Guide · Ice floating

Ice floating near Levi: lie back in a lake hole in a rescue suit

Ice floating near Levi means drifting on your back in a hole cut in a frozen lake, sealed in a buoyant rescue suit that keeps you dry. Here is how it works, who may join, and how the trips differ.

Check availabilityfrom $80 · free to cancel

Editorial team, iceskatinglevi.comUpdated October 22, 20266 min read14 sources

The tour for this guide Levi: Ice Floating and Northern Lights Tour 4.5 (71 reviews) 4 hours from$160per person Check availabilityCancel for free up to 24 hrs ahead

The quick answer

01What it is: You float in open lake water in a rescue suit that keeps you on the surface.
02Swimming?: Not needed: the suit holds you up.¹
03Who can go: From 120 cm tall on the fireside trip; one listing's suits fit 140 to 190 cm.
04How long: Most trips run 4 hours, with about 1 hour each way from Levi.
05Our pick: The evening float with a chance of auroras, from $160.

What ice floating is

Ice floating sounds like a dare, but it is closer to lying in a hammock. You pull on a thick, one-piece rescue suit over your own clothes, step down into a hole cut in the lake ice, lean back and let the suit carry you. Visit Finland's listing for an ice floating trip in Ylläs, near Levi, says the suit covers your whole body and keeps you dry, and that with your own clothes underneath you do not get cold even in 0-degree water.²

The suits are bright red or yellow, the kind used to rescue people from cold water, and the photos from these trips show rows of guests spread like starfish on dark water ringed by broken ice. Some lie still and look at the sky; others paddle slowly with their hands. A guide stands at the edge of the hole the whole time.

Both Safartica listings stress one point: no swimming skills are required, because the suit keeps you on the surface. Each guest is instructed before stepping into the water. For anyone who has never trusted water, that is the reassuring part: you float whether you try or not.

The evening

How an ice floating trip unfolds

Meet

Safartica office

In the centre of Levi.
Drive

About 1 hour

From Levi to the floating lake.
Suit up

Rescue suit on

Over your own warm clothes.²
Briefing

Before the water

Each guest is instructed first.
Float

On your back

The suit keeps you on the surface.
Back

About 1 hour

The drive back to Levi.

The evening float and the fireside float

Safartica runs two floating trips from Levi on the same idea. The evening tour, the one this page recommends, combines ice floating with the chance of northern lights, runs 4 hours with pickup and a guide in English, and is rated 4.52 from 71 reviews. The listing is honest about the sky: seeing the northern lights cannot be guaranteed.

The Arctic Ice Floating Adventure runs 4 hours too, and adds coffee or tea warmed over an open fire; it is rated 4.9 from 25 reviews. It meets at the Safartica office in Levi 10 minutes before the activity time, and pickup within a 10 km radius can be arranged at least 48 hours ahead.

A third listing, the Arctic Ice Floating Experience, floats on a frozen lake on private land and ends with a hot drink and fresh cookies; it runs 3 hours, offers guides in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese and has no reviews yet. The evening trip is the one built around the dark sky and a chance of auroras; the fireside trip states no time of day, so check the times offered for your date.

Compared

Ice floating trips from Levi side by side

Trip	Duration	Who can float	Extras	From
Evening float	4 hrs	Think twice for young children	Chance of auroras	from $160
Fireside float	4 hrs	From 120 cm	Coffee or tea by the fire	from $153
Private-land lake	3 hrs	140 to 190 cm, 40 to 95 kg	Hot drink, cookies	from $139

From each listing's own terms; the from-prices update live on GetYourGuide.

Three floats

Evening, fireside or a smaller lake

Our pick

Evening float

With a chance of auroras

Outing: 4 hrs
Transfer: About 1 hr each way
Auroras: Not guaranteed

See the trip

Fireside

Fireside float

Coffee by the fire

Outing: 4 hrs
Minimum height: 120 cm
Meet: 10 min before

See the trip

Shorter

Private-land lake

Hot drink and cookies

Outing: 3 hrs
Height: 140 to 190 cm
Weight: 40 to 95 kg

See the trip

Decision helper

Which float fits your trip?

Pick the line that sounds like you

A dark sky and a chance of auroras Coffee by an open fire A child just over 120 cm A shorter outing Guides in Spanish, French or Portuguese

Evening float

Northern lights are possible, never guaranteed.

Fireside float

Coffee or tea warmed over an open fire.

Fireside float

Its minimum height is 120 cm.

Private-land lake

It runs 3 hours.

Private-land lake

Guides in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

With your own clothing under the suit you will not get cold even in the 0-degree water.

