfast included in the winter season, from December to March! Simple, well reviewed and a cheaper option. The cabins sleep two and have no running water, with an eco-toilet inside and a shared sauna in a separate building.
• Giellajohka is, as one reviewer put it, cosy accommodation in the middle of nowhere :D. The remote location is great for watching the Northern Lights, although it’s further away, beyond Inari. We spotted reindeer somewhere around that area.
• Wilderness Hotel Juutua is a pricier option in Inari itself, within walking distance of the lake for Northern Lights watching. A sauna in your room is such a good idea! Choose a Superior Sauna Room for a private sauna, as not every room category has one. The hotel is closed for renovation until 20 November 2026.

Hiring a car at Ivalo Airport

We hired a car for the whole stay and collected it at the airport. It ended up saving us a lot of money. The tours we looked at, even a fairly basic minibus trip to look for the Northern Lights, were around €150 to €190 per person. That’s a lot for a family of four! With the car, we could go wherever we liked, and we spotted reindeer on the road several times. The car cost us €438 for three days, and we brought our own child seats.

Watch out for this one, though. The car hire company wanted a credit card valid for at least another three months, and Martin’s fell short by just a few days. OK, I found mine. But that meant adding me as a driver, for a fee, thankfully only €21. Which meant finding my driving licence… except I hadn’t brought it, because I haven’t driven for a few years. I eventually found a scan somewhere on my phone. Phew! Bring your original driving licence for collection, though, and check your rental company’s requirements.

11 things to do in Ivalo, Inari and nearby

I recommend downloading our map (pins in Google Maps). Some of these spots don’t even show up on the usual maps. We either found them ourselves while exploring or heard about them from our host.

1. Watch the Northern Lights. Free if you have a car, or join an organised outing: book a tour.
2. Meet reindeer. You might spot them in the wild for free, or visit a farm for a hefty price. Another option is combining aurora watching with a reindeer sleigh ride.
3. Husky sledding and a kennel visit. Another expensive one! I’d have been up for it, but for the whole family it was just too much.
4. A snowmobile safari with a chance to meet reindeer and lunch included.
5. Walk to the suspension bridge above the Jäniskoski rapids. We found it easy and took the children on sledges. There’s a shelter where you can light a fire, and the woodshed was full when we visited. We carried on along the river afterwards. Those rapids rushing through a partly frozen river were beautiful.

6. The Tuulisjärvi lake walk. It’s less than 2 km each way, with a shelter by the lake and a woodshed beside it. Don’t forget matches! The children did this one on sledges too.
7. Visit the wooden birdwatching tower at Toivoniemi. We saw a herd of reindeer in a field nearby, then met another two on the road.
8. Ski at Saariselkä ski resort or try Finland’s longest toboggan run. And by toboggan, I mean a plastic sledge, not a roller coaster! Aurora Tobogganing is 1.8 km long and suitable for ages seven and up. The run is only open during lift operating hours. We had our own sledges from our accommodation, so in theory we could have gone down for free and had Martin collect us at the bottom by car, or paid for an organised trip. We drove up Kaunispää and parked for free.

9. Sledging beside the illuminated steps. You won’t find this on the usual maps, but it is on mine! A tip from the locals and brilliant for children. Wooden steps with lights lead up a hill, then you sledge back down. Another free attraction.
10. Ice skating on frozen Lake Inari ⛸️. Only head onto the ice once you’ve checked current conditions locally, or go with a guide.
11. Siida Museum introduces the culture of the Sámi, the Indigenous peoples of the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. You’ll see how people lived in Lapland, the challenges they faced, traditional clothing and local wildlife. There’s also a sizeable open-air museum, with a roughly 1 km circuit past traditional buildings. Winter opening hours, October to the end of May, are Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, closed on Sundays. Adults pay €18, children aged 7 to 17 pay €7, and children aged six and under enter free. A €36 family ticket covers two adults and all their children under 18. The outdoor section opens when weather conditions allow.

Other classic Lapland activities include ice fishing and snowshoeing.

Seeing the Northern Lights around Inari

Inari gives you a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights in winter. Our main limitation was that the children go to bed at about eight, so heading out on late-night adventures wasn’t really an option. The lovely thing about remote Inari is that you don’t have to go far. As our host put it, just step outside and look up! Here are my shots.

