The only photo I captured of our dogsledding adventure once I was bundled up in the sled and ready to go.

I was in control of the dogsled, and despite the fact that I had done this three times before, it was still exhilarating. Sure, dogs don’t run as fast as a snowmobile, but the surge of adrenaline as the dogs take off for the first time, when the sled lurches forward and the cacophony of howling dies down as the dogs settle into their task, is just as strong.

I’d made a mistake though. I had volunteered to mush second since my sledding buddy had never been on a dogsled before. She had been in control of our sled until we took a break midway along the track, and now she was nestled underneath the reindeer skins, gazing up at the northern lights that had just begun to dance above us while I tried to keep my mind on the task.

The northern lights, captured later that evening in Kaaresuvanto. They were much brighter during our dogsledding trip.

The aurora had appeared so gradually that no one actually believed it was there. The sky went from a bluish hue, lit by the full moon, to streaks of green so light it could have been mistaken for white. But soon, it was very apparent that we had been lucky enough to pick a night with quite the light show. The guides had pulled our sleds to a halt and given us a few minutes to stare in awe before pointing us back to the sleds, where the dogs waited eagerly.

I was almost thankful when we found ourselves back in the forest on the way back to the kennels, since it meant that I no longer had to dance the fine line between watching the aurora and actually being in control of the sled. The dogs sped up, knowing that a big meal awaited them once they were unharnessed, and we careered between the trees and around the final corners before jolting to a halt. We were home, and that home was a farm called Hetta Huskies (located in the Enontekiö municipality of northwestern Finland).

One of many noticeboards around the farm introducing you to its inhabitants. Taken on my original visit to the farm.

Now, there was too much to do to even think of the northern lights. The dogs needed to be unharnessed, walked back to their kennels, and fed. The sleds needed to be unpacked and put away. It was a jumble of lights, people moving in what seemed like every direction at once, and dogs, who were either eating or jumping headlong into the snow to cool themselves off. As we left, Anna, the farm’s owner, waved goodbye from a house that also teemed with dogs.

Because my visit to the farm was so fleeting — we drove there in the dark from a hotel in Kaaresuvanto, sledded in the dark, and were bundled off home in the dark — my memories from my trip there weren’t quite as tangible as others on my trip. There are two main emotions that stand out, though: exhilaration, both at sledding in the dark and watching the northern lights dance above, and love.

How could you not love this guy?!

Why do I say love? It was immediately apparent when we arrived at Hetta Huskies and met Anna (who owns the farm along with her adventurer husband Pasi), that she loved her dogs and her work. Everyone working there treated the dogs as family. They knew the dogs’ personalities inside and out and knew exactly how to best work with each one of them. And, when those dogs were injured, sick, or were just a bit too young to be outside on their own, they were welcomed into the house.

On my return trip to Hetta two years after my original trip, I wasn’t expecting to be able to return to Hetta Huskies; after all, dogsledding is very much a winter sport and I was visiting only a few weeks after midsummer. Luckily, they offer both farm tours and activities in the summer; I had the chance to do both.

The farm in summer.

As I walked around the farm with my guide, Rhi (an English student doing a summer of work experience), flashes of my previous visit kept popping into my head. I remembered the enclosure of puppies and the circular runs surrounding the males’ kennels…and I certainly remembered the howling. 150 dogs can cause quite a ruckus when they want to!

As we walked in between the dogs, Rhi giving me a running commentary on how they train in summer to prepare for the long winter ahead, I could tell how much she loved them. She had only been there a few weeks, but already the dogs had gotten under her skin and I could tell how disappointed she was that she wasn’t able to stay for the winter season.

Getting a cuddle from Aslan. Isn’t he adorable?

And how could these dogs not get under your skin? While they are all trained to the highest standard, when they’re not on the job, they’re absolutely adorable. Some of the dogs are shy, but many greeted us with a giant bear hug and big husky cuddles. They happily wiggled through the dirt as we scratched their stomachs and jumped up onto their kennels in an attempt to get close enough to give us sloppy kisses. While I really wanted to learn more about a place that had been all too fleeting on my last adventure, I think I would have been happy just getting husky hugs all day too!

I quickly learned that the logistics of dealing with a farm of this size could easily be overwhelming. Despite having visited multiple husky farms across my two previous trips to Lapland, I truly had no idea of the record-keeping that’s involved to ensure that all of the huskies are trained appropriately and get rest when they need it.

One of many charts around the farm, this one ranking dogs by the distance run each season.

Rhi showed me a number of different charts; one detailed full personalities of the dogs down to the exact dogs they do and don’t get along with, and another detailed the full running history for each dog in the kennel. The guides manage to remember all of these details and make the picking of teams seem effortless come winter. It’s an impressive feat.

Starsky. Those eyes!

While I loved getting to meet some of Rhi’s favourites — I don’t think I’ll forget Starsky and his beautiful, beautiful eyes — my favourite part of my farm visit was easily the visit to Shady Pines, the “retirement village.” Here, the dogs that are too old or otherwise unable to run anymore enjoy a huge area where they can roam and just generally enjoy the retired life.

This is quite the oddity as far as husky farms are concerned. Sadly, many farms simply do not have the resources to care for animals once they are no longer making them money, so these dogs are put down. It’s hard to think about the number of gorgeous, well-trained dogs that have gone this way when they still have so much life left to live.

Shady Pines, the Hetta Huskies retirement home.

Anna and Pasi feel the same way, which is why their retired dogs either go to the retirement village or are put up for adoption. Their adoption program allows people that have visited and fallen in love with a dog to adopt him or her once he retires, thus giving him a loving home during his twilight years. It’s an amazing program that has seen dogs move into happy homes as far away as America and South Africa.

As Rhi, Pasi, and I suited up for our canoeing tour — a trip that would take us from Lake Muotkajärvi to Lake Ounasjärvi — it seemed almost wrong not to be taking a husky or two with us. That said, I’m not sure Starsky would have appreciated sitting in the canoe in the rain while we stayed dry under our waterproofs!

Starsky was not impressed with the summer weather Lapland experienced in 2015.

While I highly recommend the canoeing trip — and especially the hot stew Pasi served up in a wilderness cabin on the shores of Lake Ounasjärvi — for me, the highlight of my trip to Hetta was the chance to learn more about the Hetta Huskies farm.

Aside from the fact that I left wanting to adopt a husky, I also left knowing that it is a place I could recommend without any reservations to anyone visiting Lapland. I myself hope to return one day so I can finally do that overnight husky trip I’ve been dreaming of for years. I can’t think of a better place to do it!

My second visit to Hetta Huskies was sponsored by Tosilappi, but my original visit was self-funded. As always, all opinions stated here are my own. Hetta Huskies offers a number of single- and multi-day dogsledding treks throughout the winter months, with the shortest covering 6km at the cost of €65/adult and €45/child.

Canoeing on Muotkajärvi. I swear I did some paddling, despite the fact that I’m not even holding the paddle here!

In the summer, the farm offers a number of different options, from farm visits like the one I did (40 mins, €8/adult, €5/child) to puppy agility training (where you walk the puppies through the training course — or they walk you! 1hr+, €20/adult, €15/child) to canoe and kayak adventures (the one I did was Muotkajärvi to Ounasjärvi, 4hrs, €90/adult, €65/child).

Traditional fishing boats lining the River Teno in Utsjoki.

Unfortunately for the region, the fact that it is so remote does make it less visited than other areas in Finnish Lapland. The typical tourist trail tends to lead from Karasjok in Norway across to Inari, cutting out Utsjoki completely. I can say this from experience, since that’s the exact route I took during my winter trip to Finnish Lapland.

However, just because that’s the typical route doesn’t make it the correct one. In any season, Utsjoki offers a great combination of unique experiences that you won’t find elsewhere as well as many of those activities found across Lapland, such as snowmobiling, dogsledding, and northern lights watching (in winter) and hiking and mountain biking (in summer). Plus, it’s easy to access from both Inari and Karasjok (a 1.5 hour drive on the E75 or the E6, respectively).

Gorgeous views of the River Teno from the top of Nuvvus Ailigas in Utsjoki municipality.

Even though I didn’t give Utsjoki nearly enough time on my summer trip — a rejig of my itinerary cut my time there down to just over a day — the time I did spend in the northernmost reaches of Finland was absolutely packed. I could have easily spent the rest of the week there and still had plenty to do — and maybe a bit of time to relax next to the mighty River Teno as well!

So if you were to head to Finland’s far north in summer, what would I recommend you do?

Salmon Fishing

Salmon fishing around 10pm in early July on the Tenojoki.

One of the most defining features of Utsjoki’s landscape is the River Teno. Also known as the Tenojoki in Finnish or the Tana in Norwegian, this large river runs along more than 250km of the Finnish-Norwegian border. And, importantly to fishermen, this river is well known as being the best salmon fishing river in northern Europe.

Even if you’re not an avid fisherman, you really should try salmon fishing on the Teno at least once. It’s an experience unlike any other fishing trip you’ve ever taken — that is unless you’ve been fishing for salmon in other areas of Norway or Finland (such as the River Muonio to the west).

One of many fisherman going up and down the Tenojoki in hopes of catching some salmon.

Fishing on the Teno is done from traditional wooden fishing boats, which you can either hire for your own personal use or with a guide to show you the ropes. If you’re like me, with virtually no experience fishing and even less so with traditional wooden boats, it will be a no-brainer to go out with a guide!

This is no passive activity either. Salmon fishing in the Teno requires someone to be rowing the boat constantly against the current, which in this river is no slouch. How do you hold a fishing rod and row if you’re the only person in the boat? The short answer is that you don’t. Instead, each boat has been equipped with five mounts, each of which locks a rod into place. You’ll only need to grab one if you hook a fish, and since you’ve got five of them, your chances should be five times better, right?

There’s a lot of effort involved when fishing on the River Teno.

The other really unique thing that fishing in this part of the world offers is the ability to fish all night long. Because the sun rises in Utsjoki in mid-May in and doesn’t drop to the horizon again until mid-July, it’s common for fishermen to be out on the river at 2am. And, since permits do not allow those without a local rower in their boat to fish between 2pm-9pm, it’s a lot more likely that people will be out well into the night. That said, schedules become much more fluid under the midnight sun, so this really isn’t a problem!

