We (Skippy and I) are not affiliated with either the Aurora Zone or Wilderness Hotels this trip was paid for with our own money.

The Aurora Zone

Despite this being a bucket list item the actual decision to go on this trip was spur of the moment so for us the whole booking and decision making process was pretty speedy. The Aurora Zone staff were extremely accommodating; we booked via email which meant we could respond asynchronously and had time to make decisions.

The Aurora Zone’s holidays are all inclusive: flights (Finnair in our case), shuttle bus to/from the hotel, full board and cold weather gear. They have a comprehensive packing list available on their website and I recommend you follow it: we took a fair amount of stuff with us that we didn’t end up needing but as you are in the middle of nowhere on these holidays it is better to be over prepared than under. They also recommend splitting your stuff between your bags if you’re travelling with more than one person and carrying a set of thermals as well as peripherals (hat, gloves, scarf) in your hand luggage. Fortunately none of our luggage went astray but this is still excellent advice.

The draft itinerary we were sent had us doing two aurora hunts on the same night however a quick email to the team confirmed that that wasn’t going to be the case in reality. Apart from that, all the salient information was correct.

The only issue we had during the preparatory phase was Finnair cancelling our flight the day before we were due to travel and that was solved within half an hour by Finnair themselves. The plane we ended up taking was only 25 minutes later than the one were originally booked on, leaving us plenty of time to transfer at Helsinki.

Travel

Apart from the few hours minutes of fretting caused by the change of plane, the whole trip went really smoothly. Helsinki is a relatively small airport so 45 minutes (the recommended minimum) is more than enough time to transfer, including negotiating passport control. Our bags were checked right through in both directions so we just had to get ourselves across the airport. If you happen to be transferring around a meal time I strongly recommend getting at least a snack in the airport as we were really hungry by the time we got to the hotel.

Airport transfer

Inbound the coach driver was waiting for us with a sign saying “Hotel Wilderness Nellim”, the drivers have a list of who they should be collecting so make sure you make yourself known to them. Once everyone had arrived we were taken to the coach as a group and the driver checked again that we were all on the correct bus before setting off.

On the way back my watch alarm failed however the bus driver came in to the hotel to check with the reception staff who in turn came to get us. We were back at the airport 20 minutes or so before baggage check opened which allowed enough time to get a bag tag ready and have a brew once through security.

Wilderness Hotel, Nellim

A snow covered road leading to a single storey wooden building lit up with fairy lights. Next to it there is a two storey wooden building behind a pine tree. The full moon is visible in the sky.

On arrival you’re taken through some essentials about your stay - your room number and location, meal times, how to contact reception, not to open the windows (it’s cold outside the heating can’t cope), when and where to collect your cold weather gear. Activity times are announced the night before at around 20h so you need to go to reception and check.

Cold weather gear will be provided as soon as possible after you arrive, the staff will make sure that it fits well and that you have enough space in your boots1. Try everything on, you’re going to need to move around in it and operate things.

We didn’t get our cold weather gear until the morning, but as we were utterly exhausted from travelling we barely noticed.

Food

All the meals were buffet style, tasty and plentiful, there was a desert available for both lunch and dinner. Coffee is only available with breakfast however you can buy coffee and hot chocolate from the bar throughout the day. There was also a kettle provided in our room for us to make our own hot drinks.

We had one activity which included lunch: this was a hot meal of reindeer meat and vegetables complemented by potato bread all cooked over an open fire in a teepee. There was hot berry juice and hot chocolate to drink as well as oat biscuits.

Two kettles heating over a fire which has been set in a fireplace suspended from a tripod. The fireplace is inside a teepee. A frying pan containing a meal of reindeer meat and vegetables cooking over a fire which has been set in a fireplace suspended from a tripod. There is a woman toasting breads in a grill next to the fire. They are inside a teepee.

On our evening activities the guide provided berry juice, biscuits and, where we had a fire, marshmallows to toast.

Activities

All the guides were amazing and made sure that they were working at the level of the group. None of the activities that we took part in pushed anyone too far beyond their comfort zone.

