Near LeviLevi forest trail
From the Tourist Office
- Trail
- 1 km natural ice
- Session
- 2 hrs
- Included
- Skates, helmet, drinks
Guides
Language
EnglishCurrency
US dollar · $GetYourGuide shows prices in the currency you choose.
Guide · Where to skate
Ice skating in Lapland: Levi, Rovaniemi or Lake Inari
Ice skating in Lapland takes three main forms: forest trails lit for visitors, town rinks kept by the city, and guided skating on natural lake ice. Here is how Levi, Rovaniemi and Lake Inari compare, and which suits your trip.
Check availabilityfrom $80 · free to cancel
Editorial team, iceskatinglevi.comUpdated October 22, 20266 min read44 sources
The quick answer
Three ways to skate in Finnish Lapland
Skating in Lapland is not one product. Visit Finland says Finnish cities, municipalities and travel destinations have many open skating areas on natural ice, that staying on maintained and marked tour skating tracks is a safe bet, and that many cities have rinks where you can rent skates.7 In practice that means three choices for a visitor: a track made for guests in the forest, a town rink, or guided skating on a frozen lake.
Levi and Rovaniemi both offer the first two. Levi's lit forest trail runs 1 km through the trees, with a village rink besides.8 Rovaniemi keeps 20 park rinks in the central area and has a forest skating park on its edge.29
Lake Inari offers the third. A guided trip from Saariselkä skates on natural ice on the lake, about an hour away by van, with hockey and figure skates, helmets and kicksleds for children. Which of the three suits you depends less on skill than on where you are staying and how far you want to travel.
Levi: the lit forest trail and the village rink
The skating this site recommends starts at the Levi Tourist Office, where a shuttle takes you about 10 minutes into the forest. There, a 1 km natural ice trail with several natural rinks winds between the trees under bulb lights, with skates and helmets, a kicksled for anyone who cannot skate, hot drinks, a heated changing room and a kota to shelter from the cold, all in a 2-hour session.
The operator, Lovimainas, is family owned and run, and was established in 2018 by a local family in Sonkamuotka, Enontekiö.1011 On GetYourGuide its forest skating is rated 4.32 from 202 reviews, with value for money scored 3.7, so read the guest comments on the booking page before you choose.
Levi also has a public rink of a simpler kind. Its tourism site describes a small natural-ice rink in the fell pond at the foot of the Front Slopes, open to everyone with their own or rented skates, from the end of January until week 10, weather permitting, and around the clock once open.8121 Skates and helmets can be rented at Zero Point Rental next to it.1
Side by side
Skating in Levi, Rovaniemi and on Lake Inari
| Levi | Rovaniemi | Lake Inari | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guided skating | 1 km lit forest trail | Night lake tour, photo session | Natural lake ice |
| Public rinks | Village rink in the fell pond | 20 park rinks, free | Not covered here |
| Season stated | End of January to week 10 | November or December to March | Ask the operator |
| Getting there | Shuttle from the Tourist Office | In town, or a shuttle | 1 hr by van from Saariselkä |
From Levi's and Rovaniemi's official sites and the listings' own terms.122313
Bookable skating
Three guided skating sessions in Lapland
Near Levi
Lake ice
Few reviewsRovaniemi aurora tour
Frozen lake at night
- Outing
- 3.5 hrs
- Group
- Up to 8
- Ice
- Subject to conditions
Decision helper
Where in Lapland should you skate?
Choose by where you stay and what you want
Levi forest trail
A 2-hour session from the Tourist Office, skates included.
Lake Inari
Guided skating on natural ice on the lake.
Levi forest trail
A kicksled for those who cannot skate, subject to availability.
Rovaniemi
20 park rinks in the central area.2
Across Finnish cities, municipalities, and travel destinations, there are many open skating areas on natural ice. Staying on maintained and marked tour skating tracks is a safe bet.