Hiking

Utsjoki is surrounded by fells — and even a few mountains on the Norwegian side — so it has no end of hiking opportunities available. Three of those opportunities are up three separate fells called Ailigas. Despite having the same name are actually not very close to each other; that’s because their names are not to do with geography, but rather mean “holy fell” in the Northern Sami language.

The Ailigas near Utsjoki village visible behind the Sami Bridge.

The Ailigas fell closest to Utsjoki towers over the village itself. It can be easily seen throughout the area, both for its height and the TV towers that stand near the top. At only 320m, it is quite an easy climb and has spectacular views across the village and into Norway.

The furthest Ailigas from the village of Utsjoki is just outside the village of Karigasniemi, which sits across the border from the larger town of Karasjok on the Norwegian side. This Ailigas is by far the tallest (at 620m tall) and, in keeping with its name, is considered to be a Sami sacred site.

The River Teno forming figure eights as it flows towards Utsjoki from Karigasniemi.

The middle Ailigas is located near Nuvvus, which is roughly 50km away from Utsjoki on the road to Karigasniemi. At 535m, it is still much taller than the Ailigas in Utsjoki, but it is still quite an easy climb. You can drive partway up the mountain until you reach a gated road; from there, it is around 45min – 1 hour to the top.

As you walk, you’ll quickly climb past the treeline and across a grassy landscape as the views stretch out behind you. Since the walk is up the southern side of the mountain, the big reveal is saved for the top when you are rewarded with panoramic views of the Tenojoki and the mountains of Norway (particularly the peak of Rásttigáisá) on the other side. The river itself is dotted with grassy islands — some Norwegian, some Finnish — so the river seems to create a series of figure eights as it winds into the distance.

Looking towards the mountain of Rásttigáisá in Norway from the top of Nuvvus Ailigas.

The three Ailigas fells provide just a few of many hiking trails in the region. In particular, Kevo Nature Reserve is another very popular place to hike, especially if you want to hike for multiple days. To find out more, head to the Finnish National Parks website.

The Most Beautiful Road in Finland

The E6 (also called Tenontie) between Karigasniemi and Utsjoki is renowned as being “the most beautiful road in Finland.” Why is that? Well, many of the roads in Lapland are stunning. When driving, you’ll often find yourself in the middle of what seems like never-ending forest or between lines of blue-green fells stretching as far as you can see into the distance. Occasionally, they snake alongside rivers and weave along the shoreline of lakes.

One of many great views along the “most beautiful road in Finland.” This one is about 40km from Utsjoki.

The E6 has nearly all of this in one 100km stretch. It winds its way along the River Teno at ground level before working its way uphill to give you a wider view of the river and the fells surrounding it. In summer’, the trees lining the river and climbing up the fells are a brilliant yellow-green. On the Norwegian side, mountains rise up beyond the tree-lined fells. Bare of vegetation, their rocky, grey outlines are dotted with white patches of snow clinging on for dear life.

Can it be said with 100% certainty that this is the most stunning road in Finland? No, but it certainly gives every other road a very high bar to compete against. And, given you could drive half of the road — turning around at Nuvvus and making plenty of stops for photos along the way — and still beback in Utsjoki within 2 hours, there really is no reason not to do it!

Church Huts

One of the church huts with the parish church in the background.

6km south of Utsjoki, you’ll find the town’s old stone church, which was finished in 1853. This church stands in a commanding position over the calm shores of Lake Mantojärvi, but what it makes it truly different from other churches you may have seen around Lapland is the church huts that line the lakeshore below.

While not very common across Finnish Lapland, these wooden huts resemble the church villages of towns in Swedish Lapland such as Skellefteå and Luleå but on a much smaller scale. Only 14 of the huts now remain (or have been reconstructed). The oldest is from the 18th century.

The turf hut with Lake Mantojärvi in the background.

Both the Swedish and Finnish church villages were built to house those that lived far from town but came in for church on the weekends. However, the church village in Utsjoki specifically catered for the Sami — families that were otherwise nomadic. This makes a lot of sense, since Utsjoki is actually the only municipality in Finland where the majority of people are of Sami descent.

The huts themselves are all quite different. Some are completely fashioned out of wood, while others have turf roofs (complete with tiny yellow flowers), and one hut is even made completely out of turf, with such low interiors that you have to really double over to get inside. And to think, a tiny hut like this could have housed a family with eight children!

The sauna. The vihta is visible hanging from the roof on the left hand side.

Other buildings have survived as well — on top of the hill stands a now-silent stable. Closer to the lake stands a traditional wooden sauna, which even has an old vihta (a small bunch of birch twigs used for hitting yourself in the sauna. It sounds odd, but it’s said to be revitalising for your skin).

It’s possible to enter the church village and explore whenever you like, but if you’d like to see the inside of many of the huts, you’ll need to ask for a guided tour from the on-site café. These tours are free but are offered only in the summer months.

Nuorgam

The holiday village centre at Nuorgam.

About 40km to the northeast of Utsjoki is the small village of Nuorgam. Like Utsjoki, Nuorgam is also situated on the Teno River and is home to a lovely little holiday village on the riverbank; if you wanted, you could easily base your salmon fishing expeditions here as well.

Many visitors from all around Europe head here to do exactly that. The village itself has a very international feel due to the large number of Norwegian visitors; after all, Norway is only a few kilometres away and accommodation, food, and petrol are all cheaper on the Finnish side of the border.

One of the other reasons that visitors to Lapland venture to this remote hamlet is to see the northernmost village in the European Union. While it is located 500km north of the Arctic Circle and very close to the northernmost point in Finland, it may seem odd that this village is designated “northernmost” when it features a border crossing — heading north — into Norway. However, it makes more sense when you remember that Norway isn’t actually part of the European Union!

A directions sign made of paddles in Nuorgam.

If you’re looking for somewhere bustling — or somewhere with big, ostentatious landmarks, since Nuorgam’s few signs to mark its “northernmost” status can be missed in a blink — Nuorgam won’t be for you. But, if you’re looking for a quiet spot where you can relax and maybe catch a few dinner’s worth of food, you’ll enjoy it here.

As you can see, for a place that has so few people, Utsjoki still has plenty of unique opportunities to get out and enjoy the Finnish wilderness, and I’m sure if I’d had more than just a rushed visit, I would have discovered even more. It’s definitely worth a detour off the beaten tourist path…and really, how could you resist when that detour is said to be the most beautiful road in Finland?

I visited Utsjoki courtesy of Utsjoki Municipality and Tundra Safari, but as always, all opinions stated here are my own. Utsjoki can be reached via 1.5hr drives along either the E6 (from Karasjok) or the E75 (from Inari). To fish in the Tenojoki, you must have a salmon fishing license, which is either for €25/day for fishing from the riverbank or €40 for fishing in a boat. These licenses can be purchased from local shops and holiday villages. It’s worth noting that, unless you hire a local rower, you cannot be on the river between 2pm-9pm and the river is closed to all fishermen from 7pm Sunday-7pm Monday each week.

What the Lyngen Alps looked like on my first visit. Not exactly what I’m used to hiking in!

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the activity that featured most heavily on my itinerary for my trip around Northern Norway in summer was hiking. Unfortunately, the poor weather that plagued northern Europe for the entirety of last summer extended all the way up to the Arctic reaches of Norway as well, which meant that my multiple days of hiking ended up being cut down to just one day trip.

Luckily, that day trip — to a place called Strupen in Lyngenfjord near Tromsø — was quite the memorable one. I couldn’t have asked for a more magnificent location, and the company made the day that much more enjoyable…and they made the more difficult parts of the hike seem a lot more speedy as well.

Looking out on the Lyngen Alps as we crossed the fjord to begin our hike.

In general, locations in Norway are much more accessible with a boat, and Strupen doesn’t deviate from that pattern. Located on the western shores of the mighty Lyngenfjord in the heart of the Lyngen Alps, it was actually not far as the crow flies from my holiday house near Koppangen. However, since the road north actually ends in Koppangen — and I’m not a crow so I can’t fly — I would have been stuck there.

Instead, I took the slightly longer route, which involved taking a ferry from my side of the fjord across to the eastern shores to meet Ingar, my guide for the day. From his gorgeous little holiday homes nestled on the shoreline at Nordmannvik, we could see our destination…and to get there, we hopped back in a boat to cross the fjord yet again. Luckily it was a perfectly calm day, otherwise I might have been a motion sickness-induced disaster by the time we arrived!

The walls of Lyngenfjord towering high above us as we crossed to Strupen.

By the time we dropped anchor just offshore from Strupen, I had learned more about our little group of hikers and what had brought everyone this far north. Accompanying Ingar and his wife were his sister, a cousin from southern Sweden, and his cousin’s family. As with most people I meet while hiking, I felt like they were kindred spirits; they all seemed to be people that simply loved being out in nature for the sake of it.

Even just climbing out of the boat, I couldn’t help but stare around in awe. The bay was crystal clear; the intermingling of glacier water from the mountains above with the waters of the fjord had created a body of water that glimmered a brilliant blue; it almost resembled the otherworldly colour of purely glacier-fed lakes like Lake Pukaki in New Zealand.

A fjord or a glacier lake? You decide.

In the other direction, the peaks of the Lyngen Alps towered above. Somewhere nestled in those peaks was Strupen Glacier, the outflow of which was visible as a speck of a waterfall at the base of a cliff. Between us and the mountains was a rolling field of green, punctuated by a row of trees. I don’t think I could have found a place more perfect if I’d tried.

Hiking towards the lower waterfall at Strupen.

As we hiked across the field and then along the rocky edge of the glacier river, the waterfall went from a speck to a roaring cascade. Standing at its base, the spray of ice-cold water felt fresh on our faces; despite the fact that the glacier stood many hundreds of metres above, the ice surrounding us caused the temperature to drop significantly. Below the falls, a rainbow leaped from the milky turquoise waters. It was extraordinary, and if my day had ended there, I would have been happy.

A waterfall, a rainbow, and milky turquoise water. I was happy!