Cross country skiing

There are a few techniques to learn before you can head off cross country skiing; starting with how to move forwards. It’s an odd sensation and every time I got into a rhythm I noticed and lost it again. For a lot of the time we were following the tracks of the person in front of us which made going in the right direction very easy however we did get a chance to try heading off on our own through fresh snow over the lake which is a totally different sensation.

I tried both of the techniques for going up hill: walking like a penguin was more effective for very steep hills (this hill was optional), while the slide and stamp technique to bind the ski into place was pretty good for shallower ones.

Downhill is mostly a case of letting gravity do its thing and not falling over.

Three people cross country skiing on a lake. Two are standing and chatting while one of them changes their hat. The third is concentrating on moving forward. A snow covered lake with ski tracks running across it in places. There are trees on the banks and the sky is slightly cloudy.

Snow shoeing

Snow shoeing has a significantly smaller learning curve than cross country skiing - once you’ve got the shoes on it’s mostly a case of making sure you’re lifting your knees enough and not standing on your own shoes. This walk was a “safari” so we stopped regularly to talk about the plants and wildlife we could see around us. We didn’t get to see any deer on this walk but there were rabbit and fox tracks, we were introduced to wild rosemary (don’t eat it), the useful properties of birch bark (makes good firelighters) and an edible if apparently not very tasty moss which I am reliably informed reindeer love.

We saw two campsites and at both we discovered willow tits so tame they will come and eat directly from your hand.

Aurora hunting

We went out Aurora hunting twice during our stay: by car and by snowmobile and we were lucky enough to see the aurora both times. Both trips started off lacklustre with dense cloud cover and a full moon flooding the world with light. Before the aurora appeared and danced for us. Quite literally on the first night when the solar disturbance level peaked at over 200nT.

View across a river to the snow covered shaw. The river reflects the sky, there is a railing visible at the front of the image. A small triangular hut in a snowy hollow. There is a streak of bright green shimmering aurora across the sky above it.

The following night started out less cloudy but with little sign of solar activity until just after we arrived at the camp site on the lake.

A line of snowmobiles parked on an otherwise empty lake at night. The aurora visible across a frozen lake with the full moon.

A hexagonal camping hut in the woods with a fire visible through the window. Above it the sky glows green with a spiral of aurora. The full moon displaying a corona visible across a frozen lake with trees on the distant shaw line.

On both trips the guides were brilliant, using their local knowledge to boost the chances of us seeing the aurora even when the cloud cover seemed too dense for there to be any chance that it would be possible. Both of these journeys would have been magical even if the aurora hadn’t appeared (though I would have been disappointed not to see it).

Final day

Our final day looked a bit odd on paper. Check out of the hotel was at 11h, our flights weren’t until ~18h30 and lunch is not included on check in/out days.

However, there are options:

  • Late checkout is available providing the room isn’t booked.
  • You can keep your cold weather gear until you’re leaving.
  • Cross country skis and snowshoes are available to hire (€30 per person2)
  • Lunch is available (€20 per person2)
  • Luggage storage and changing rooms are available

Unfortunately (for us, not them) our room needed to be turned around so late checkout wasn’t an option, and honestly might have been a bit of a boon for us as it meant we had to get up early so we had plenty of time to take a snowshoe walk across the lake, have a lazy lunch and chill out in the social area before getting picked up for our flight home.

A snow covered area marked with a parking sign. A vast expanse of frozen lake with a sign in the middle of it giving the distances to Ivaalo Sevetijärvi and Nuorgam. A person in a red snow suit snowshoeing across a frozen and snow covered lake.

Some huts in a wooded area on the edge of a frozen and now covered lake. A frozen snow covered lake with sledge and snowmobile tracks running across it, the far shore can be seen in the distance.

  1. Boots will be two sizes too big, if you’re getting heal slippage as I was it’s worth taking some time to experiment with the best place to “lock” your laces. If you’ve not laced boots this way before check out this video (or type “heel lock” into your search engine of choice) for a guide. ↩

  2. These are the prices we were charged; for up to date prices please contact the hotel directly. I’m not responsible if they’ve changed. ↩ ↩2