Rovaniemi: free park rinks and a forest skating park
Rovaniemi's strength is its town rinks. The City of Rovaniemi has 20 skating rinks in parks in the central area, freely available for everyone with no limit on users, and the Suomi.fi listing for the service states that it is free of charge.2153 The city says these rinks are meant for learning to skate and for practising ice hockey.16
The season depends on the weather. Ice-making on the city rinks begins in November or December, and skating ends by the end of March at the latest.13 The city is frank that rink ice is not perfectly smooth, and that sunlight, warmth and rain can soften it quickly.17 In the centre, Naava Café on Vanha tori rents skates and lets you use its outdoor rink as much as you like.18
For forest skating, Kotatieva Resort, 10 km from the city centre, calls itself home of the original forest skating experience in Lapland.4 Its Winter Leisure Park has a long skating track in a snowy forest and is open daily 10 am to 5 pm from December to March, with a shuttle three times a day from the city centre and Santa Claus Village.91920
Map
Where the ice is: Levi, its village rink and skating elsewhere in Lapland
Levi among the other Lapland skating bases, the area down to Kittilä, then a close look at the village where the forest skating starts.
1Levi2Rovaniemi3Saariselkä4Lake Inari
1Levi5Kittilä Airport6Kittilä ice hall
7Levi Tourist Office8Zero Point9Lake Immeljärvi10Lake Sirkkajärvi
- 1Levi
The resort at Sirkka village in Kittilä, about 170 km north of the Arctic Circle.21
In Google Maps ↗ - 2Rovaniemi
170 km from Levi; the city keeps 20 free park rinks and a forest skating park 10 km out of town.5234
In Google Maps ↗ - 3Saariselkä
The pickup village for a skating trip on natural ice on Lake Inari, about an hour away by van.
In Google Maps ↗ - 4Lake Inari
SYKE measured 38 cm of ice here at Paksuvuono on 30 December 2022.22
In Google Maps ↗ - 5Kittilä Airport
15 km south of Levi, a 10-minute drive.23
In Google Maps ↗ - 6Kittilä ice hall
The municipal Agnico Eagle ice hall at Havutie 5, with public skating on weekdays from 15.00 to 16.30.2425
In Google Maps ↗ - 7Levi Tourist Office
Myllyjoentie 2: the start of the forest skating shuttle, usually open Monday to Friday 9:00-16:00.2627
In Google Maps ↗ - 8Zero Point
Zero Point Rental at Hissitie 8 on the Front Slopes rents skates and helmets; the natural-ice rink is in the fell pond at the bottom of the slope.281
In Google Maps ↗ - 9Lake Immeljärvi
A lake of 1.6 km near the centre; walk on it only once the winter trails are officially open, and keep off the thin ice at its northern end.2930
In Google Maps ↗ - 10Lake Sirkkajärvi
With Levijärvi, a lake by Levi that holds perch, pike and whitefish.31
In Google Maps ↗
Cost calculator
Compare guided skating across Lapland
Pick a session and the number of skaters.
People
Total from$159
per participant from $80
Check availabilityfree cancellationEach 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
Five days in Finland from Helsinki to Rovaniemi, with ice skating
YouTube stays switched off until you start the video yourself.
Guided skating tours from Rovaniemi
Rovaniemi's skating listings on GetYourGuide are few and thinly reviewed. The Aurora Ice Skating Tour skates on a frozen lake at night, takes a small group of up to 8 and runs 3.5 hours; it is rated 2.6 from just 5 reviews. Its terms say it depends on the lake ice and may be rescheduled or cancelled with a full refund if the ice is unsuitable.
A Private Ice Skating Photography Session in a park in Rovaniemi pairs skating with a professional photographer, for a 2-hour session with pickup; it has no reviews yet. Visit Rovaniemi also lists an Aurora Ice Skating tour by Wonderlapland Experiences that lasts 3 hours and includes pick-up, skating gear and a warm drink with cookies, and says auroras are not guaranteed.3435
Set those beside Levi's forest trail and the Lake Inari trip, each with a long record of guest reviews, and the gap in track record is clear. A guest staying in Rovaniemi is often best served by the free city rinks or the forest park, and a guest in Levi by the trail near the village.