However, that was just the start; after all, we were still on flat ground and there was so much above us to explore. Since he knew what lay ahead of us and since he was quite nimble on his feet, Ingar kindly offered to take some gear from my camera-and-tripod laden backpack and then pointed out our route. We wouldn’t be rock climbing, but we were to make our way up a steep slope, crossing the jagged boulders of a creek multiple times along the way, with our end destination being a plateau that he assured me was worth the walk.

Just hanging out near the ice blocks. As you do.

Luckily, our group was a mix of ages and fitness levels; while I was feeling much more fit after doing a number of short hikes in Finland, my main problem was balance. As you know from my “adventure travel for the uncoordinated” tagline, I am not exactly stable on my feet. I do love hiking through the mountains, but I’m a bit wobbly when I do it!

As we clambered through the undergrowth, the fjord behind us dropped away, giving us panoramic views across the water back to Ingar’s home. It was hard to keep my eyes on the track when I kept wanting to turn around and look at the view, but luckily we had a number of rest stops to have snacks and take it all in.

Ingar leading the way as we hiked up towards the plateau.

The final climb up to the plateau was daunting, and I’ll be honest when I say that initially, I really wasn’t sure if I’d make it up. The path was steep and covered in scree, which meant my feet never quite stayed in the place I’d planted them. However, my initial doubts were easily put to rest; Ingar’s good supervision meant that I followed in his footsteps and made it up onto the plateau in much less time than I was expecting.

And wow, what a spot it was. I would have been devastated if I hadn’t made it to the plateau and then had later seen photos of what I’d missed. To one side, a valley stretched into the mountains, which were speckled with snow that was holding on late into the season. Far in the distance, yet another waterfall flowed on its never-ending mission to reach the sea; far beyond that would have been Strupen glacier itself.

The view I kept turning around to see.

The summer’s poor weather hadn’t affected everyone badly. Apparently, the temperatures had been so cool that, somewhere up in the mountains, people were still skiing. The Lyngen Alps are one of the most popular skiing areas in Northern Norway, but even so, the fact that people were still skiing there in the middle of July was incredible.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the conditions were such that even the most skilled skiers were having a rough time. As we stood on the plateau, a rescue helicopter buzzed low over our heads and stopped just on the other side of the ridge. Hopefully the person being picked up recovered quickly.

A waterfall of water from Strupen glacier flowing across the plateau.

Despite that downer, our trip to the plateau was a time for celebration. We found ourselves a nice rocky outcrop looking down on the sweeping view of the fjord below and popped a cork on a bottle of champagne.

I know that summiting a minor plateau in the mountains isn’t usually cause for a glass of bubbly, but we were also celebrating a milestone. The Swedes had gotten engaged in this very spot, and it was the first time they had returned; this time, along with Ingar (who had guided their original walk as well), they were able to bring their teenage daughter along for the hike.

Celebrating (and photographing) an important moment once we reached the plateau.

It always seems too soon when you have to leave for the return trip home, and the same can definitely be said for this hike. The downhill trip was a bit more treacherous than uphill, and I sometimes found it tough to keep my centre of gravity, well, not aiming directly downhill. That said, it’s a huge credit to Ingar (and everyone else around me) that I was able to make it back to the boat with no injuries whatsoever. Given my history, that’s quite an accomplishment!

Enjoying the view from the top.

A few hours and two more fjord crossings later, I was back at my holiday house, idly skipping rocks along the water as I looked north towards Strupen. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable walk made even better by great company, and while I was exhausted, I was also content. I’d finally been able to hike in Norway, and the feeling was addictive…and well worth the wait.

Have you been hiking in Norway (particularly in the north)? What was your experience like?

A huge thanks to Ingar and his family for taking me along on their hike to Strupen. I really appreciate everything you did for me and the fact that I could come along for what was a very special hike. Thanks to Visit Lyngenfjord for organising both my trip with Ingar and my “Take Me Away” holiday home between Lyngseidet and Koppangen.

My holiday house was perfect for watching the midnight sun at 1.30am. Strupen is in the mountains on the left.

The “Take Me Away” home sleeps 8 people across 4 bedrooms, features a sauna, and being across the road from the fjord, has amazing views. Ingar’s Lyngen Fjordbuer feature large patios and panoramic windows with stunning views and are available for weekly rentals from 11030nok. With your holiday house rental, you can also rent a boat; I highly recommend enquiring about his guiding services as well!

Kayaking on the glassy water of Menesjärvi, near Inari in Finnish Lapland.

Even though I knew doing everything would be impossible — especially in a timeframe of only 7 weeks — my goal on my trip to Lapland last summer was to do as much as possible. In Finland alone, I visited nine different destinations, all as research for my upcoming Guide to Lapland and Northern Norway in Summer. Combine that with the midnight sun, which kept me up until 1 or 2am most nights, and you have one hell of a tiring schedule.

By the time I reached Hotel Korpikartano, nestled on the banks of Lake Menesjärvi some 30km west of Inari in Finnish Lapland, I was in dire need of a break. I’d experienced the adventurous side of Lapland to its fullest; now I wanted to experience the calm, relaxing side. I wanted to find somewhere where I could sit on my own and ask “Ahhh, how’s the serenity?” to no one in particular.

You don’t get much more serene than that.

Being in that frame of mind, there really was nowhere better for me to be than Korpikartano. As soon as I arrived and glimpsed the perfect, calm waters of the lake, I felt more relaxed. And, after having a long chat and a cup of blueberry tea with my hosts Anne and Timo, I felt at home.

Of course, I wasn’t the first to feel this way. I’m sure the thousands of other guests that visit the shores of Menesjärvi each year would feel the same, but before any guests ever arrived, Korpikartano was known by another name — Menesjärvi Sami School. That’s right — instead of being built as a wilderness resort, Korpikartano was a boarding school built in 1954 to bring together Sami children from distant villages.

Korpikartano, hiding in the woods.

By the standards of modern-day Western society, the first few years at the Sami school would have been hard-going. There was no electricity to help ward off the chill of winter or to light their rooms as they read in the dead of polar night. That said, the conditions weren’t anything new to the people that called Lapland home, since many were still nomadic at the time of the school’s founding (since it wasn’t until the 1960s that the snowmobile revolutionised reindeer herding and the Sami way of life).

Even if the school hadn’t modernised — which it most definitely did, getting first electricity and then its own road — I wouldn’t have faced these problems during my visit since I was there at the height of summer. There was no need to bundle up and even less need to carry a torch, since the sun could be seen well above the horizon throughout the “night.”

Midnight sun!

In fact, the grey skies that dogged much of my journey cleared almost completely during my days on the lake, so the midnight sun that I saw there was more visible than it had been for at least a week prior. Despite the fact that going anywhere near the lake required multiple layers of tropical-strength OFF! to fend off the ever-present mosquitos, I was continually drawn to the hotel’s pontoon. I loved being able to sit and watch the world reflected in the perfect glassy lake.

The pontoon. How perfect is that?!

That world was perfect, idyllic Finland, with the occasional red house dotting the lake’s foreshore and some of the most impressive clouds I’d seen on my trip sprayed across the sky above.

Regardless of where I was around Korpikartano, whether it was on the pontoon or traipsing through the woods looking for a more direct photo of the midnight sun, as soon as I stopped moving, I was enveloped in complete and utter silence.

Another awesome midnight sun scene.

You don’t realise how much you are truly surrounded by noise — be it the buzz of background electronics in your house, the clatter of trains rattling past filled with commuters, or the buzzing of cicadas at the height of a sub-tropical summer. Lapland has none of those. Yes, there are plenty of native animals, some of which are quite capable of making a racket; but come 9 or 10pm, all of those animals have gone to sleep and let silence descend on the land once more. It was disconcerting when I first experienced it, but I came to love it.

Vintage bikes parked outside the entrance to Korpikartano.

In fact, so much of my visit to Menesjärvi was intertwined with silence. In the sauna, which I could reserve for 1 hour each night for my personal use, I sat in 80ºC, alone with my thoughts (and the thick smell of blueberries from the shampoo I’d used beforehand). Being a city girl from subtropical climates, I’d never really spent much time in saunas before my first visit to Lapland in 2012; now, it was something to look forward to, something that was worthy of half an hour at the end of even the longest days.

This isn’t the sauna; it’s a lakeside hut with an awesome view and a stove to keep it lovely and warm in winter.

Even when I borrowed a kayak (free with all summer stays) and waved goodbye to Timo as I paddled away, the lack of sound around me was deafening. When I put my paddle down to have a drink of water, having ladled it out of the lake with my kuksa, I felt like I could hear everything happening for miles around. I turned at every splash and saw fish I never would have noticed before. I jolted at a footfall on the lakeshore, only to turn and see a herd of reindeer making their way back into the forest.

An action shot as I kayaked around Menesjärvi.

Don’t get me wrong — I certainly didn’t spend my entire stay pondering the quiet around me. My relaxed schedule meant I could spend hours in conversation with both the owners and fellow guests.

From Anne, I learned of the Skolt Sami, the Sami people of the borderlands with Russia that lost most of their homelands in the treaty with Russia after WWII. Many of the ~1200 Skolt Sami live in the Inari area today, and Korpikartano sells their hand-made socks and donates the money back to Sami programs.

A tree on the edge of paradise.

Despite feeling just a bit disappointed that I was too early for it, I loved hearing about all the berries that can be gathered in such a short distance around Menesjärvi; it sounds like it really is an all-you-can-eat buffet in late July and August. We had to make do, instead, with looking for a fungus that Anne had found but not yet picked. I found it on my last night there and had to take Anne’s word on it that it was a good one, since it looked a little bit like a dog poo!

With Timo, I found a fellow photographer and adventurer who talked of summers in Antarctica, winters at Korpikartano, and many things in between. As the head wilderness guide at the hotel, he was an absolute fountain of knowledge of the area and helped me to plan the rest of my time in the Inari area in a flash. By the time we were done chatting, he had planned a return visit for me in winter, which I didn’t object to at all!

Not what it looks like in winter. I was quite happy with this though!

All of this combined to make Menesjärvi one of the places I remember most fondly on my trip. It was a majestic location featuring a perfect combination of activities and rest, and I feel incredibly lucky that I had such spectacular weather there as well. While I can’t promise clear skies and warm temperatures if you visit, I can say that you will feel so welcome here that you’ll be trying to find excuses to extend your visit come departure day.

