Hunt for the Northern Lights in the middle of the untouched nature, escaping from the light pollution of the town. Taste a traditional Lappish barbecue and warm yourself by the fire while waiting for the magical lights. **Departure time may vary. Please check the email the local provider sends for the exact pick-up time.
What a great time my wife and I had. Gigi and Ricardo our guides were wonderful, professional and informative. Would recommend this excursion to everyone.
Was originally a northern lights small group hunt but was told we would have a free BBQ as well. Smooth hotel pickup. There were 6 of us in total. Went to an area about 30mins drive away from the city & light pollution. Our guide Juan is an animated & friendly guy, sharing about the northern lights & helping to make fire, grill sausages, cook salmon soup, take awesome photos, keep the energy up & also keeping a close watch at the skies. The other 2 lady staffs were also very helpful & kept us engaged. 10/10/26 was a lucky day with the coronal mass ejection (CME), something we learnt from Juan. We didnt have to hunt for the auroras. they danced in waves across the sky in front of us, lighting up the sky with colours of green, red, purple, blue, pink. It was a truly magnificent spectacle & we just couldnt peel our eyes away from what was happening. Although our tour didnt include photography, Juan helped us take photos & gave us the option of purchase after. We appreciated this. Overall, we know we will not always be this lucky, but it was a sweet surprise & we were truly in the right place at the right time.
This tour was fantastic from start to finish! We always wanted to go to Finland, and the Northern lights have been a bucket list experience for me, so I was desperate to go on this trip. Our hotel was in the city centre so we just had a 5 minute walk to Nordic Unique Travels, and once there we were given full body suits and winter boots, before the guides were ready to go. There was a large group going, so some people were on a coach, and some in vans, and the drive was around 45 minutes. The guides were very friendly, and they spoke multiple languages for people who didn’t speak English, so everyone was accommodated for. There were tents with fires to keep us warm, and the bbq was delicious, the reindeer sausage tasted great, and we also roasted marshmallows. It was a 10 out of 10 experience, and we felt on top of the world to get this experience! Thank you so much for this, it was amazing!
I am very displeased with this experience, I would go as far as to call it a scam. The customer is not informed anywhere nor at any point that the lights would not be visible to the naked eye and that they would only be visible in a photograph taken on a camera provided by staff, the sky was pitch black with absolutely nothing to see. This has vexed me heavily, upon complaining to the staff and cusomer service, I was informed that i needed to purchase said photographs to be able to see the lights. I feel mislead and scammed, this is a predatory business practice used to drain money from unaware people for an experience which is at best nothing. I do not recommend in the slightest unless you enjoy looking at a pitch black sky.
It was a wonderful experience. Great guides that have a great knowledge and made it fun even though the Northern Lights did not come out for us- too cloudy.
It should have been 5 but there was no appearance of northern light during this trip. However Ricardo and Michal are excellent guides that made the trip worthwhile. Thanks.
The tour for the price is not worth the cost we travelled for a short distance and disembarked next to a busy highway in a city bbq area. There was no light activity due to cloudy weather which I understand is not the company’s fault however there is lots of lights guaranteed tours that will refund you if you don’t see them or the possibility is low so your time is not wasted. There is many options to book a tour at short notice I would recommend waiting and checking the weather. That said The host’s were really pleasant and the tour operators great to deal with. the equipment they provided was great and the bbq a fun experience
Great tour, Lena, Lore, Oscar, Vaggellis, Michal, Simona and Ricardo were all fantastic and accommodating to everyone. We had the best weather conditions of the week to view the aurora, totally amazing. Ricardo sent a link to all his professional photos the next day and you can see the attached results.
What an amazing night. Ricardo made sure we had a fabulous night and took us to the best spot for more than 2 hours of aurora borealis! What a magic night!
Had an amazing evening out touring, having Reindeer sausage and marshmallows on the campfire. We managed to see the Northern Lights as well and some excellent photos taken and sent to us, some great memories on an wonderful evening out.
This was the cheapest tour offering with a pick up in Rovaniemi in January. The tour shuttle picked me up from my hotel on the outskirts of the city to a central location where a bus took me on the tour. The staff were pretty friendly and informative. They take you to a small camp just off the highway with Native American style teepees. Campfires are built inside and outside the tents and we are given marshmallows and sausages to cook over the campfires. There is plenty of berry tea drinks to go with it. Northern lights are pretty fleeting and a lot depends on the ambient atmosphere during the tour. I did not have any luck seeing any Northern lights. But, you have to try by going on such tours. It was a good experience with this company. The tour was well organized and you do get cold so wear proper winter wear.
Check in at the main office was chaotic with rude staff. All in all it was okay but the salmon soup had no flavour so it was like drinking warm water. They never guarantee that you will see the northern lights and unfortunately we didn’t see them.
