Sirkka to Kittila Airport, and Every Other Way Into Levi

The airport, and why it matters

Kittila airport sits about fifteen kilometres from Levi, which makes it the closest airport to any significant resort in Finnish Lapland. That is the practical reason Levi grew the way it did. A visitor can land and be in the village inside half an hour, which is not true of most Arctic destinations.

It is a small airport with a seasonal timetable built around the winter months, when direct charter and scheduled flights arrive from several European cities as well as from Helsinki. Outside the season the traffic thins considerably.

Transfers meet the flights. There is a scheduled airport bus timed to arrivals, and taxis and hotel shuttles cover the rest. The journey into the village takes about twenty minutes on a road that is cleared and gritted throughout the winter.

The name problem: Sirkka, Levi and Kittila

Three names describe the same trip and they confuse almost everyone booking for the first time. Sirkka is the village: the actual settlement of houses, hotels and shops at the foot of the hill. Levi is the fell rising above it, Levitunturi in full, and it is also the name the ski resort and the tourist board use.

Kittila is the municipality that contains both, and it is also the name of the airport and of a separate small town about fifteen kilometres away. So an address may say Sirkka, a booking may say Levi and a flight will say Kittila, and all three are correct.

For this tour it does not matter which name you search for. The meeting point is in the village, whatever the map calls it.

Driving up from Rovaniemi

Rovaniemi is the usual alternative arrival point, and the drive north to Levi is about 170 kilometres and roughly two and a half hours. It is a main road, maintained and ploughed through the winter, and it is a straightforward drive for anyone used to winter conditions.

Anyone not used to them should take the difference seriously rather than nervously. Studded winter tyres are compulsory in Finland in the season and every hire car will have them. The surface is usually packed snow rather than bare tarmac, and the technique is to brake earlier, steer less and leave more room than instinct suggests.

Reindeer on the road are a real hazard rather than a picturesque one, particularly at dawn and dusk. They do not move for cars, and where there is one there are usually several.

A cleared road running into the village with the fell behind it

The bus, and getting about without a car

There is a scheduled coach service between Rovaniemi and Levi, and there is the airport bus at Kittila. Between them they cover most of what a visitor without a car needs, and the ski bus runs around the village and the fell during the season.

Levi itself is walkable. The village core is compact, and hotels, restaurants, the ski lifts and the tour meeting points sit within a few hundred metres of one another. Nobody staying in the village needs a car to reach this tour.

What a car buys you is the country around Levi, which is a great deal of empty and beautiful road. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether you intend to use it.

Where this tour meets, exactly

In the car park in front of the Burger King in Levi. That is an unromantic sentence to write about an Arctic activity and it is also the most useful one on this page, because the whole point of the meeting point is that it cannot be missed.

A black minivan waits in the car park. The transfer out to the husky base takes about ten minutes, and the same van brings you back to the same place at the end.

Arrive a little early rather than exactly on time. There is a group to gather, and a two-hour booking has no slack in it for latecomers.

Where Levi sits in Lapland

It helps to have the geography straight. Levi is in the western half of Finnish Lapland, north of the Arctic Circle, in fell country rather than mountains. The landscape is rounded, forested at lower levels and bare on the tops, and it looks nothing like the alpine scenery the word Lapland sometimes suggests.

Rovaniemi, the largest town in the region, is south-east. The Swedish border is west. Further north the fells get higher towards Kilpisjarvi and the Norwegian coast is beyond that.

For most visitors the useful comparison is with Rovaniemi. Rovaniemi is a town with an airport and a great many activities; Levi is a resort village with an airport and a ski hill. Neither is the other, and the husky tours run in different places.

When to arrive, and how long to stay

The winter season runs from roughly November to April, with the most reliable snow between December and March. Christmas and the weeks around it are the busiest and the most expensive, and late January into March is the sweet spot for anyone with a choice.

Three or four nights is the common length and it works. A two-hour husky booking is a fragment of that, which is the point: it leaves the rest of the days for skiing, for other activities, or for doing very little in a place where doing very little is pleasant.

If you are coming principally for the husky tour, book it early in your stay rather than on the last day. That way a weather cancellation still leaves you room to take it later.

Before you book

Arriving, step by step

1. Fly into Kittila

   The nearest airport, about fifteen kilometres out, with a seasonal winter timetable and transfers meeting the flights.

2. Twenty minutes to the village

   By airport bus, taxi or hotel shuttle, on a road cleared throughout the winter.

3. Or drive up from Rovaniemi

   About 170 kilometres and two and a half hours north on maintained highway. Studded tyres are standard on every hire car.

4. Walk to the meeting point

   The tour meets at the car park in front of the Burger King in Levi. The village core is compact enough that no car is needed.

5. Look for the black minivan

   It waits in the car park. Ten minutes from there to the husky base, and the same van brings you back.