Recommendations for Lapland / skiing please!

[Whitepaleness]

I have looked at Lapland holidays and they are super expensive but lots included.

I have also looked at skiing holidays and it looks like kids need to be 4/5 years to ski / hire equipment.

Our youngest will be nearly 4 at Christmas, is it worth waiting a year till they are nearly 5 and doing a skiing / Santa / northern lights holiday?

Any recommendations for locations or amazing hotels welcome.

you could visit Lapland for a magical winter experience that includes meeting Santa, enjoying sleigh rides, and taking part in snow-based activities. Also, Rovaniemi in Finland is a great destination for such experiences. While your youngest might not be skiing, they could still have a wonderful time playing in the snow and meeting Santa Claus.

I think it depends how much skiing you want to do.

We first went to Lapland, for a 4 day pre-Christmas "Santa" experience when our children were almost 4 and 7. On that trip we did a husky safari, reindeer sledding, met Santa and at the end had one day free so we hired ski equipment and an instructor and pootled about with the kids. The three year old enjoyed it. In Finland kids start skiing as soon as they can stand.

We loved Finland so much that we returned at February half term a couple of years later for skiing and have been every year since then.

We had a great holiday in Lapland when DS was 9. We went to Snowy Wilderness Lodge with Tui and it was so magical. Perfect for younger children. If I were you, I'd save the skiing for when they're older.

We've booked to go again in 2024 and I asked DS if he wanted to go somewhere different, maybe try skiing, but no, he still wants the full on Santa, Elves, reindeer, husky, magical winter wonderland experience.

@TwigTheWonderKid this sounds ideal, who did you book through?

@WineWithAView i shall check out TUI now thanks

@ciakace love the idea of exploring Finland

We went skiing in Feb to saariselka in Northern Finland. Absolutely magical place, quiet runs, lots of cross country too, but freezing. As in -30 in the day. I suspect if we had dc at the time they would have been too cold to enjoy it properly though.

A skiing instructor in the alps recommended 6 is a good age to start skiing for non local kids, as they're more able to manage the lifts, pick up their gloves etc etc.

We did our holiday ourselves which was much cheaper than a package. Flights to Saariselka, self catering accommodation on I think Saariselka.com. everything wise we sorted there. The ski bus comes through the village and goes to the slopes, the ski school does English language lessons, passes and boots and skiis rented in site. We contacted them before travel and they told us there was no need to book in advance, just rock up. However that was some years ago so I would advise anyone considering it to email them yourselves.

The town is full of places doing all manner of activities to just book when you get there, there is a hotel with a pool you can pay to use and lots of trails through the forest.

I'm sure you can do similar at other resorts. We're flying to Rovaniemi and then staying at Pyha in Feb next year. So far flights and accommodation booked. Seems pretty straightforward to sort anything else as you go.

@Whitepaleness we booked our first "Santa" trip with Magic of Lapland and subsequent ski trips to Levi with Inghams.

Check out Ruka. The village is fab and you can use the local tourist board to sort all the Santa and ice trips. We skied and stayed in Ruka village. Brilliant holiday

Thank you all I have a lot of research to do 🥰