We booked 2 tours with this provider: 1 booked with Manawa (Northern light esperience), and 1 booked directly on-site (snowmobile tour). The Northern light experience takes place within a big group (full bus), and the location is only 15 minutes' drive from Rovaniemi: once you arrive there, you don't change location, you sit there, make a barbecue and (fingers crossed!) you can see the Northern lights. Then, we booked on-site a snowmobile tour, wich was overall nice; however, we are very disappointed by the last-second change in the starting time that was communicated to us by Whatsapp only 4.5 hours after we booked the tour directly at their office! Around 17:00, we booked the tour for the day after at 10:00 am; then, around 21:30, they called us to say that - due to a mistake ok their side - the tour was moved at 8:30 am. We asked for an explanation, we wanted to get our money back since we were not happy with the new starting time, but they refused to give our money back. We are sorry but this last second change due to their mistake - without giving us any explanation - was UNACCEPTABLE!
Young charismatic tour guides. No clothing was given (cold weather). It is a good tour for a short campfire evening. Food is good and music as entertainment.
Minimal effort tour. The tour started by pick up in a bus and driving around 25 mins away from the main city. The stop was a parking lot with a few tepees surrounded by trees. Not the most picturesque spot as others around Rovaniemi which are by the lakeside and have a wider, clearer view. We were lucky to have no clouds and good solar activity but I felt this wasn't the best place for the viewing. We honestly got a much much better view from our hotel after the tour. We could have just stayed at the hotel for a much better experience of watching the lights. There were 4 guides but I thought they found it difficult to assist a group of 30ish people. Basically it felt like we paid for a bus trip to a sub-par location with some bbq and campfire. They did provide warm overalls that helped with the cold weather though which was a plus. Felt Underwhelming.
Experience of a lifetime. Vendor called same day to adjust the pick up time slightly and confirm pick up location. Excellent communication. We were picked up on time at our resort and our host GianLuigi (Gigi) was terrific and enthusiastic throughout the evening. Warm Overalls were offered to all as the listing states. Gigi assisted people with camera settings in addition to providing a delicious roasted sausage (not precooked as others mentioned). Soup and warm beverage which people complain about should not be the focus of the trip. Go to a restaurant if that’s your priority. Guide was so engaged with the multicultural group (of 7 people) and everyone enjoyed themselves. Did we see the Aurora? Yes! And it was memorable. Our guide still stopped off at a second location for even better views when he could have ended the night. Our tour guide was excellent in story telling in several languages, and cared about the group experience. Highly recommend it in your search for Northern Lights, good luck!
Wow! We had a fantastic experience with Gigi and Joey. We got lucky and had a very strong Aurora on our night, even though the predictions weren’t that great. Tour bus arrived right on time so we didn’t have to wait, and they did a great job. The site they took us to had nice dark skies without being too far. There was a tent with a fire to go warm up. They provided sausages, hot soup, and then my son had a fantastic time roasting marshmallows when he wanted to go warm up. If I ever make it back, I’ll be booking with this company again.
While we did not expect to see the Lights due to clouds, the team was very organized and prepared to teach us about the science, the history of the Sami and was also able to serve hot berry juice, potato soup, sausage, and marshmallows. Our guide was also very funny in his delivery. Still great time despite no lights.
Great time! However, we will be leaving Finland without souvenirs. Our phones are too old and don’t have a night mode. For the price, it is a shame that the guides don't offer to take at least one photo with a compétitive camera so that everyone can take home a souvenir of the moment
If you're considering the "Northern Lights Hunt with BBQ" tour, let me save you the trouble: don't bother. This so-called adventure was a complete letdown from start to finish. First off, they clearly have no clue about when and where to find the Northern Lights Or probably they knew it but didn’t care and dumped us in a sad little tent next to a highway. Surprise, surprise, no lights to be seen. They call it hunt but should learn the definition of it. We understand it’s nature but being in business we expect them to know this upfront and put a little effort to make it worth(I know many tours postpone the trip due to bath weather or in some cases refund). Total waste of time and frustration. And don't even get me started on the BBQ. One sad sausage and a tiny cup of soup does not a meal make. We were left starving and grumpy by the end of it. Save your money and sanity, folks. This tour is nothing but a scam targeting clueless tourists. Do yourself a favor and find something better to spend your money on.
The tour guides were wonderful. However, it did say Aurora hunting and we only went to 2 locations, the weather did not permit us to see anything. It was still a unique experience.
The guide were not engaging and not interested in the guests. They focussed on tasks at the expense of connecting with people. The bbq was a pre cooked sausages reheated on a fire. Overall very disappointing compared to other tours.