One last shot of the midnight sun.

My stay at Menesjärvi was organised by Hotel Korpikartano, but all opinions stated here are my own. The hotel is open year-round and rooms start at €80 in the summer season (€93 in the winter season). Breakfast, sauna access, kayaks, and rowboats are included, and lunch and dinner can be purchased separately.

Thank you to Finnair and Europcar Suomi for their sponsorship on this trip. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to explore nearly as much of Finnish Lapland as I did.

In the big open hall that houses Siida’s main exhibition.

The small village of Inari is located 40km north of the regional centre of Ivalo, but in many ways it overshadows its much larger neighbour. The town enjoys a prime location at the mouth of the Juutuajoki into Lake Inari; the lake itself (known as Inarijärvi in Finnish or Aanaarjävri in Inari Sami) is the largest in Lapland and is dotted by more than 3000 islands. The town’s status as one of the centres of Sami culture in Finland is reflected in its excellent Siida museum and the nearby Sajos, where the Finnish Sami parliament meets.

Sajos, the site of the Finnish Sami parliament.

I highly recommend spending as much time as possible exploring Siida and Sajos; I spent almost a full day between the two during my winter visit in 2013. However, while I was intrigued by the open-air museum at Siida — which is only open in the summer — I decided to explore slightly further afield on my summer trip since I was no longer limited by metres upon metres of snow.

That’s a lot of islands — and from this lookout, I could only see a small portion of the massive Lake Inari!

My first port of call was Ukko Island, also known as Ukonsaari or Äijih. Located around 11km away from the town of Inari, this island is only accessible by boat. Luckily for me, Lake Inari is quite calm even on stormy days so the cruise from town — on a ship that departs twice a day in summer — was still enjoyable despite poor weather. That’s coming from someone who is usually the first to get seasick as well!

Ukko Island, as seen from the Lake Inari cruise ship.

Ukkonsaari is the namesake of the god Ukko, the god of the sky — particularly of weather and thunder — and one of the most important gods in the Sami mythology. (It’s interesting to note that the Finnish word for thunder, ukkonen, derives from his name). It’s also no wonder that the island named after him is considered to be one of the most important and sacred sites in the area.

Part of the island’s sanctity comes from the fact that the Sami made their sacrifices to Ukko there. In the 1800s, an Englishman named Arthur Evans discovered evidence of these sacrifices — in particular, the antlers of a reindeer surrounding the entrance to one of the island’s caves.

Looking back towards the pier from the stairs leading to the summit of Ukko Island.

Since the Sami culture in general is entwined with nature, it is no surprise that one of the most striking islands in this area of Lake Inari became a sacred site. On nearly all sides, the cliffs of the island are forbidding and looked like they would have been impossible to climb; only one side provided a slightly more graduated route to the top. It was there that a pier and stairs have been built.

I’d like to say that I was able to sit at the peak of the island and take in the gravity of it all, but Ukko had other plans in mind. At the top, the wind whistled past so quickly that we couldn’t hear anything else. We all barely got to the top to look out across the lake and its never-ending whitecaps before we turned back, hoping to beat the thunderheads back to the boat.

A thundery view — very fitting, since we were at the top of the thunder god’s island.

Unlike your standard scenic cruise, the Lake Inari cruise ship doesn’t go straight back to the port from whence it came; instead, providing the winds are right, it stops along the old postal route along the northern shores of the lake. This is perfect for hikers like me that are keen to explore the Pielpajärvi Wilderness Church.

As I mentioned above, there is not a lot in the way of old buildings in Lapland. While there are still a number of beautiful buildings — like St Paul’s Chapel in Saariselkä, which is beautifully made of wood & glass and blends into the woods around it — the Nazis left Lapland as an almost blank slate architecturally.

St Paul’s Chapel in Saariselkä.

Luckily, as they retreated through the Inari and Ivalo area, they didn’t make it far enough afield to destroy Pielpajärvi. This area used to be the site of a winter village for the people of Inari — a place for the Sami to gather after spending the year living nomadically.

While evidence has been found of a church built here in the 1600s, the current church was erected in 1760. Now, rather than being surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a town going about its business, it is surrounded by a beautiful, grassy meadow. When I finally saw this meadow, after 4km of hiking from the wharf at Pielpavuono, it was full of golden wildflowers, the raindrops dotting their petals sparkling in the fleeting sunlight.

The meadow surrounding Pielpajärvi Wilderness Church.

As I explored the church, it was hard to believe that it had been built more than 200 years prior as it was in such good condition. However, after reading the signs located around the meadow, I realised that it had been meticulously restored to its former condition after falling into disrepair when the village moved to the banks of the Juutuanjoki — where Inari is located today — in the 1800s.

One of the windows of Pielpajärvi Wilderness Church.

Inside the church, visitors have free reign and can explore any nook and cranny they want, provided they remember that this is a protected building. With that in mind, I carefully climbed a ladder to the second floor of the darkened church and stood, completely on my own, looking out on the cross-shaped worship area below. The hikers that had left the church just before I arrived had sat in the belltower ringing the bell, but my skin was crawling in the silence and darkness so I didn’t quite make it that far.

A hailstorm gathering over Pielpajärvi.

It turned out that I should have stayed inside the church slightly longer, because no sooner had I closed the church and fence doors behind me than a storm rolled in. This was no ordinary summer storm either; within seconds, I was taking shelter underneath a nearby birch tree in an attempt to avoid a hailstorm. I’d prepared for wet weather, but I hadn’t expected thundery hail to go with it!

Another angle on the church.

From Pielpajärvi, the rest of the hike back to town was a beautiful mix of calm lakeshore, thick birch forest, and boardwalks across boggy areas dotted with colourful flowers. It went up and over a few small hills, but it generally stayed at the height of the lake. Later in the summer, I could imagine the scrub alongside the track being filled with blueberries, crowberries, and other delicious treats just waiting to be picked.

It was blissful, calm, and while a number of people passed me going in the other direction — after all, when the days are never-ending, you can start a hike late in the evening if you want — the silence of the Finnish forest soon descended again as the sound of their footfalls faded away. Ukko’s thunder had finally passed, and the day had turned into a glorious golden evening.

The track heading back to Inari from Pielpajärvi.

By the time I retrieved my car from the Siida car park — well after the museum itself had closed — there was no arguing the fact that I was tired. But, while I would have been much less weary from visiting a museum or reading a book, I wouldn’t have experienced the true force of Lapland’s nature — a force that is present in so many parts of the Sami culture. I wouldn’t have been blasted off the top of an island by wind or taken shelter from a freak hailstorm, and I wouldn’t have learned why having a sacred island named after the god of thunder was so truly fitting.

I am by no means saying you should skip Sajos and Siida on your visit to Inari — quite the opposite. I believe any visitor to the town should leave plenty of time to see both; even in a day, you’ll still find that you barely scratched the surface of what they have to offer. I believe that they give you a strong basis for better understanding the region as a whole. But once you’ve been there, you should definitely venture further afield and see more of the region with your own eyes. Just make sure you bring a raincoat with you!

My stay in the Inari area was organised by Visit Inari, but all opinions stated here are my own. Lake Inari cruises are offered twice daily in the summer months; tickets start at €22. Visits to Pielpajärvi Wilderness Church are free, and the church is accessible either via the cruise ship or via a ~9km loop starting just outside Inari. Siida is open from 9am to 7pm daily in the summer and tickets cost €10 per adult. Sajos is open from 9am to 5pm; entry is free.

Thank you to Finnair and Europcar Suomi for their sponsorship on this trip. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to explore nearly as much of Finnish Lapland as I did.

Rafting on the Ivalojoki river — a trip that only happens once a year.

In Saariselkä, a ski resort town in the Inari municipality in northeastern Finland, this not only meant that I was trying new things, but that I was also trying things that pushed me well outside my comfort zone. Even something that seemed perfectly straightforward on my itinerary — visiting a husky farm — turned out to be a bit of a challenge, but that just made my stay that much more memorable.

So what were those challenging experiences, and would I recommend them to you as a summer visitor to the Saariselkä region?

Visiting Kamisak Husky Farm

When I did a flying visit to Lapland in 2012, I fell in love with dogsledding. I had the most adorable team of dogs — led by Liza Minnelli, no less — that alternated between giving me bear hugs (when not in the harness) and the unbridled joy of running across the wilderness. On my monthlong trip in 2013, I managed to fit in three dogsledding trips, and those cemented the activity as my favourite thing to do in Lapland.

I mean seriously, how could you not love an adorable (and slightly cross-eyed) husky like this one?

Obviously, I wasn’t going to be able to go dogsledding in summer; after all, just a little bit of activity in temperatures up to 50º higher than winter leaves huskies panting. That didn’t mean I couldn’t go visit and get a few more bear hugs though!

Kamisak Farm lets you do just that in summer. For €15, you can visit the farm for 1.5hrs and learn all about everything that goes into running a husky farm with more than 100 dogs. It was fascinating to hear about the sheer scale of the operation and all the small tasks that has to be done to make sure everything runs smoothly.

One of many multiple-times-daily tasks on a husky farm — feeding 6 ravenous puppies at once.

It was even more entertaining to get into pens with some of the dogs. Their boundless energy — particularly in the case of the six-month-old puppies — made it almost impossible to take a well-framed photo, so eventually I gave up and just spent my time playing with them instead.

As we sat in the mothers pen with the month-old puppies — so small that they looked like they’d barely opened their eyes — thunder began to echo across the fells. My guide, a young French man who was spending the season taking care of the farm, quickly kicked into action; before I knew it, I was on the back of a quad bike riding up to the upper farm. One of the dogs there had a penchant for destroying her doghouses, and as a result, she needed to be taken into the house for the thunderstorm so she didn’t end up cold and miserable.

Seriously, it doesn’t get more adorable than this yawming month-old husky.

At this point, I transformed from a visitor to a farmhand. It was impossible for my guide to drive the quad bike and hold a squirming husky, so I was given the honour of holding her. Because I needed both arms to keep her from leaping off mid-ride, I had no way of holding on to the ATV on my own; luckily, I managed to use what little balance I have to keep us both from toppling off the side as we went around corners!

