Why Every Christmas Lover Needs to Visit Rovaniemi, Finland
Snow-sprinkled trees, amazing auroras, rambunctious reindeer... Here's why every Christmas lover needs to visit Rovaniemi, Finland.
It's technically not on the North Pole, but Rovaniemi is known as "the official home of Santa Claus."
That's right, all you have to do is head to the northwestern part of Finland (right by Sweden), and you can meet Santa Claus himself and cross the Arctic Circle any day of the year at Rovaniemi's Santa Claus Village.
Remember writing letters to Santa? This is where they went!
The Santa Claus Main Post Office is a real-life post office that operates 365 days a year and happens to be the place where all letters to Santa are sent.
The village even has reindeer....
...that give you sleigh rides!
Oh, and there are dogsled rides, too.
If that isn't magical enough, Rovaniemi has a subarctic climate that makes for long, snow-covered winters. So, for months on end, it looks like this:
And this!
Which makes it a wonderful place to go skiing, snowshoing or even snowmobiling.
So you can cruise around scenery that looks like this...
Or even visit the Kingdom of Snow and Ice, aka the Arctic SnowHotel, which is a real hotel you can stay in that looks like this:
If you needed another excuse to visit, consider this -- Rovaniemi is one of the best places in the world to see the Northern Lights.
In Lapland (Roveniemi's province), there can be as many as 200(!) auroral displays each year, while southern Finland usually sees fewer than 20.
Yep, Rovaniemi is just about as close to a real-life winter wonderland as you can get.
See you in Finland!