LaydeeSarah

Hi all,

Hoping to find some assistance with some holiday plans...

My partner and I were contemplating spending Christmas (say 22-28th Dec 2014) in the Nordics. The thoughts being to stay in a lodge type place with a real fireplace and ideally a hot tub/sauna. We'd like to stay somewhere thats rural, so perhaps near/in one of the national parks. We don't want to ski but, weather depending, we'd like to go for walks and perhaps try our hand at a snowmobile or snowshoeing, ice fishing and possibly see the Northern Lights.

I haven't been anywhere north of Stockholm/Helsinki, etc, before and really don't know where to start. We don't want to 'celebrate' Christmas and we don't really want to go on an organised tour.

I have read that much of Norway is closed on 24th-25th December (is this the same for most of the Nordics or should we look at Sweden?), so being out in the wilderness but not too far away from some sort of shops would be ideal, or even better, a lodge on a resort that has open facilities.

I cant seem to find much to book online, there seem to be a lot of private rentals but i have no idea on the areas and facilities, or organised tours which dont appeal.

Any suggestions or feedback most appreciated

helosc

Maybe this site can help you get an idea of the different areas in Sweden.
There are lots of links to follow.

http://www.visitsweden.com/sweden-us...rthern-Sweden/

jpatokal

Pretty much all of Scandinavia shuts down for Christmas (Dec 24-26). On the 25th, in particular, everything down to supermarkets and corner stores is closed. Obviously hotels, airports etc stay open, but they run on skeleton crews.

But if you eg. book a lodge for a week and self-cater, this isn't really a problem. You'll pay for the privilege though, as this is absolute peak season for foreign visitors. The locals, on the other hand, will mostly think it's nuts to go to Lapland when it's dark 24h/day, and prefer to head over around Easter when there's light and the temperatures aren't quite as freezing anymore.

LaydeeSarah

Thank-you. We've decided that we'll go elsewhere for Christmas and return to somewhere like Tromso early in the year when everything is open. I think that we'd need the availability of shops as we would want to largely self-cater and we couldnt take much with us, we'd have to buy it on arrival.

Does Tromso have a nice 7-11 at the airport or in town?

ksu

There probably is in town, but they are expensive here. I would go to a local chain supermarket: several supermarkets will be open until 10 or 11 PM