By the time I sprinted to my car through the beginning of a deluge, I felt like I had a much better understanding of what it’s like to take care of a husky farm than I ever got when I visited in winter. While it would be incredibly rewarding and full of puppy cuddles, it is also exhausting, both physically and mentally. And I was there for less than 2 hours!

This smiling fully-grown husky is doing pretty well in the adorable stakes too.

A smoke sauna & a swim

When I was in Enontekiö at the tail end of my winter Lapland trip, I attempted to go ice swimming — that crazy Finnish activity where they cut a hole in the ice, keep it from freezing by putting a small motor in it to move the water around, and then jump in. After building up my courage in a sauna, I sprinted outside in my swimsuit — in temperatures around -20ºC — and slowly lowered myself into the water.

The stream that runs past Fell Centre Kiilopää, just outside Urho Kekkonen National Park near Saariselkä.

On the upside, I didn’t give myself a heart attack (which would have been a problem since no one else was around and it probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing to be doing), but on the downside, the water only got up to mid-thigh before I turned tail and ran back to the sauna. My legs were so cold that I didn’t even put my flip flops back on. I just ran. Barefoot. Through the snow.

With that experience in mind, I was happy to just sit in the smoke sauna at the Fell Centre Kiilopää and forego the accompanying swimming experience. Sure, it was at least 10º outside and the water in the small stream flowing out of Urho Kekkonen National Park was a balmy 6ºC, but in technical terms, it was still bloody cold.

The relatively innocuous-looking swimming area outside the sauna.

That was until I struck up a conversation with an American family. The father in the family was Finnish, so the kids had been coming to Finland for family vacations as long as they could remember. As a result, they were well versed in jumping into freezing cold streams, and after a lot of goading, I found myself gingerly stepping in to the water as well.

That first step into the water is something I won’t forget anytime soon. It was instant, aching pain, yet I kept going, the cheers of four people pushing me further. I held on to the rope leading from the wooden staircase across the stream, and when I got deep enough, I quickly dunked myself before sprinting back out again. Then it was back into the sauna for another round, staying until I couldn’t stand the heat before repeating the whole experience once more.

The smoke sauna at Fell Centre Kiilopää.

I have to admit that it got much easier after the first time and that it was actually quite invigorating, especially once I got back into the sauna. Still, after three times, I waved the white flag and went to my room and to bed. I slept well that night!

Rafting the Ivalojoki gold fields trail

While the rivers of Lapland are no stranger to rafting — as I found out on my trip along the Kitkajoki in Ruka — the trip that Luonto Loma Pro Rafting offers down the Ivalojoki is quite different. This trip happens but once a year (near the end of June) and covers a stretch of river more than 70km long between the hamlets of Kuttura and Tolonen. The sheer distance covered means that rafters gather in town around 8am and don’t make their way back to Saariselkä for a whopping 13-14 hours.

Suited up and ready to raft the Ivalojoki. Yes, I know the GoPro on the helmet is a good look.

From the beginning, this was a challenging trip. Finns from all over were in Saariselkä for the weekend so they could participate in this special event, and as a result, I was the only person on the trip that did not speak Finnish…or at least, any more Finnish than kiitos (thank you) and kaikki mela! (all paddle!). Luckily, like most Finns, the other people on the trip were fairly fluent in English, but much of the official commentary and instruction was done in Finnish. Even with a rough translation from the guide behind me, I felt like I missed some of what was going on.

The other challenge of the trip was not how we would navigate the white water, but how we would motor through the substantial sections of the trip where the river was hardly flowing at all. The other two rafts were equipped with motors that revved up at every opportunity, but our raft didn’t have one. My initial fear that we would have to paddle the whole way — something I was definitely not fit enough to do — was assuaged when one of the other guides tossed a rope to us and began slowly puttering along with us as his tender.

The size of most of the rapids we went down on the Ivalojoki.

The white water itself was not challenging — at most, the rapids were a category three. They were big enough to provide periodic excitement while not getting us completely soaked. That was a good thing; while getting drenched is usually most of the fun with rafting, in Lapland, it would have meant being very cold for a very long time.

While the trip was very much centred around experiencing the wilderness and a river with virtually no inhabitants living along it, it was also a historical trip. The Ivalojoki is the most famous of the gold rivers in Finland, and while gold is a mere historical tidbit to most, there are still people actively digging for gold there today. While we didn’t see anyone panning for gold — the people we passed in the river were all fishermen — we did see plenty of evidence of days long past.

The buildings that were the last remnants of the gold rush at our dinner stop.

One of our scheduled stops was near a hut that seemed to be placed solely for its view high above the river, but in fact, it was just beyond a huge rock field that was actually the detritus from the search for gold. Another stop was at the Kultala Gold Mining Village, which was built alongside the river in 1870 and is still in pretty good nick today. One of the old wooden buildings was open for us to stroll through, but the silence of the site, filled with yellow wildflowers and thickly carpeted with grass, was a far cry from what it would have been like there as miners spent a summer panning 2kg of gold out of the waters below.

A warm soup served in a traditional kuksa. Very welcome at this point in the day!

While not the biggest adrenalin rush, I was still happy that I was able to take part in this rare trip. However, if I were to go again, I would make sure I packed a thick coat and a few extra layers for the last hour of rafting. Once we passed all the rapids, we settled back and gradually got colder and colder in the whipping wind; by the end, I was shivering so badly that someone else offered me her coat. If only I’d had the forethought to put a coat in our waterproof bags…

While I only spent three days in Saariselkä, with everything I managed to squeeze in I came away feeling like I’d been there significantly longer. As well as the experiences I described above, I made time to hike the fells of Urho Kekkonen National Park and be chased by a squirrel through a parking lot after he thought I was trying to steal his pizza. The times I’ll remember most, though, are the ones that pushed me out of my comfort zone. So next time I see a sauna next to a river — winter or summer — I’ll be getting in!

What do you think — if you were heading to Saariselkä, which of these would you like to try? Would you find them to be a challenge or just take them in stride?

My stay in the Saariselkä area was organised by Inari-Saariselkä Tourism, but as always, all opinions stated here are my own. Kamisak Farm is open in for husky farm visits from Tuesday-Friday in the summer months and costs €15 per adult and €7.50 per child. Of course, they offer one-day and multi-day husky trips all winter long as well. Fell Centre Kiilopää is open year-round, and visits to the smoke sauna (open three nights a week) cost €10 for those staying at the fell centre and €13 otherwise. Luonto Loma Pro Rafting offers the Ivalojoki rafting trip once a year near mid-summer — my trip was on June 27.

Thank you to Finnair and Europcar Suomi for their sponsorship on this trip. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to explore nearly as much of Finnish Lapland as I did.

Now, I don’t want to disappoint you, but these mishaps fortunately happened on a much lesser scale than previous years (like 2012, when I broke my leg chasing a bus in Sweden). Hopefully, though, they’ll entertain you and maybe even impart some advice on what not to do on your next trip…

Nearly driving into a fjord

If only the weather from the day before had held. Unfortunately, it looked nothing like this on my nightmare drive from Ramberg to Evenes…

In my post about how not to drive into a Norwegian fjord, I told the story of the most terrifying day of driving I have ever had. You may think I’m exaggerating when I say that, but I am absolutely serious. I’m surprised that I don’t have permanently white knuckles from how hard I gripped the steering wheel for seven hours straight.

So what made it so scary? Before we even got in the car, I looked out the window trying to gauge the weather. In winter, it’s often easiest to find the nearest streetlight and look into that; when I did that, I saw snow going horizontally.

A strong storm with gale-force winds had moved in overnight, and we had to be at the airport — 250km away — by 5pm so I could board my flight to Oslo (and onward to Helsinki). If I missed that flight, I would not make it to Helsinki and I would miss no less than 14 meetings that I had scheduled at the Matka travel fair the next day.

Having grown up in sub-tropical conditions, my first experience driving on snow had been 4 day prior when we landed in the Lofoten Islands of Northern Norway. Now, I had to inch along the road, slowing to a halt every few minutes as snow dumped off the mountains above me and turned the road into a complete whiteout. Most of this was done in the darkness of winter as the day was only two hours long.

But the worst part? Driving past a couple standing on the side of the road only to realise that they were there because their car was in the fjord. We tried to talk to them but couldn’t communicate as they didn’t seem to speak English; luckily, other people had already pulled over to help as well. Driving off left us with an incredibly foreboding feeling though. If the Norwegians were driving into the fjord, what chance did we have?!

As you’ve probably guessed, we survived. No one was injured and I caught my flight. My nerves, however, took a lot longer to recover.

Missing the ferry in Senja

This would have been a nice view, had not been accompanied with serious stress.

My entire Lapland and Northern Norway trip this summer was planned almost to the minute. That’s not the way I usually like to travel, but I had so much that I needed to pack into the trip that there weren’t any other options. The schedule worked well for over a month before it spectacularly went up in flames.

My day of travel between Lyngenfjord and Andenes was supposed to be a long day, but a manageable one. I had to drive 250km, stopping at 4-5 photo locations along the way, before I caught the 7pm ferry across to the Vesterålen Islands. I budgeted 7 hours for driving and one hour for making it to the ferry. Even though we couldn’t buy tickets beforehand, I figured that would be plenty of time, given how easy it had been to get on all the ferries in the Lyngenfjord region.

Boy, was I wrong. When I arrived in Gryllefjord, on the island of Senja, at 6.15pm (only 15 minutes late), the line for the ferry filled up the small parking lot that had been allocated to it and then snaked halfway across the village.

When the ferry finally arrived, it took their staff thirty minutes to work their way across the parking lot selling tickets. Once everyone there had boarded the ferry, the sellers promptly declared that there was no more room and that the next ferry would be at 11am. This was despite the fact that their boat — smaller than most other ferries I’d seen in Norway — had taken less than half of the people waiting for it.

Also a nice view, but not so great that it meant I was seeing the midnight sun as I continued on a 550km driving day.

Most ferries in Norway cut off maybe 100-200km off your trip. When the ferry left for Andenes without me, it left me with 500km between me and the hotel that I had already paid for that night. Not only that, but I was supposed to be departing that hotel and driving another few hundred kilometres the following day. With the number of jobs I was doing, my schedule was stacked to the point that this somewhat minor transportation issue became a major headache.

