It’s super easy to fall in love with Finland. They have the nicest people, it’s crazy beautiful, and Santa lives there. I mean, if that’s not enough to convince you to visit - y’all cray.
My husband, Jerome, was invited to go to Finland with his cousin Ryan in February. When Jerome mentioned to me that he was probably gonna go, I kept raising my brows and winking my eyes trying to hint that he should take me along too. And it worked! Yahhooo! I was the extra tag-a-long, but I was up for anything they wanted to do and I’m pretty quiet so I’m good at seeming like I’m not around haha.
Okay, I’ll start this off saying parts of this trip were hashtag gifted (gifted to us for free by the companies) because a couple “influencers” were part of the trip. Even though I’m no influencer (hello 315 followers), outta respect, I’ll be mentioning and linking what I can. First up, we picked up a rental van big enough to fit all 8 of us from Bloxcar. We had a long drive ahead of us to our Airbnb, but it was beautifully snowy drive.
We were gifted a meal and skate around at Snowman World. Snowman World is a world of snow and ice featuring the Ice Restaurant with Ice Bar, beautiful snow & ice sculptures, and a selection of winter activities. They also provide luxury accommodation at Glass Resort. We had lunch inside a giant ice sculpture! They made us all a traditional salmon soup that was so delicious. They’re also very accommodating to dietary restrictions like for me, being dairy-free. They also served dessert, tea and coffee. The ice walls were decorated with such intricate carvings - I wish it showed better in my photos!
After the delish meal and a scary skate around (I’m terrible at ice skating), we headed out for a snowy adventure with Chris from Dreaming Naali. We hiked through snow covered trees, saw snow covered cabins, and walked over snow covered bridges. (There’s a theme in this blog post lol).
Chris made us a cozy fire to chat around with some warm cranberry juice - it was crazy good and just what I needed! This evening was one of my favourites from the whole trip because I’d never sat around a fire surrounded by snow covered trees while drinking hot cranberry juice from wooden mugs with snow falling on us before. It was almost like a dream.
After a much needed deep sleep, we had a day of snowmobiling with Safartica. At Safartica, the provide you with a waterproof snowsuit, wool socks, waterproof boots, gloves, balaklava, and helmet. It’s definitely important to have warm waterproof gear on! Anyway.. I’ve never done snowmobiling before, and it was freaky. Apparently the people before us drove too slowly, so it left the ground extremely bumpy. There was also a light rain and it wasn’t that cold, so it affected the ground too. But man, we were all crazy sore the next day. I don’t have too many photos of snowmobiling because it was impossible to hold my camera and hold on for dear life while Jerome drove.
We were also taught how to ice fish. I feel like I was more into it than everyone else, but I’d never done it before so of course I wanted to give it a go. Our guide walked us (me) through everything before I had a go at it.
Here’s some photos of him doing his thing.
He made it look super easy - lemme tell you. I couldn’t make the hole in the ice myself. I tried so hard too lol (picture 4 is me saying, “What the heck? I can’t do it!”). No fish were caught if you couldn’t tell by my face (picture 6).
Our guide cooked up superrrr good stews over the fire for us. He made a vegan one for some of us, but he made a reindeer (?!) stew for the rest of the gang. By far one of the best meals we had in Finland. He made ours creamy with an oat milk cream that was made for cooking. I’d never even seen that before! You betcha Jerome and I bought some to bring home.
Because I was Jerome’s passenger, I had a go at driving around when we were getting drone footage and I don’t know if I’ll do that again lol. We almost tipped over and it was all just very terrifying. You can sense my hesitation in the first photo below. I knewwww I’d have a hard time! Turning is flipping hard!
The next day, we were seriously sooooo sore from snowmobiling. We had a much needed casual day of visting Sannnnttttaaaa. We got to see his main post office, write letters to him, have a sleigh ride, and meet the big guy himself. I know I have social anxiety, but I was super scared of meeting Santa. I was scared that he was gonna think I was naughty, but he was soo kind. It really felt like he genuinely cared about what each of us had to say (this is all weird, I know lol). But it was a really nice experience. I can see why it’s a tourist destination.
Santa’s village is in the Arctic Circle!
On our last day, we did a bit of a hike to a well known river (unknown by me because I don’t know it’s name). There was a suspension bridge, super slippery stairs, and cool cabins. It was a nice last day to just take photos and enjoy being outside. Even though it was February, I was kept nice and toasty by my warm boots and cozy jacket (if only those were sponsored, ha). I ‘spose I can try to link things I wore. I’ll do that at the end of the post!
Jerome and I took some photos of each other with the beautiful background.
Hey Columbia & Roots - hit us up with a potential sponsorship lol.
We never take photos together, so I insisted we did. It proved v difficult with the focusing, but hey, I think it looks p cool.
Okokokay, now for the riveting content of me sharing what I wore basically the whole trip.
- i linked everything i could below!
just click whatever is underlined -
Tuque
Gloves
Thermal Long Sleeve
Sweater
Thermal Leggings
Leggings
Snow Pants
Jacket
Boots
Phew this post is a long one. I never know how much to share (or how much not to share), and I always take a million photos that I want to add in for my own memories. Ah well, I don’t have many readers anyway. But to those reading that are still here - THANK YOU! I’ll finish (no pun intended) up by saying Finland is beautiful, and I had a really great time on this trip. It was definitely different with it being a bit of an “influencer trip”, but I’m thankful that I got to tag-a-long.
Shout out to Jerome’s cousin Ryan for letting me come along on this trip!
Check out his Instagram @theoppositetravellers.
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Stay safe out there and thanks for reading.
☼ Melissa
In case you were wondering, we went on this trip just before Covid-19 became a global pandemic.
There was 1 case in Finland at the time.