Lake Inari: natural lake ice from Saariselkä
The Lake Inari trip is the one for people who want to skate on a lake rather than a prepared trail. It starts from Saariselkä or Ivalo with the transfer option, drives about 1 hour by van, and gives 2 hours at the ice track including equipment fitting, around 1.5 hours of it on the ice. Hockey skates come in sizes 40.5 to 48 and figure skates in 36 to 42, with helmet and balaclava, and there are kicksleds for children.
It is rated 4.68 from 128 reviews, and groups run from 4 to 24 people. Lake Inari is a large, cold lake: on 30 December 2022 the Finnish Environment Institute measured 38 cm of ice at Paksuvuono.22
The catch for a Levi guest is distance. Saariselkä lies far to the north-east of Levi, on the other side of Lapland, so this is a trip for someone already staying there, not a day out from Levi. On the map, Levi sits in the west and Saariselkä and Lake Inari in the north-east.
Wild ice and long-distance tour skating
Finland has a fourth kind of skating that most visitors only read about. Visit Finland defines tour skating as long-distance skating across wild ice, and notes that Kuopio's Finland Ice Marathon uses a 12.5 km route.36 Kuopio lies in the lake district far south of Lapland, and its wild-ice skaters travel on long Nordic blades.
The gear tells you how seriously Finns take it. Metsähallitus says ice picks are the basic safety equipment for ice fishing and tour skating alike, worn around the neck, and that an ice chisel, a steel-tipped staff, goes through 5 cm of ice in one stroke and is used to test the ice ahead.3738
For a holiday in Lapland the message is to leave wild ice to the people who know it. Visit Finland's own advice is to stay on maintained and marked tour skating tracks, and Lapland's rescue department tells visitors to go on the ice only on a marked route and with a guide.1439 The lit trail near Levi, the city rinks of Rovaniemi and the guided Lake Inari trip all fit that advice.
Getting between Levi and Rovaniemi
The two bases are easy to combine. Levi is 170 km by road from Rovaniemi.5 VR, the Finnish railway, says the bus from Rovaniemi railway station to Levi takes around 2.5 hours, while the bus operator Eskelinen says its journey usually takes about two hours, depending on route and stops.4041
Flights land closer to Levi: the airport operator Finavia puts Kittilä Airport just 15 kilometres from the resort, and Visit Rovaniemi gives Kittilä Airport as a 2-hour drive from Rovaniemi.4243 Rovaniemi itself sits right on the Arctic Circle and can be reached by plane, train, coach or car.44
For a skating holiday, base yourself where the skating you want is. Rovaniemi suits a city break with free rinks and a forest park nearby; Levi suits a resort stay with a lit forest trail and a village rink a short walk from the slopes.31 Both share the same season: the waters around Rovaniemi are generally frozen from December to March.6
Choose your date
The lights are already on in the forest.
Skates, helmet, hot drinks and the shuttle included, with free cancellation up to a day before.
You ask,we answer.
Is there skating without booking a tour?
Yes, on public rinks. Rovaniemi's park rinks are free of charge; Levi's village rink is open to everyone.38
Is Rovaniemi ice skating free?
On the city rinks, yes. The Suomi.fi listing for Rovaniemi's ice skating rinks says the service is free of charge.3
Where can I rent skates in Levi?
At Zero Point Rental. It rents skates and helmets beside the Front Slope rink.1
How far is Levi from Rovaniemi?
170 km by road. About 2 to 2.5 hours by bus, depending on the operator and stops.54140
When is the skating season?
Roughly December to March. Rovaniemi's waters are generally frozen from December to March.6
Is there skating on a frozen lake?
Yes, on Lake Inari. A guided trip from Saariselkä skates on natural lake ice.
Which forest skating is near Levi?
A 1 km lit trail. It starts from the Levi Tourist Office with a short shuttle.