I had a few options. Sleep in my car in line to guarantee myself a spot on the next ferry. Find a hotel (the nearest was 40km away) and come back around 8am hoping to get a spot on the ferry. Drive as far as I possibly could that night and avoid the ferry altogether.

I chose the third option and ended up inching my way into Harstad at 1.30am the next morning, when I couldn’t possibly drive any further. I hadn’t made it to my destination, which meant I had to shuffle my destinations and hotels for the next few days, losing a lot of pre-paid rooms in the process. It wasn’t the end of the world, but my budget — and my general exhaustion by that point in the trip — could have easily done without it!

Giving up on my overland trip through Europe

How could I give up on a trip that featured views like this?

I haven’t written or shared much about the last two weeks of my European trip. After a number of other plans fell through, I made grand plans to cross the continent by land, travelling from London to Helsinki in the 11 days I had before my flight departed for Australia.

After four months of travel, it probably was a bit over-optimistic to think that I’d be able to see Switzerland, Munich, Prague, Krakow, Vilnius, and Tallinn, putting up with double-digit bus and train rides in between. I was really keen on the idea, though, because I wanted to see something different. I wanted to see central and eastern Europe and finish off my trip with something entirely different to the northern European countries I’d been immersed in for so long.

Despite the 16-hour ride from London to Basel on a bus with no toilets, Switzerland was still a great place to start. I spent two days there, most of it walking through the mountains and soaking in that alpine atmosphere, which is every bit as good as it’s made out to be…and every bit as expensive too. Munich, too, was well worth the trip, particularly because I got to explore some Bavarian mountains with Laurel from Monkeys and Mountains.

Prague was beautiful, but it was also when I realised I was stretching myself way too thin.

Prague was where it all went wrong. I arrived with the beginnings of a mean head cold and picked up a stomach bug in my first day there. It poured with rain and the temperature barely got above 5º, so even if I’d been perfectly healthy, I might not have wanted to spend all day outside.

By the time I went to the train station to try to buy an onward ticket to Krakow (after failing to do so online) and found out that it was going to cost hundreds of dollars because it was being purchased within three days of travel, I gave up. Even if I continued on to the Baltics, I wouldn’t enjoy them. I was sick and I was travel-weary and I just wanted to have somewhere comfortable to sleep for a few days.

So instead of buying a ticket to Krakow, I bought a plane flight to Stockholm and crashed with a good friend there. We ate pancakes, we sat in our pyjamas and talked, and we enjoyed the autumn sunshine and golden leaves of the parks near her house. It was a much better way to end my trip.

Nearly dying at O’Reilly’s

Chalahn Falls. Worth the walk, maybe not worth cracking my head open.

I’m not exactly good at staying on my feet (hence the “adventure travel for the uncoordinated” tagline on this site). I’m more like a lumbering giraffe, constantly amazed by how gawky and uncontrolled my legs are underneath me. One of the best examples of that this year was my hike to Chalahn Falls in Lamington National Park (near Brisbane).

The 10.5km hike featured a host of obstacles trying to stop us from getting to our ultimate destination, which is known as being one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the park. Trees, downed by a recent storm, blocked the path in at least six different places, leaving us to scramble around them if we wanted to continue. Streams were running high, and the tips of rocks that poked out of the water weren’t enough for me to balance on, so I ended up tromping through the knee-deep flow, drenching my boots inside and out in the process.

It was a relief once we finally got to Chalahn Falls. We took our time and had a picnic lunch before taking any photos at all. Once we finally did start setting up, my friend Michelle found a spot on the rocks on the opposite side of the stream, while I balanced on the last rocks before the stream began tumbling over a series of 2m drops down into the rainforest.

Legs are supposed to be shaped like that, right?

All I really know about what happened next is that Michelle looked away, and by the time she looked back in my direction, I was hanging upside down from the rocks. My head was inches above a sharp rock, and I’d been saved by my boot wedging itself into the rocks as I fell. If it hadn’t yanked me to a sudden halt, I most definitely would have landed headfirst on the rock below…in a place with no phone reception and more than a 2hr walk away from any help.

After somehow freeing myself, I assessed the damage. My ankle had been wrenched, but I had no issues walking on it. I had a few bloody cuts on one leg and a giant egg on my shin, but I was otherwise unharmed. I count myself incredibly lucky that I came out of it relatively unscathed, and I am even happier that I didn’t put Michelle in the position of having to try to drag me out of the rainforest (or even worse, to find a rescue team). Next time I might set up slightly further away from any big drops…just in case.

Memory card failure in Scotland

When this message showed up on my camera screen as I hiked up from a waterfall on the Isle of Skye, I wasn’t all that concerned.

“This memory card cannot be used. Card may be damaged. Insert another card.”

My camera had shown similar (but not identical) error messages on occasion, and after turning it off and back on again, it had sorted itself out with no harm done. Not this time.

One of the 50 photos recovered from my memory card.

This time, the memory card that held my precious photos of a day of blue skies on the Isle of Skye wasn’t just experiencing a temporary brain fart. It simply refused to be read. I tried it in my camera, in my memory card reader, in a fellow tour participant’s memory card reader — none of them could even see that a card was there.

If I hadn’t been working a photography job at the time, it would have hurt, but wouldn’t have been such a point of stress. I ended up spending hours chasing down memory card recovery specialists in Edinburgh, who declared it a lost cause, before sending it off for specialist recovery. It cost me $275 and they only managed to recover 50 photos (and they were all of the rainy day before).

Luckily, I was on the tour long enough that I had plenty of other photos, but I’m still gutted about the photos I lost. Lesson learned. Always backup photos between memory cards in-camera.

Honourable Mentions

Kiama

Over Easter, I planned a 4-day trip down to the South Coast of New South Wales to visit a number of photographic hotspots that I’d wanted to visit for years.

I arrived in the pouring rain to find I’d booked the biggest dump of a hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I had my own room but communal toilets; one of those toilets was covered in vomit and my room smelled like stale sick as well. Plus, what hotel room in 2015 has no power outlets?

Foiled by bad weather…and vomit on toilet seats.

While I was able to remedy that situation and move to a different hotel, I couldn’t remedy the fact that it poured with rain until the morning I left. It wasn’t the most successful photo trip I’ve ever been on.

Luggage on my European trip

Packing lightly is not my forte (despite the fact that I’m an avid reader of Her Packing List). I blame this both on the fact that I haul around more photography gear than the average traveller and the fact that I tend to visit pretty frigid climates.

My European trip included a trip to Lapland in summer, where it could have gotten up to 30º but instead hovered around 15º. On July 4th, it was 2º at North Cape and I was wearing a down jacket. That jacket — and all my waterproofs — came in very handy in Iceland in September as well.

As a result, I had what can only be described as a metric shit ton of luggage. I had so much that I had to leave one with family in the UK and come back every once in a while to change from summer to winter clothes. It was annoying enough that I found myself tending to book hotels based on how far I had to walk with my luggage rather than picking them based on quality.

Plus, I fell down some stairs in Zurich train station and ended up sandwiched between suitcases (with a backpack on my back and a bag of food in my hands). That was fun.

The weather in Scandinavia

There was a lot of weather like this in Norway. And Sweden. And Finland.

This list wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the atrocious weather that northern Europe had last summer. While the rest of the continent was baking under 35º temperatures, the Nordics and the UK were having their worst summer in what many people said was decades.

In the entire 4.5 months I was in Europe, I can count on two hands the days that got above 20º. Cool temperatures would have been fine if they hadn’t been accompanied by torrential rain (which foiled nearly all of my plans during my five days in the Lofoten Islands).

The weather did redeem itself by turning into an amazing autumn, when the weather was so good that I had at least 6/12 days in Scotland in full sunshine. Plus, the clouds stayed clear enough that I saw the northern lights 7/13 nights in Iceland, and of my 9 days in Ireland, it rained once (and I was taking a nap at the time).

So, tell me — were those mishaps more or less than you expected from me last year? And what were your worst travel experiences of the year?

However, it could occasionally be limiting as well. My complete lack of experience with winter conditions meant that I didn’t trust myself to wander too far away from civilisation on my own. I was happy enough to go out to a hill in the middle of nowhere to watch the aurora, sure, but I was with a group of people that would probably have noticed if I’d disappeared into a snowdrift and hadn’t resurfaced.

A fence made of old trail signs near Ylläsjärvi.

So, when I returned to Lapland at the height of summer, one of my biggest goals was to explore beyond the towns, to really get out into the backcountry in a way I hadn’t done since my months of tramping across New Zealand.

While I was able to achieve this goal in nearly everywhere I visited in Lapland, I found that Ylläs (pronounced oo-las) was especially well-suited for it.

This area, located at the southern end of the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park and composed of the two towns of Ylläsjärvi and Äkäslompolo, is best known as the ski resort that features the highest fell with ski lifts in Finland. Add to that 330km of cross-country skiing and you get a winter sports paradise.

Driving between Äkäslompolo and Ylläsjärvi on the Ylläs Scenic Route.

What’s less known, though, is that Ylläs is a summer sports paradise as well. Trails criss-cross all the way through Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, going over fells and around fresh, glassy lakes. You’re not just limited to hiking on those trails either; if you want to cover more ground (and feel the speed), you can go mountain biking, and if you want to get out on the water, there are plenty of canoes just waiting for you to get in and paddle away.

Lake Kesänkijärvi — a perfect place to paddle.

Not long after I arrived in Ylläs, I laced up my hiking boots to head out on one of those tracks — the long trek up to Kesänkitunturi. While this isn’t the tallest fell in the region, it promised some of the most challenging hiking — namely, a small canyon called Pirunkuru. Literally translated, this name means “damn gorge.”

The hut at Kesänkijärvi where we had tea and sausages.

Before we began the trek up Pirunkuru, we stopped at a wooden hut next to Lake Kesänki. Like nearly all wilderness huts in Finland, it was equipped with a fire pit and well-stocked with chopped wood. And, like all the Finns I met, my hiking buddy Nina was just as well prepared, with a knife, a thermos of water, kuksas (traditional wooden mugs), and fat sausages (grillimakkara) — everything we needed for a warm cup of tea and dinner before the serious hiking began. We just had to be patient enough to not run away from the swarm of mosquitos while it all heated up!