Fabulous trip, so well looked after. We travelled by warm coach and were divided into three small groups to sit in the tents around a blazing fire. Served lots of sausages to toast over the fire, salmon soup which was delicious, marshmallows to toast all washed down with hot berry juice. Guides were informative and entertaining. Northern lights did not show so we moved on to another venue. -22C on a frozen lake. Again unlucky, however, we did notice a pale glow in the sky and decided to take photos. Once home and uploaded to a computer we can see a streak of green across the sky - so they did show but only just, but we'll take it as a 50% win! Guides and driver so hard for us and even stayed out three hours longer.
Francesco was GREAT! He tried his best to show us the northern lights even after the trip has ended & we saw it!
The night we went was cloudy. We had our BBQ while we waited for the clouds to clear. After we ate we ventured another 30 minutes out and we're able to see the lights at a lake location. Due to the weather and making sure we saw the lights our 3 hr tour ended up being over 5 hrs. We appreciated them making sure we were able to see the lights.
I really enjoyed this tour, have excellent staff and the food was very good. Love it 😀. My dream come true to see the northern light ✨️
Terrible, disorganised trip Total waste of money, my one daughter had an ear infection which was causing her allot of pain I tried to cancel they would not give me my money back, she ended up sleeping most of the time. The organisers instructed the bus driver to go down an unsafe track which he didn’t want to do he then got stuck, took several attempts while I was sat on the bus to get out. Which was scary to witness Would not recommend this to anyone
It was Francesco and Nicky who lifted the whole experience to another level. They have certainly raised the bar. They took great care of us, kept informed about the plans and any developments. We were extremely lucky to observe the beautiful display of northern lights and our hosts were on top of their game. Truly a great experience. Well done team.
Great BBQ outside of town but haven't seen any Aurora even though we had clear sky. That's just bad luck. The team has done the best they could and stayed out with us until 11 pm.
We had a nice BBQ outside of town with a good view of the sky. The sky was clear but unfortunately we haven't seen any Aurora. Unfortunately it's all about luck.
This tour was not actually a northern lights hunt but a camping as they have a fixed and exact location. This was 20mins from the office of Nordic Tours and not 20km of hunt. We ride and hustled to so many tourist wanted to see the northern lights in a bus. We just lucky to see the aurora a little and was quite disappointed because there was a forest in the location. The tour guide assigned to us was friendly. We enjoyed the food and were great. We love the soup and hot juice.
We booked this your after Rovaniemi memories ( get your guide) cancelled on us I hr before. This is a large group coach tour but the staff are great and well organized. We didn’t see the lights and only had one stop but the knowledge, sausages and marshmallows toasting was good fun.
When I booked this trip, I hesitated due to negative reviews, and unfortunately, they were accurate. Despite the unfavorable weather—snowing and cloudy—Miguel, the person in charge, proceeded with the tour instead of postponing it. Tour guide Pauline, upon checking weather apps, confirmed the impossibility of seeing the northern lights. It's baffling to offer a tour under such weather conditions without alternatives. We paid $125 each only to have two sausages with ketchup and mustard. However, credit to Pauline for her sweet and friendly demeanor, although the decision wasn't hers.
This trip was so hap Hazzard from start to finish. It was so disorganized and the bbq was one sausage!!! Our pickup was meant to be at 1915 didn't happen till 2000 to be taken to office to get clothed and no one seemed to know what they were doing!! Arrived at camp near 2200 and noone explained anything to us in the tpee tent with leaving at 2330.seeing nothing. My review is not based on not seeing the lights but everything else . Extremely poor!!!
We did not see the aurora but we enjoyed the tour with sausage, soup and marshmallows. They are on time and willing to give our request during the tour.
The Northern Lights Excursion Food Sucks , Bad Experience, They Took Us three Different Northern Lights Locations never Got to see Any Light
The tour activities and the food was great, the staffs are accommodating and friendly. The place is beautiful.
Best experience for Aurora hunting. The driver and guide were so knowledgeable and kind and made sure we are warm and enjoyed the lights
The tour is very disorganized and needed wasted lots of time which was totally unnecessary. The group was definitely way too big which have at least 50 people. Not worth the value
We feel scammed!! From what I have heard after the trip and read the reviews tour operators are just screwing tourists knowing that there is very small or no chance of seeing northern lights during cloudy or snowing periods … but they are happy to take your money , feeding you a crappy sausage .. not a BBQ… sitting in a tent , freezing .. and we left the office around 730 not 7pm. Not worth the money at all ..
