Saariselkä
Finland
A small fell village two hundred kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, where Urho Kekkonen National Park starts at the last cabin
Photo by Hendrik Morkel on Unsplash
Photos by Harri P, Snow Park, Jaakko Kemppainen and Harri P on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Finland
December to April for the snow, and late August to September for the autumn colours
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 75mm in Jul
Where it is
68.42°N, 27.41°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Walk or ski up Kaunispää at night, which is the darkest easy viewpoint for the aurora
- Ski from Kiilopää out to a wilderness hut and back
- Spend a day in Inari at the Siida museum
- Book a husky or reindeer safari for the brief midday light in deep winter
- Come in the autumn colours to hike, when the park is at its best and the dark nights are back
Saariselkä travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Finland
ExpensiveEuro, and cards for everything, safaris and the village shop included. There is no reason to carry cash.
ATMs & cards
Machines are scarce this far north and you will not need one. Finnish machines charge foreign cards an access fee and show it first. Decline the conversion.
Avoid these
- counting on a machine in the village
Use these instead
- Otto in Ivalo
Cards do everything here. Finnish machines charge foreign cards an access fee and show it before you confirm.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Finland
Very safeVery safe; the cold and the wilderness are what to plan for. For about four weeks around the winter solstice the sun does not rise, and −25°C is ordinary. The national park begins at the edge of the village and is big and empty: carry a map, tell somebody your route, and turn back when the light goes. Reindeer stand on the main road in the dark. No glass roof makes the aurora more likely; clear sky does.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Urho Kekkonen National Park — open wilderness from the edge of the village; carry a map and tell somebody your route
- Kaunispää in a whiteout — flat light hides the edges and the markers disappear
- reindeer on the main road — they stand on it in the dark, which in midwinter is nearly all day
- the cold on a northern lights tour — hours standing still outside at −25°C, which is a different thing from walking in it
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Finland visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Finland
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Tetanus up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis for a summer on the coast, the archipelago or Åland
Getting treated
Excellent, and public. The EHIC and GHIC are accepted and visitors pay the same small fees residents do. In Lapland the distances are the issue: the central hospital is in Rovaniemi, and from the fells further north that is hours by road.
The cold, which is the whole health question in a Lapland winter: −25°C is ordinary, frostbite on a still night at a lake comes faster than people expect, and the thermal suits the operators lend are not a formality. Ticks in summer in the south and along the coast. Mosquitoes in Lapland in high summer, in numbers people do not believe until they arrive.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
DecentReindeer, Arctic char and lake whitefish, with cloudberries and lingonberries. The choice is a few hotel restaurants and a few independents; a cabin with a kitchen and the village supermarket is how most people eat.
Travel tipsGetting around
Limited- UberWorks here
- BoltWorks here
- YangoWorks here
Yango Helsinki
- Against a taxi
- Usually under the meter, though the apps price dynamically and a busy night can turn that round.
The apps thin out the further north you go. Away from the cities the taxi is booked by phone or through the hotel, and in the fell resorts a transfer is often arranged with the stay.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Helsinki — 7 hours ahead of you
1 hour of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–10:00 your time, 16:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 02:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 02:00–10:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Finland
Why these are Finland's numbers and not Saariselkä's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 1.3× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at about the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Saariselkä, so these are medians for all of Finland. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Travel tipseSIM
A data eSIM for Finland, installed before you fly and working the moment you land:
Works here
Works hereRevolutIn the app
Must-see
Travel tipsNearby day trips
Travel tipsSay a few words
Finnish
- HelloHeihay
- PleaseKiitosKEE-tos
- Thank youKiitos paljonKEE-tos PAHL-yon
- Yes / NoKyllä / EiKUL-la / ay
5 more phrases
- Excuse meAnteeksiAHN-teek-si
- How much is it?Paljonko se maksaa?PAHL-yon-ko seh MAHK-saa
- SaunaSaunaSOW-na, not SAW-na
- CheersKippisKIP-pis
- GoodbyeNäkemiinNA-keh-meen
Related to Estonian and Hungarian and to nothing else nearby, so nothing in it will look familiar. English is near-universal. Swedish is the second official language, and in the far north road signs are in Sámi as well.
Travel tipsReligion
Lutheran by heritage and by most people’s membership, and quietly secular in practice
About three in five Finns belong to the Lutheran church and very few attend. The Orthodox Church is the second national church, small but visible in the east and in Helsinki’s Uspenski Cathedral. In the far north the Sámi had their own beliefs long before either, and a sacred site such as Ukonsaari on Lake Inari is still treated as one.
Travel tipsDo's and don'ts
Do
- Take your shoes off in a home, always, and in a cabin you are renting too
- Shower before the sauna, and sit on the towel or paper seat cover you are given
- Let a silence be a silence — nobody is offended by it and filling it is not expected
- Be on time; a Finn will be
Don't
- Do not guess about swimwear: single-sex saunas are taken naked and public mixed ones in a costume, and the sign at the door says which
- Do not talk loudly on a bus or a train
- Do not touch reindeer, which are somebody’s herd, or drive fast where there are signs for them
- Do not tip expecting it to mean much; service is included and rounding up is plenty
Where to stay in Saariselkä
No Holistay rentals in Saariselkä yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Saariselkä on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Ivalo IVL
30 minfrom the airport· 21 km as the crow flies
30 min by the airport bus to the village.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