Looking down Pirunkuru towards Yllästunturi.

Our stomachs full and our bodies warmed from the tea, we began the steep climb up the ‘damn gorge.’ It was almost immediately obvious where the name came from. As we scrambled over wobbly boulders up the centre of a deep ravine, the trees that lined the fell seemed miles above us. That said, it wasn’t difficult since the rocks provided plenty of hand and footholds, and I could look down at the drop behind me without my stomach turning into knots. It was just good old-fashioned hard work, and I really enjoyed it.

The view from Pirunkuru.

The best thing about those hard climbs is the gratification you get from finally getting to the top. Kesänkitunturi was no different. Standing at 535m, we were a few hundred meters below the peak of Yllästunturi, which towered over Pirunkuru behind us. To the north, though, we could see for what seemed like hundreds of kilometres. In the muted light created by clouds hiding the midnight sun, the fells in the distance were differentiated only in their shade of blue as they rose one behind another. It was such a striking scene that it was hard to keep my eyes on the track as we made our way back down the other side of the fell.

Looking north at the fells of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park.

The next day, I had the opposite problem — I struggled to take my eyes off the track. That’s because I found myself on a rented fatbike, something I hadn’t done since I’d ridden down the Kemijoki River in Rovaniemi two years prior.

I’d forgotten how much more effort it took to turn a fatbike’s absurdly rotund tyres. While those tyres made the terrain significantly more forgiving, rolling over nearly any obstacle with hardly a wobble, I was also going so slowly that I had to keep my eyes glued to the track to make sure I didn’t get too close to the sides, lest my uncontrollable weaving leave me buried in the undergrowth.

Antte biking through the national park.

Luckily, I was under the expert guidance of Antte, a local policeman who had moved back after a few years in Helsinki because he missed the Lapland lifestyle. I appreciated both the fact that he was guiding me on his day off from the force and the fact that he wasn’t laughing at my total ineptitude.

Eventually, I got the hang of it, and although my legs were burning, I loved being able to experience the trails from a different perspective. Plus, even though I was going at a snail’s pace, we were still covering more ground than we would have been able to on foot, meaning we were able to delve deeper into Pallas-Yllästunturi.

Another national park trip, another lovely wilderness hut.

We crossed over swamps, across rivers, and climbed up small hills, and we were surrounded by the brilliant green of a forest that knew it only had a few short months in which to grow, flower, and wilt before the winter was once again upon it.

Only a few weeks prior to my visit, the deciduous trees had yet to sprout the first leaves of the season, but had I not been told that, I would have not have known. Only a few weeks after my visit, the berries would have begun to sprout — cloudberries in the swampy areas and blueberries carpeting the forest alongside the tracks.

“I wanna go fast! I wanna go fast!”

Knowing the trails as well as he did, Antte made sure to save the best for last. We peddled up to the top of a small hill that experienced mountain bikers would have laughed at, but I looked down in trepidation. He went first, plowing downhill and handling his bike masterfully. I followed, bouncing ungracefully between tree roots and rocky outcrops, somehow managing to keep my hands off the brakes. It was a huge rush and I couldn’t help but laugh. This was how the forest was supposed to be experienced — speed, adrenalin, and not an engine in sight.

Just like I found in Ruka earlier in my trip, the ski resorts of Lapland are a great place to base yourself for summer adventures. In Ylläs, my proximity to the national park meant I could maximise the time on my short stay that I was out hitting the trails. Now to plan a return trip so I can hit some of those 330km of cross-country skiing trails in winter too…

My stay in Ylläs was sponsored by Ylläs Marketing, but as always, all opinions stated here are my own. Thanks very much to both Nina and Antte for guiding me in Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park — it was so much better to have a local showing me around!

If you’d like to rent a fatbike for yourself, you can do so at Sportia Ylläs in Äkäslompolo. I also highly recommend staying at Lodge 67ºN when in Ylläs. It’s a small, comfortable lodge with great communal areas and the most welcoming, friendly owners. Standard twin rooms start at €65 and breakfast is included in your stay.

Thank you to Finnair and Europcar Suomi for their sponsorship on this trip. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to explore nearly as much of Finnish Lapland as I did.

The hike through Isokuru Gorge, near Pyhä in Pyhä-Luosto National Park.

There was definitely no shortage of hikes on my itinerary in Finland’s Pyhä-Luosto National Park (Pyhä-Luoston Kansallispuisto), which is located around 90 minutes’ drive away from Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland.

As soon as I arrived in the region, I laced up my hiking boots and spent an afternoon walking through the incredible Isokuru Gorge. Even at the height of summer, I had virtually the entire gorge to myself — that is, until I climbed out of it and found myself sharing a ski hill with a herd of reindeer chasing after the last remaining patches of snow.

These reindeer refused to admit that it was summertime, finding one of the last remaining patches of snow on Pyhä ski hill.

However, it was the destination of my second hike that had me asking a few questions. I would be walking 2.5km into the national park, where I would then find the Lampivaara Amethyst Mine (Europe’s only active amethyst mine). I thought that I must surely be passing outside the borders of the national park at some point, since it didn’t make sense to me that a country that worshipped its natural assets as much as Finland would put a mine right in the middle of one of its most popular national parks.

I soon found out that my map was correct. The trail from Ukko Luosto to Lampivaara led deeper into the national park rather than out of it. All around me stood the tall birch and pine trees that make up the forests of Finland; in between their thick trunks ran small streams that gurgled through the undergrowth. If I’d been a few weeks later, that undergrowth would have been carpeted in berries just waiting to be picked and savoured in the (relative) heat of summer.

You’ll find signs like these in all Finnish national parks. Each park has its own logo with a picture that represents what makes that park special.

It was pretty obvious to me, as I walked into the clearing around Lampivaara, that this was no ordinary mine. Aside from the wooden cafe on one side of the path and a locked gate on the other, there was no other indication that the mine was even there. I had timed my walk just right, so I only had a few minutes to wait before that gate was unlocked and the next hourly tour began.

If you’re like me, the thought of a mine brings to mind dark tunnels and creaky lifts that go deep into the bowels of the earth. The amethyst mine at Lampivaara is the complete opposite. Rather than descending into the earth, we climbed a series of wooden staircases suspended over the rocky scree of Lampivaara fell to find the mine at the very top. The views were sweeping, with Ukko Luosto fell standing high above the rolling landscape just to our right.

The café at the base of Lampivaara hill where I waited for the tour.

For the first part of our tour, we sat in a wooden hut and drank juice while our guide explained the goals of the mine and the importance of the amethyst stone.

It was here that we learned that the presence of amethysts has long been known to the local Sami people. They believed the stone had a number of important medicinal properties.

Different forms of amethysts that have been found at Lampivaara.

Amethyst water, which can be created by collecting the condensation that gathers on an amethyst held above boiling water, has a rejuvenating effect on skin and, when used on your face, can make you look much younger.

Plus, this same water can act as an itch cream for mosquito bites, stopping the itch almost immediately. Given the swarms of millions upon millions of mosquitos that inhabit Lapland in summer, I think this is a much more important use than wearing them as a pretty necklace!

A lone tree stands on the scree of Lampivaara, seen on the walk up to the mine.

While all of this was quite interesting (and well beyond any previous knowledge I had of the geology of Lapland) it still hadn’t fully answered my question of why is there a mine in the middle of a national park?

Luckily, the owners of the Arctic Amethyst Company — many of whom are previous guests, since you are given the chance to buy your own share in the mine at the end of the tour for around €160 — know that this will be a common question, so they made sure to answer it.

The welcome hut at the mine, with Ukko Luosto visible in the background.

A large part of the answer to this question lies in the geography of the mine. Amethysts and quartz, which originally formed in a pressure cooker environment deep beneath the surface, gradually got closer and closer to the surface during the ice ages, when mountains of snow and ice sheared off any dramatic edges to the landscape and created the rolling hills that characterise Lapland today. Now that the snow and ice is gone — a fact much better appreciated on the 20ºC summer day when I visited than in the dead of the Lapland winter — the gems could hardly be more accessible.

Walking into the mine. This building houses the winter mining area (so you don’t have to dig through snow to find your amethyst). The summer mining area is just downhill behind it.

Because the gems lie just below the surface, very little specialist equipment is needed to yield good quality gemstones. That means that the work is minimally invasive and involves no heavy machinery that could seriously damage the landscape. Add to that the fact that the mine is committed to only removing 500kg of amethysts a year to ensure that the supply is consistent through our lifetimes (and our children’s lifetimes) and you’ve got one very sustainable mine. Knowing all this, it started to make more sense to me that Finland would be willing to zone the mine into the national park when it was created in 2005.

Mining for my “lucky amethyst.”

To prove just how little equipment is needed to mine here, we were taken out onto the side of the fell and given a small basket, a tiny pick, and 20 minutes to find our own “lucky amethyst.” We were welcome to take the best gemstone we found, provided we could close a hand around it.

All the options I had at the end of my 20 minutes of mining. Only five of them turned out to be real amethysts.

Everyone found their own corner of the summer mining area (the winter one was undercover in a wooden building nearby) and started searching. Using our picks to dig a few centimetres into the earth, we all started fishing rocks out and trying to determine if they were amethysts or the less valuable (and less colourful) quartz. By the time 20 minutes was up, I had a small pile of rocks that I suspected may be amethysts; after I washed them off in the nearby sink, the guide helped me determine that five of them were actually the stone I was looking for.

Found my lucky amethyst!

After much deliberation, I picked out the fingernail-sized amethyst that would accompany me on the rest of my trip. And you know what? I reckon it was a ‘lucky amethyst’ like they said. After all, I made it through four months in Europe without hurting myself once!

Never before have I visited an amethyst mine, and unless I head back to Pyhä-Luosto in winter, I doubt I ever will again. Nor have I ever seen a mine that has dedicated itself to ensuring the landscape stays as untouched as possible. Just being able to visit was unique; being able to mine for my own gemstones was even more so. I can’t imagine being able to (or wanting to!) do that in any other mines I’ve visited!