Visit Finland (visitfinland.com)Source 2

Who can float: height, size and children

The limits come from the suits. The fireside trip sets a minimum height of 120 cm. The Arctic Ice Floating Experience says its suits are universal sizes, for a height of 140 to 190 cm and a weight of 40 to 95 kg, and asks guests to check they fit those measurements. If someone in your group falls outside a range, choose the listing whose range fits.

For families, the evening trip adds its own caution. Its listing asks parents to consider the outdoor stay and the late timing before bringing young children. A 4-hour evening in the cold is long for a small child even when the floating part is short.

Visit Rovaniemi's listing for a Safartica float in Rovaniemi gives the same 120 cm minimum and the same promise that no swimming skills are needed.³ ¹ The rules travel with the suits, wherever in Lapland you float.

Checklist

Packing for an evening in the ice hole

Under the suit

Merino or wicking base layer⁴
A fleece mid layer⁵
Wool socks, never cotton⁶

After floating

A hat over the ears and dry mittens
Warm drink by the fire
A charged phone kept inside your jacket

Cost calculator

Price an ice floating evening

Pick a trip and the number of people.

Evening float4 hrs, auroras possiblefrom $160 Fireside float4 hrs, from 120 cmfrom $153 Private-land lake3 hrsfrom $139

People 2

Total from$319

per participant from $160

Check availabilityfree cancellation

Each sum multiplies the outing's lowest per-person GetYourGuide price by your group size and converts it at the ECB's daily rate; the checkout figure is the one that counts.

Video

Arctic ice floating in a frozen lake in Lapland

YouTube stays switched off until you start the video yourself.

Getting to the floating lake from Levi

The floating place is not in the village. Both Safartica listings say the transfer from Levi to the floating venue takes about 1 hour one way. Of the 4 hours, then, about half is the drive there and back, and the rest is changing, instructions, floating and warming up.

Start from the Safartica office in the village centre if you are staying in Levi; both listings say to select it as the meeting point. The drive itself is part of the experience after dark: dark forest, snowbanks in the headlights, and the open sky once you reach the lake.

There is also ice floating closer to the fell villages. Visit Finland lists a Safartica floating trip in Ylläs, offered in December and from January to April.⁷ Levi's tourism site describes another way into cold water: at Sammun Tupa an ice hole is opened in the Ounasjoki river as soon as the river has frozen thick and safe enough.⁸ That is ice swimming, a different thing from floating in a suit.

Why floating is always a guided activity

Floating in a suit is safe because everything around it is controlled: the hole is cut and kept by the operator, the suits are checked, and a guide watches from the edge. None of that applies to a frozen lake you find on your own. The Finnish Swimming Teaching and Lifesaving Federation says 10 to 30 people die in Finland each year after falling through ice.⁹

Lapland's rescue department puts the rule for visitors plainly: water may look frozen while the ice is thin, especially near towns, so go on the ice only on a marked route and with a guide.¹⁰ Footprints on the snow prove nothing about what lies underneath, the same source adds.¹⁰

Treat the floating trip as the way to meet open Arctic water, not as practice for doing it alone. The suit, the hole, the guide and the warm car waiting by the shore are the experience; without them, a lake hole in winter is a danger, not an outing.

What to wear under the rescue suit

The suit keeps out the water, not the cold of the air while you wait. Wear the same layers you would for a winter evening outside: Visit Levi calls the base layer the most important, with merino wool if you do not sweat much, and a breathable fleece over it.⁴ ⁵ Visit Finland's floating listing confirms that with your own clothing under the suit you will not get cold even in 0-degree water.²

Hands and head need care when you climb out. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health names the tip of the nose, the cheeks and the earlobes as the places that easily get frostbite, so pull a hat over your ears as soon as the hood comes off.¹¹ ¹² Keep mittens in a pocket of your jacket, not in the car.

Phones are the other casualty of the cold. Lapland's rescue department warns that cold air drains phone batteries quickly; keep the phone inside your jacket until the moment you want a photo.¹³ On the evening trip, a fully charged battery is worth more than any lens if the sky turns green.

Floating and skating in one evening

Ice floating and forest skating pair well for a family that wants two very different evenings. The skating session this site recommends takes 2 hours from the Levi Tourist Office, with skates, helmets, a kicksled for those who cannot skate, and hot drinks in a kota. The floating trip needs a full 4-hour evening.

Both offer a chance, never a promise, of auroras. The skating listing suggests later time slots for that possibility, and the floating listing says the northern lights cannot be guaranteed. Levi's tourism site records an annual average of 111 northern lights sightings, which is a reason to look up on any clear night rather than a forecast for yours.¹⁴

If the cold is extreme, the skating listing may reschedule or refund at -30°C or below. Check the floating listing's own terms on the booking page for how it handles a bitter night. Every listing on this page can be cancelled free of charge until a day before, so booking both early costs you nothing if the weather turns.

Choose your date