“This is the ice hole. When the heat in the sauna becomes uncomfortable, just come out here and cool off in the water,” the owner of the sauna nonchalantly instructed us. Ha. It was legitimately freezing out, and we were expected to just jump—naked—into arctic waters? Apparently yes, we were. Because when you’re at a […]

The post Sweating and Skinny-dipping | An evening at a Finnish Sauna appeared first on A Cruising Couple.

We used to think that transportation via reindeer sleigh was the creative invention of Santa Claus; however, that was before we took our very own one-reindeer-open-sleigh ride through Finnish Lapland. While unfortunately we remained quite firmly planted on the ground rather than souring above rooftops, the experience—and more specifically the opportunity to learn about Sami […]

The post The Culture of Sami Reindeer Herding in Finnish Lapland appeared first on A Cruising Couple.

It was only supposed to be a four-hour drive to arrive at Yllas, Finland from Kiruna, Sweden. But in typical ‘A Cruising Couple’ style, we got hopelessly lost along the way, largely due to driving without any sort of GPS system. Heck, we didn’t even have an old-school roadmap. So four hours turned to eight, […]

The post 15 Ways Yllas, Finland Surprised and Enchanted Us appeared first on A Cruising Couple.

It might have been Lapland’s Northern Lights that initially caught our attention, but it was the chance to go dog sledding that proved to be one of the biggest determining factors for making the trip up north.   We absolutely love huskies. How could anyone not? They’re beautiful and playful and intelligent and really just […]

The post Becoming a Musher: A Day of Husky Dog Sledding appeared first on A Cruising Couple.

  We pulled up to a discreet looking entrance: a door surrounded by mounds of snow, tucked deep into the forests of Lainio, Finland. This is the Snow Village?     We might have driven right past it if it hadn’t been for the well-placed signage. But when we walked through the door we were […]

The post That Time We Slept In a Hotel Made of Snow – Our Experience at the Snow Village, Finland appeared first on A Cruising Couple.

When we first booked our plane tickets to Stockholm, we had no intention of making the journey up north to Lapland. To be completely honest, I don’t think we even knew where Lapland was. But when we learned that the Northern Lights were visible there through the start of April, there was no question about […]

The post The Northern Lights — Everything You Need to Know About Seeing the Aurora Borealis appeared first on A Cruising Couple.