Sources
What this guide is based on
- 1Levi (levi.fi, Levi Ski Resort)The joy of ice skating at Levi↩
- 2City of Rovaniemi (international.rovaniemi.fi)Ice Skating Rinks - Services - Rovaniemi - Arctic Capital↩
- 3City of Rovaniemi, via Suomi.fi (Digital and Population Data Services Agency)Ice Skating Rinks - City of Rovaniemi - Suomi.fi↩
- 4Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Kotatieva Resort - Visit Rovaniemi↩
- 5Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)Arrival at Levi - Flights, trains, busses and driving↩
- 6Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Discover A True Winter Of Snow And Ice In Rovaniemi - Visit Rovaniemi↩
- 7Visit Finland (visitfinland.com)Ice activities in Finland: everything you need to know | Visit Finland↩
- 8Levi (levi.fi, Levi Ski Resort)The joy of ice skating at Levi↩
- 9Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Kotatieva Winter Leisure Park - Tickets↩
- 10Lovimainas Oy (lovimainas.fi, operator's own site)Lovimainas | Husky & Reindeer Tours in Lapland↩
- 11Lovimainas Oy (lovimainas.fi, operator's own site)About Lovimainas | Family-Run Lapland Adventures↩
- 12Visit Levi (levi.fi)Ice Skating in Levi↩
- 13City of Rovaniemi (international.rovaniemi.fi)Ice Skating Rinks - Services - Rovaniemi - Arctic Capital↩
- 14Visit Finland (visitfinland.com)Ice activities in Finland: everything you need to know↩
- 15City of Rovaniemi (international.rovaniemi.fi)Ice Skating Rinks - Services - Rovaniemi - Arctic Capital↩
- 16City of Rovaniemi (international.rovaniemi.fi)Ice Skating Rinks - Services - Rovaniemi - Arctic Capital↩
- 17City of Rovaniemi (international.rovaniemi.fi)Ice Skating Rinks - Services - Rovaniemi - Arctic Capital↩
- 18Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Naava Café - Visit Rovaniemi↩
- 19Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Kotatieva Winter Leisure Park - Tickets↩
- 20Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Kotatieva Winter Leisure Park - Tickets↩
- 21Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)FAQ↩
- 22Finnish Environment Institute SYKE (ymparisto.fi)Monthly hydrological statistics: thickness of ice cover, December 2022↩
- 23Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)FAQ↩
- 24Kittilä municipality (kittila.fi)Agnico Eagle -jäähalli | Kittilä↩
- 25Kittilä municipality (kittila.fi)Agnico Eagle -jäähalli | Kittilä↩
- 26Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)Visit Levi contact information↩
- 27Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)FAQ↩
- 28Levi Ski Resort (levi.fi), operator of Zero Point RentalZero Point Rental↩
- 29Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)Fishing and ice-fishing | Levi↩
- 30Levi (levi.fi, Levin Matkailu)Aurora map of Levi↩
- 31Levi Travel / Visit Levi (levi.fi)Fishing and ice-fishing | Levi↩
- 32Levi (levi.fi, Levi Ski Resort)The joy of ice skating at Levi↩
- 33Lapland Rescue Department (Lapin pelastuslaitos, pelastustoimi.fi)Have a safe holiday in Lapland↩
- 34Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Aurora Ice Skating - Visit Rovaniemi↩
- 35Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Aurora Ice Skating - Visit Rovaniemi↩
- 36Visit Finland (visitfinland.com)Lake-hopping in Finland's Lakeland region↩
- 37Metsähallitus (luontoon.fi)Treacherous Ice - Hiking tips↩
- 38Metsähallitus (luontoon.fi)Treacherous Ice - Hiking tips↩
- 39Lapland Rescue Department (Lapin pelastuslaitos, pelastustoimi.fi)Have a safe holiday in Lapland↩
- 40VR (Finnish state railway operator)Travel to Lapland by train - VR↩
- 41Eskelisen Lapin Linjat (bus operator, own route page)Rovaniemi-Levi bus | Eskelisen Lapin Linjat↩
- 42Finavia (Finnish airport operator)Kittilä | Finavia↩
- 43Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Flights To Rovaniemi, Lapland - Visit Rovaniemi↩
- 44Visit Rovaniemi (visitrovaniemi.fi)Traveling To Rovaniemi - Connections↩
Keep reading