The sweeping view across Pyhä-Luosto National Park as we descend down from Lampivaara mine.

Have you ever been to a mine like Lampivaara? Would you go mine your own amethysts there if you had the chance?

I visited the Lampivaara Amethyst Mine as a guest of the Pyhä-Luosto Tourist Association, but all opinions stated here are my own. Summer tickets to the mine cost €16 for adults/€9 for children and can be purchased in Lampivaara Café. Access to Lampivaara is via a 2.5km walking track from the Ukko Luosto parking lot. Alternative arrangements can be made, but no private vehicles can drive to the mine due to its location in a national park.

Winter prices are higher because access to the mine is by Pendolino (a large tractor-like purple vehicle with a heated cabin). From the centre of Luosto, a trip will cost €59; from Ukko Luosto parking lot, €49; if you have snowshoes or skis to access the café on your own, €25.

Thank you to Finnair and Europcar Suomi for their sponsorship on this trip. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to explore nearly as much of Finnish Lapland as I did.

My time in Hebrides was only the beginning of my travels with Haggis Adventures this summer. Overall, I spent ten days exploring the furthest reaches of Scotland and an additional five days in the Welsh countryside.

Jumping for joy before riding the Hogwarts Express.

I shared the tours with at least 50 other people — fortunately not all at the same time — and four tour guides.

We rode on one yellow bus that shouted “AWESOME!” across one side, a big blue coach that seated 43 people, a small white bus, and our favourite, a bright yellow bus that told everyone how “Wild & Sexy!” we were.

We covered nearly 2,000 miles of some of the most scenic regions in Britain, and we only occasionally burst our drivers’ eardrums with ear-splitting renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Our group at Duncarloway on the Isle of Lewis.

While I’m sure listening to fellow travellers belting out Queen classics is at the top of your to-do list on any trip, why should you pick Haggis Adventures for your trip around Scotland? What’s it like to travel with them?

The Guide Is a Local Expert

Haggis describe their guides as “Legendary…unique characters all with bags of energy, enthusiasm and a breath-taking knowledge of their homeland,” and I would say this is pretty accurate.

It was sometimes difficult to take in the sheer amount of information we were being taught about Scottish history; I’m fairly sure that at the end of the tour, we could have written a small book about the clans of Scotland, the Jacobite rebellion, and the Highland clearances.

Jamie watching on as our group dunks our heads in the Sligachan River on the Isle of Skye.

It wasn’t just Scottish history we learned about; the guides delved into pop culture and made sure we listened to plenty of The Proclaimers (the Scottish band best known for 500 Miles) as well.

It was interesting to be on a tour that involved so many changes of tour guide; in our ten days on the Compass Buster, we had three different guides. They were all unique and entertaining, but were very different characters. You have to expect that each guide will stamp his own personality on the tour, whether it’s the exuberance and never-ending energy of Jamie, the guide I wrote about in my Hebrides post, or the wicked dry sense of humour of our Orkney guide Nick.

Standing on the bridge at Rogie Falls cheering salmon on as they leaped upstream.

However, what I found jarring was that, as soon as we were used to one guide, he was replaced with someone new. Due to the lack of continuity, it was like doing three separate tours in a row instead of one cohesive tour. I know it would be too much to ask that one guide work the whole ten day tour, but our group all agreed that it would have been much better to have two guides for five days each than three guides for three to four days each.

The Base Package Is Good Value for Money

Haggis Adventures trips are aimed squarely at the budget travel market, and their trips are good value for money considering how much they pack into every day on tour.

Skara Brae in Orkney.

The 10-day Compass Buster costs £499 and 5-day tours, such as the Highland Fling or the Hebridean Hopper, cost £239. It’s worth noting, though, that this price DOES NOT cover accommodation, food costs, or optional activities.

While these prices may seem like a lot initially — especially since they do not include accommodation — they are good value compared to how much it would cost to do the same tour otherwise.

Public transport to many of the places on the tour is downright impossible; while you can take buses and trains between the major cities, you’d struggle to find regular transport around places like the Isle of Lewis and Orkney. Even if you did, you’d only be able to bus between towns and cities, so you’d miss all the interesting scenic and cultural sites that can be found on the way.

I don’t know that I would have looked for Duncansby Head on my own; I likely would have just gone to John O’Groats and caught the ferry to Orkney without being any the wiser.

You could rent a car and drive around Scotland, but you wouldn’t necessarily know all the best places to stop, and when you did, you wouldn’t have a guide telling you exactly why it’s the best place to stop. Having the guides feed us a constant stream of Scottish history and pop culture was one of the best parts of the trip, and I really enjoyed it after having spent the two months prior in a car on my own as I explored Scandinavia.

Accommodation, Food, and Activities Cost Extra

A pre-paid bundle is available to cover accommodation for an additional £229 for the 10-day trip or £104 for the 5-day trips. I highly recommend that you purchase this bundle. While it does mean there is more outlay at the beginning of the trip, it means that there is significantly less hassle through the course of the trip. For instance, if you don’t have a pre-paid bundle, it means you have to wait in line to pay for a hostel bed at each nightly stop (since chances are you’ll just choose the hostel everyone else is staying in rather than looking for a better deal elsewhere).

The view from the Tomb of the Eagles on Orkney.

The pre-paid bundle also covers some attractions, such as the Tomb of the Eagles and Skara Brae on Orkney. These stops are extended and there are no other options in the area, so you will end up paying for them anyway; the difference with the bundle is that you have a ticket handed to you rather than having to wait in line (again).

There are a number of additional attractions that are not included in the bundle, such as entry to Eilean Donan Castle and the Jacobite Steam Train (aka the Hogwarts Express). Unlike the activities mentioned above, these are not required and there is always a free option available if you would prefer to stick to a budget. Rather than going into Eilean Donan, the guide can take you up to a lookout above Loch Duich; instead of riding the Jacobite steam train, you can chase the train on the bus.

Eilean Donan Castle.

If you do think you’ll want to do these optional extras, I would recommend paying for them when booking the tour if possible. While extra people that had not pre-paid the Jacobite were able to get tickets and join the group, during busy times of year, this may not be possible. On my Wales tour, a number of people wanted to book the horseback riding trip on the day but were told there were no horses available.

A free visit to Honey the Hairy Coo was included in the tour.

Finally, it’s well worth noting that food can make or break your budget. Haggis does its best to make sure that you’re always provided with a budget option, and there are always stops at supermarkets to get both lunch and dinner. You’ll also find that many breakfasts are covered in hostel costs. However, if you go out to eat with the rest of the group — and I recommend doing this at least once because there are so many great options, particularly for seafood — money can really start slipping through your fingers.

It’s a “Small Group” Tour…Sometimes

Haggis advertises their tours as being small group tours, and for the most part, that’s the case. The majority of buses in their fleet are brilliantly yellow 29-seat buses similar to the “Wild and Sexy” bus we had in the Hebrides. Even when this bus was full, the tour still seemed small.

Part of our group on the Hebridean Hopper (the other half were inside Eilean Donan Castle at the time).

With the 29 of us on the Hebrides and Orkney sections of the Compass Buster, we never really felt like we were having to wait in line. The group often splintered into smaller groups at each site (based on who was doing which activity) and because the majority of us had the pre-paid bundle, all we had to do was wait for the guide to run inside, pick up all our tickets, and then hand them out rather than queuing up to pick them up one by one. Plus, the bus never took long to load or unload.

However, that drastically changed on the last three days of the tour, when we were picked up by the Highland Fling bus. This was no “small tour” bus. It was a 43-seater full-size coach that required a separate driver and guide (unlike in the little yellow buses, where we had driver-guides).

Not a small group…or a small bus.

Suddenly, it felt like we spent most of our time at each stop just getting on and off the bus, and it made those stops feel like they were reduced to simple photo stops rather than us having the chance to really get out and explore. Those extra 14 people really tipped the scale and made it feel like we were travelling everywhere in a large herd.

From talking to many of the people that had been on the Orkney leg of the tour before joining the Highland Fling, no one was happy with the change. We understood that the Highland Fling was an incredibly popular tour and that, being August, it was one of the busiest times of the year to travel in Scotland. However, after having enjoyed the first two legs of our tour so much and getting used to the “small tour” dynamic, we really struggled for the last three days.

It’s easier to stop for moments like this in a small group.

While it would have cost a lot more on Haggis’ behalf, I think it would have been much better to split the tour into two separate buses with the same itinerary but the option for each driver-guide to add in his own favourite spots (as Jamie and Nick were able to do). That would have been much truer to the ideal of a “small group tour.”

Overall Recommendation: Go with Haggis

Like everything, there are pros and cons about travelling around Scotland with Haggis Adventures, but the benefits outweigh the negatives (particularly if you choose one of the 5-day tours instead of the slightly disjointed 10-day). Their trips will give you a much more in-depth view of Scotland than would be possible travelling on your own, and you’ll get this perspective while travelling with a bunch of other fun, like-minded travellers. There’s no better way to get a good dose of that Deep Scottish Love!

What do you think? If you were travelling in Scotland, would you choose Haggis?

Update, 10 December 2015: After getting in touch with Haggis Adventures, I found out that they took all the feedback from this year’s tours on board and have changed the format of the 10-day Compass Buster significantly. As I suggested above, the tour will now only have two guides for 5 days each instead of the current 3-guide format. This is definitely a huge step forward and will make the trip much less scattered for all involved.

Honey can’t wait to see how the new Compass Buster tour goes. Can’t you tell?

The Compass Buster will still be combined with the Hebridean Hopper for the first four days of the trip, and then on day five it will pick up the new Coast to Coast tour. These two tours seem to combine much better than previously, and it appears that there will be no more retracing footsteps like we did (we visited places like Eilean Donan and the Isle of Skye twice, once on Day 4 and again on Day 8).

It’s great to see some of the suggestions fellow passengers had be put into practice, and it will result in even better tours in the year ahead.

My Compass Buster tour was provided by HAGGiS Adventures, but all opinions stated in this article are my own. The full 10-day tour (the other sections of which I will be writing about in another post) costs £499 plus accommodation. Accommodation can be pre-paid at an additional cost. It departs weekly between May and September from the HAGGiS Adventures office at 60 High St in Edinburgh.