Our five-night stay in Lapland, at the Ranua Resort, was packed with fun and interesting outdoor activities that gave us the opportunity to do things that were completely new to us, in a type of environment we’d never experienced before.
Here are all the details of our 5-night Lapland itinerary with our recommendations of Lapland excursions and activities based on our stay in the Ranua Resort…
Day 1: Visiting the Ranua Wildlife Park and a forest hike
Our early-morning flight to Lapland meant we’d arrived at Ranua Resort around lunchtime, so after refuelling with lunch at the buffet restaurant, we headed out for a walk around the Ranua Wildlife Park – a zoo specialising in Arctic species that’s set in a beautiful forest.
The forest is so beautiful, when coated in thick snow as it was when we visited in February, that we couldn’t resist heading off out of the park along some of the clearly-marked trails through the forest surrounding the resort.
Much of the snow around the forest is too deep to walk through (waist-deep in some places when we ventured off the main track) but routes have been carved through the snow where it’s more compacted and easy to walk on (which are used by snowmobilers, so be aware of the chance of a snowmobile speeding through the woods).
As we walked through this surreal landscape on this bright and crisp day, we felt we were the only people for miles around and the serene peace of the place was like nothing we’d experienced anywhere else.
Day 2: Cross-country skiing
We’ve never done any type of skiing before so had no idea what to expect or whether we’d even be able to do cross-country skiing.
All the equipment is provided by the Ranua Resort and our guide gave us a few instructions, before leading us out into one of the easier woodland cross country ski courses that adjoin the resort.
It didn’t take too long to at least kind of get the hang of it, and it was a fun way of getting to see even more of the surrounding snowy forests than we’d done so on foot – albeit it’s an extremely energetic way of doing so.
We had our resort-supplied all-in-one snowsuits on, which on other days we wore thick jumpers beneath, but were very glad we’d gone with a thin layer under the suits for this activity as, despite the temperatures below -5 degrees, we were absolutely sweating after only about 10 minutes of the skiing.
This is definitely an activity for the active and fit travellers and if you’re not used to sports and exercise, you might want to swap this for something a bit less strenuous.
Day 3 morning: Ice fishing by snowmobile
A few kilometres away from the Ranua Resort is an enormous expanse of frozen lake, frozen so thick you can even drive cars and lorries over it.
For this excursion, we were travelling to the lake by snowmobile, which is one of the most fun methods of transport I’ve ever taken.
I had actually assumed that we’d be passengers on the snowmobile, so was extremely happy to find out that we got to drive them ourselves.
After a brief explanation by the guides on how to operate the snowmobile, we were off, following the guides through the woods on an incredibly fun journey to the lake.
Here, we parked up the snowmobiles and were shown how to use giant ice drills to make holes in the ice that we could fish through.
The guides showed us how to use the little ice fishing rods and, after a while wondering if anyone would catch anything, the fish began to bite and the group of us were reeling in loads of fish.
The guide, who spends his life fishing and hunting around these forests for food, took some of the fish we’d caught, lit a fire right there on the ice and cooked the fish so we could literally eat it minutes after catching it ourselves.
Day 3 night-time: Northern lights safari by Finn Horse sleigh
With the skies staying reasonably clear this-evening, we were hopeful of a sighting of the northern lights on this trip to a secluded clearing in the forest, travelling in a sleigh pulled by a large ‘Finn Horse’.
Covered by warm reindeer skin blankets, we sat in the sleigh enjoying the peace and calm of the cold Lapland night-time, as we were pulled through thick forest in the dark, with just the moonlight illuminating the route to the clearing where we’d watch for the northern lights.
We did actually get to see some – but they were extremely faint and barely visible (though they would come out again much brighter later that night when we got back to the resort).
The guide lit a fire in the woods for us to sit around whilst we waited for the lights to appear, drinking coffee brewed up on the fire, but in the end we had to return to the resort without having seen much in the way of northern lights – but still having had an enjoyable evening out in the snowy forest.
Day 4 morning: Snowmobile ride to a reindeer farm
We were looking forward to another chance to ride the snowmobiles for a decent-length journey through the woods and over the lake again, this time arriving at a reindeer farm where we’d get to hang around with and feed a herd of 300+ reindeer.
The family that run the farm showed us around, telling facts about the reindeer as they ran around us jostling for their food, which we were able to feed some of them (the braver, less-timid ones) by hand.
Day 4 afternoon: Ice swim and Finnish sauna
This was the activity we’d been looking forward to and dreading in equal measure – the chance to plunge into the frozen lake and experience the invigorating thrill of warming in a wood-fired Finnish sauna before bathing in zero-degree icy lake water.
We were driven a couple of miles up the road from Ranua Resort to a small camp with a wooden cabin and a pontoon out into the lake, where a hole was cut in the ice with some steps down into it.
The guide showed us how to keep the sauna hot and then left us completely alone, to return to pick us up again two hours later.
It was another experience of complete peace and tranquility with no-one else anywhere to be seen or heard.
We stripped off our thick coats, jumpers and boots and began by warming ourselves in the sauna in preparation for the ice plunge.
Eventually we were hot enough and had worked up enough courage to venture out – in nothing but swimming costumes – into the snow, along the pontoon and down the steps into the ice cold water.
It was painfully cold and unbearable and invigorating in equal measure – and we were thankful to be able to run back along the pontoon and dive into the sauna to heat up again, before heading back out into the icy water again.
We had fun testing ourselves and seeing who could stay in the longest and it was a major challenge – definitely not an excursion for the fainthearted – but after 5 or 6 rounds of sauna-ing and ice plunging, we felt extremely refreshed, physically invigorated and really glad we’d given it a go.
Day 5: Husky sledding
Right next door to the Ranua Resort is the Wild Arctic Husky Park, where a large pack of Huskies live and are trained to pull sleds around the surrounding woodland trails.
The first thing you notice about the Huskies is how eager and enthusiastic they are to head out into the woods, barking and leaping around as the guide showed us how to control the sled (which is basically just a case of putting your foot on a brake to slow them down – everything else is done by the dogs).
Despite having to drag two grown adults around behind them, the Huskies seemed to be enjoying themselves even more than we were, even after a good hour-and-a-half touring through yet more of the beautiful forest and lake-side trails around Ranua.
Day 6: Transfer to the Arctic Fox glass igloos
On the shore of the same frozen lake we’d been plunging into the day before is a small collection of glass igloos, ideal for watching the northern lights (if you’re lucky enough to get a display) or even just gazing out at the moonlit sky and snowy forest surroundings if not.
We packed up our suitcases from the Ranua Resort lodge and were driven the few miles further into the forest to spend our last night in a glass igloo.
This was a magical way to end our trip to Lapland – we’ve written up full details of our stay in the Arctic igloo here, so you can get a better idea of the full experience.
Conclusion
These were just a selection of the activities you can do at Ranua Resort – there are other options available, but we thoroughly enjoyed every single activity we did here.
What helped was that, despite a pretty packed 5-night itinerary of activities, the whole week ran like clockwork, with the timings of all the activities perfectly spaced to allow ample time to enjoy each one, but with plenty of time between them to rest, recover, warm up and look forward to the next one.
The staff and guides at Ranua Resort were all extremely helpful and enthusiastic and we felt the above itinerary gave us an absolutely perfect way of experiencing the nature and the beauty of the area in fun and exhilarating ways.
More information
- Read our full Ranua Resort review here
- The Ranua Resort website