These are the two things I recommend for your aurora hunt:

• Watch the Aurora app. It also shows reports from other people who’ve spotted the lights nearby.
• Check live webcams. Our nearest one looked out over Lake Inari: watch here.

You’re most likely to catch the aurora later in the evening or around midnight, although we saw it as early as 8pm on our first evening. On another night it was closer to midnight. You need a clear enough sky and proper darkness. Freezing temperatures alone won’t make the lights appear.

Where to eat in Inari and Ivalo

Finns eat lunch early, so you can get stuck into a buffet at 11am. These lunch buffets are one of my favourite things about Finland, and such good value. Dessert, coffee and tea are included too, and it’s all you can eat. Priceless! Just bear in mind that coach groups stop for lunch as well and may have reservations. It can get busy between noon and 1pm, but people move through fairly quickly.

For one of these buffets, head to Ravintola Sarrit on the ground floor of Siida Museum. We paid €16.90 per adult and €6 for our child over five, while our younger, three-year-old son ate free. Our family lunch came to €38. Under €40 for all four of us, folks! Sarrit is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, with the lunch buffet served from 11am to 3pm.

Where to try reindeer meat

The cheapest option is to buy reindeer meat at the supermarket. I went to K-Market in Inari, with Sale right next door. Either will do. Look for reindeer salami and dried reindeer meat, around €8 to €10 a packet.

Then we stumbled across a restaurant with reindeer on the children’s menu for €9, including an ice lolly :D. We also ordered a reindeer burger, about €28, and I had my favourite Finnish salmon soup, lohikeitto. The total, including coffee, was about €60, which I thought was good for somewhere a bit fancy. I can definitely recommend it, despite the rather unpromising name: Restaurant and Night Club Kultahippu.

Finnish supermarket treats

Whenever we arrive in Finland, I stock up on local treats. It’s become a bit of a ritual. These are the things I usually buy, but be warned, the labels can be a puzzle if you don’t speak Finnish. Even working out which yoghurt is which takes some effort!

• Poro means reindeer and lohi means salmon. Handy words for your shopping trip.
• Squeaky cheese, leipäjuusto, eaten with cloudberry jam. Cloudberries are the orange berries that grow up here.
• Pickled herring.
• Salty liquorice, salmiakki, as sweets and little coated treats.
• Marabou and Fazer chocolate.
• Aura blue cheese with piparkakut gingerbread biscuits.
• Blueberry soup, mustikkakeitto, in a carton like milk. I mix it into plain yoghurt. Yum.
• Viili, a Finnish cultured milk product. Imagine yoghurt with a little gelatine added, stretching off the spoon like rubber! It tastes similar to yoghurt. The children weren’t convinced, but I liked it.

What to wear in Lapland in winter

In Inari we had temperatures of about -5°C to -9°C, dropping to -12°C on our last day. After that, temperatures dropped to -18°C during the day and -22°C at night. You really feel that! Here’s what we wore. For even colder conditions, which we’ve also experienced with the children in Svalbard, I’d add another layer. I’ve written more about our children’s winter kit in this guide (in Czech).

• Base layer: a long-sleeved merino top, leggings and socks. Two pairs of socks can work, with wool on top, provided your boots still fit comfortably.
• Optional extra layer: another top.
• Mid layer: a fleece and insulated snow trousers.
• Outer layer: a winter jacket, gloves, hat and neck warmer.

For adults, thin touchscreen liner gloves are useful under warm gloves. You can take photos or check the map without having completely bare hands. Try both layers together so they don’t squeeze your fingers and you can still move them comfortably. Thin gloves alone aren’t enough for standing around waiting for the Northern Lights. For your boots, disposable toe warmers are another option. They activate in air and stick to your socks, not directly to your skin.

Extra layers for colder days:

• Add mittens over your gloves.
• Wear a light down jacket under your winter coat.
• Add a thermal overall over your winter clothes. These may be provided or hired for organised tours.

With children, make sure they keep moving. Sitting still on a sledge is the quickest way to feel the cold. Hand and toe warmers can help too, used according to their instructions and with regular checks that little hands and feet are comfortable.

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