How to Get to Rovaniemi in Finland: All Options
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In this post, I will describe all the options for getting to Rovaniemi in Lapland.
Rovaniemi (and the entire region of Finnish Lapland) is an increasingly popular travel destination. It is delightful and has a lot to offer for both children and adults. It also fits into the trend of travelling to colder destinations.
However, you can still get the impression that the region is difficult to access.
But Rovaniemi is not as difficult to get to as you might think. We have several options for getting there.
I got to Rovaniemi by combining a flight to Turku and a train. It took quite a long time, but it was a convenient and inexpensive solution that I recommend. But let’s look at it one by one.
How to get to Rovaniemi: Flights
Rovaniemi has an international airport (code: RVN), which is located close to Santa Claus Village (about 3 km) and about 10 kilometres, 15-20 minutes from the city centre. You can get from the airport to the city centre and to the Village by city bus or the red Santa Claus Express buses.
The most buses are available in the season (i.e. winter), from the airport you can also get there by rental car, taxi, hotel transfer or private transfer.
The most flights to Rovaniemi are of course from Helsinki, there are also international flights from many European airports, for example Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Check out Lufthansa, KLM or Iberia. These flights do not operate every day.
One-day trips – Charters
There are also trips from travel agencies available, the most of them in the season, in December. These are one-day flights (you fly and return on the same day), typically for children and spending a day only in Santa’s village. I mention this option so that you have a full overview.
However, I honestly believe that Rovaniemi and the surrounding area have much more to offer, and I recommend at least a slightly longer stay. Such a one-day trip is also not really financially logical.
FinnAir
If there are no direct flights from your airport, you can fly with FinnAir with a stopover in Helsinki. FinnAir flies to Helsinki from different airports.
The prices of these flights depend on when you buy the ticket, when you fly and can vary greatly.
How to get to Rovaniemi: Budget airlines
Due to the growing popularity of the destination, more and more flights to Rovaniemi are available, also with so-called low-cost airlines. Here look mainly at EasyJet and Ryanair.
With Ryanair, you can fly from London, Liverpool or Milan, for example, and this can also be quite reasonably priced (depending on the flight date and when you buy, December is of course more expensive).
If you fly via these cities, just remember that here you buy flights separately and if something happens with the first flight, the second one is simply lost. Therefore, it is worth leaving yourself enough time for transfers, delays, etc.
From April 2025, flights with a transfer in the UK will require an ETA for EU citizens, which is to cost 10 pounds.
Bus or train from Helsinki (or from Turku or Tampere)
Another, quite often chosen option is to fly to Helsinki (or other airports in southern Finland) and take a bus or, or rather, a train.
This solution takes more time, but on the other hand it is also simply cheaper. Personally, I would not choose the bus, especially if it is a few days trip, but the train ride was convenient and an adventure in itself.
In this case, you need to match the plane and bus/train times well. It is probably best to fly in the morning, have time to walk around the city, eat something, and travel to Rovaniemi at night.
Bus
The bus from Helsinki to Rovaniemi takes about 12 hours and costs 35-40 Euro. There is a day and night bus, and you can look for schedules and tickets on the Flixbus or OnniBus websites, a Finnish carrier.
Train
There are several trains a day from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. There are day trains that take about 8-10 hours and night trains where you can buy sleeping cabins.
You can get to Rovaniemi also by train from Turku. It takes a bit longer, but it is also a direct night train (the same one that goes from Helsinki, the carriages are connected in Tampere).
It is worth buying tickets in advance, because firstly they are cheaper, and secondly in the busiest period they can be booked out, especially sleeping cabins.
The price of the train is not fixed. It depends, similarly to flights, on when you buy the ticket, for when, etc. From what I saw when looking at prices, the night train is usually more expensive on Fridays.
If you are lucky, you can buy an entire sleeping cabin for 2 people for 50-100 Euro. In December, it costs even 200 Euro.
What does the train to Rovaniemi look like?
The train has many amenities that can be surprising. For example, you can buy a slightly more expensive cabin with a private bathroom. Even in a cabin without a bathroom, you have a sink with a mirror, and showers are available in the corridor. The train has a restaurant car, a children’s corner and a few other facilities.
You can read here about details of my trip with Santa Claus Express.
Car
You can also get to Lapland by car, although it is a rather long journey and not very popular. You have a few options:
Fly to Helsinki and rent a car (the journey up north takes about 10-12 hours).
If you want to go by car, you can go to Tallinn and from there to Helsinki by a 3-hour ferry.
There is also an option via Sweden.
It is worth knowing that some trains from Helsinki to Rovaniemi have special carriages for cars. So you can get to the north of Finland by train, sleeping peacefully overnight, take your car with you on the same train and pick it up in Rovaniemi. I think this is a pretty good option if you want to take your car.
How to Get to Rovaniemi: Summary
As you can see, there are several options for getting to Rovaniemi, and I think they will only increase. I hope this post has given you some ideas on how to organize your trip to Lapland in terms of travel.
As I mentioned, I got to Rovaniemi by flying from Gdańsk in Poland to Turku and changing to a night train. Turku is a very friendly city for such a short stopover.
This option was also the cheapest in my case.
More about the train, I wrote in a separate post.
Aleksandra
Aleksandra is a travel blogger from Poland who specializes in European destinations. She is Master in Croatian and Serbian studies (philology) so Croatia and whole Balkan region is very important on her travel routes. Aleksandra is close to visiting all countries in Europe, and many countries she has visited multiple times. She is also crazy sport supporter and sport volunteer participating in biggest sports events for over 10 years now (for example, Aleksandra was a volunteer during Paris Olympics).