Really disorganised and unfortunately a waste of time and money. Our tour began at 1900 and we showed up at 1845. We were told to wait downstairs where our guide would come get us. No one came to get us and we wandered upstairs some time later to find the bus about to depart without us. Finally left the office around 1950 and we were driven to a place to a site that the operator admitted they hadn't seen the lights for 8 days due to the similar weather conditions. But this was the BBQ site so rather than actually hunting for the aurora, the tour consisted of going to a fixed location for a bbq. The salmon soup was nice but again everything was disorganised and I had no clue what the plan was for the evening. It seemed the staff were happy for people to just sit inside the tent doing nothing. We then visited a lake, but as you'll read in other reviews, other trips go there too. Once again, it's not a northern lights hunt as such, it's just a bus ride to eat a sausage at their campsite. We made it back to town after midnight. I get you can't guarantee the sightings of the lights, but given you've known the weather around Rovaniemi hasn't provided any sightings for 8 days, I question the intent and honesty of last evenings trip. The most disappointing thing was how disorganised the whole evening was. If I were here again, I'd simply buy some snacks, hire a car and drive out of the city for 30mins.
The tour guide Lynne was very very good. Lynne kept the group alive, enthusiastic and energised throughout. Her knowledge on Finnish and Lapland history and explanations on northern lights were all very expressive and interesting. Highly recommended tour guide for sure. The start of the tour at the Nordic Unique Travels office was chaotic when several tour guides were trying to herd their respective tour group. Signs for each departure time and language would have helped for the respective tourist to stand near their respective signs perhaps?
I went here with a friend because we were hoping to see the lights… the girls guides were very nice and kind, we have one Italian, one Spanish and one French, all of them were always kind and avaible for answers to everything. We drove a bit and then we have a little dinner, and unfortunately not lights but was a cute experience
Absolutely brilliant night. Guides were great and really knew their stuff (5th December), well organised trip, just the perfect length of time, and a lovely setting. The apps I checked said we had very low probability of seeing the northern lights given cloud cover so went with very low expectations but we managed to see them which was amazing. Kids loved it too, thanks!
The BBQ experience is good but can be improved if the staff will take a picture of each group whilst doing the BBQ . Even though we did not see Aurora Boreallis but in total the tour is good.
We can not see northern lights because of the weather but it’s not the reason of the note. The organisation was a little poor. We arrived about 20minutes before the start of the activity and we were wainting inside the agency as we were asked but we were phoned by one of the guide to known where we were…. We were a big group (about 50 persons), a bus was necessary to drive us to the bbq location. We were dispatched in group by language in the tepee. Even if the weather was not propitious to northern lights the guides did not provide explanations about how the northern lights are created and we were most of the time inside the tepee than outside to try to « hunt » the northern lights. Finally we were « hunting the sausage ».
It was fabulous to go wandering in the snowy forest at night and the tour guides Kye and Laura really wanted us to see it even brought us to another location to try and catch an aurora where we caught a very faint glimpse of the aurora which was due to cloud coverage and a lowish KP index not the guides fault at all.
Was a great experience. We didn't have to much luck to see the northern lights because the sky was very cloudy but we enjoyed the bbq and the stories. Gabriella was amazing.
Very unorganised tour. They ran out of food, the tent was too big for the fire as people were left shivering. The staff knew before the start that there won’t be any lights due to clouds and light index but still went ahead with it. Staff were more concerned about them finishing rather than dropping us back at the hotel as they took everyone to the office at midnight and made us wait there for another 30 minutes.
I don’t usually write reviews, and if I do, it’s if an experience was truly excellent and I want to acknowledge that. However, in this case I feel like I should warn people who are considering going on this trip as it was a huge waste of money and time. To break down why: - “Hunting” is misleading - they just pile you on a 50 seater bus (which took 35 minutes of standing there and counting people before leaving) and drive you to a piece of land they own that has 3 tipis built. If it’s cloudy they say they’ll take you to a second location at the end of the night. There was some northern lights visible from the spot, but you’d see them the same or better driving anywhere once it’s a little outside the city - There was no “story telling” - our tour guides were a group of young people who were not Finnish and did not once address the lights or give context of any traditions/anything interesting. The group was only addressed for logistical reasons like getting on or off the bus or that the sausages were ready for cooking. Apart from this you just talked amongst yourselves while waiting for the next bit of food - The “barbecue” consisted of at least 40 people crammed into a tipi with a fire in the centre and not enough seats for everyone to sit. So people stood around or sat cramped and spoke in their couple/small group. They served a salmon soup for starter (no context of the tradition around it and my partner said it was rather tasteless). As a vegetarian, I did not get a starter despite calling before to double confirm that there would be vegetarian alternatives. Everyone then got a sausage and queued to get a space at the fire to cook it (this took a long time with the crowded tent), and I got a vegetarian sausage that was crumbly and immediately fell from the stick (there was no other sausage to replace it with). All I had in the end was a corn on the cob. The surprise dessert was marshmallows which you again had to queue for to get a chance to stand by the fire (and are also not vegetarian). Once those were eaten, everyone piled on the bus to get dropped back to the office. Overall my partner and I had to laugh at how outrageously misleading the description had been and couldn’t believe we’d wasted €80 each and 4 hours of our time to stand in a crowded cold tent and get a few cumulative minutes at the fire. Writing this detailed review so you don’t make the same mistake.
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