5 days | Independent journey | Dec-Apr | Luleå to Harads
Two of Sweden's most distinctive places to stay sit at the heart of this journey: the Aurora Safari Camp and the Arctic Bath, both in Swedish Lapland. At the camp, stay in a Tipi Cabin with a north-facing glass veranda, spend the day on snowshoes, Nordic skis and winter bikes, and end it in a wood-fired sauna frozen into the lake.
After a morning of dog sledding through the forest, move on to the Arctic Bath, a wellness retreat on the Lule River with saunas, a cold bath open to the sky and a Michelin Key. The days balance activity and stillness, with good food and a chance of the Northern Lights on clear nights.
As a Certified B Corporation, 50 Degrees North has designed this itinerary using handpicked local hoteliers and suppliers who share our ethos of delivering services and activities of high social and environmental standards.
Through our Climate Action Plan, we measure our carbon emissions each year and set goals to reduce them. But our responsibility does not end when the journey does. A share of our annual profits goes to our Impact Fund, supporting conservation, restoration and the communities we work in.
Private transfers and local transport.
Head into the Swedish wilds for a stay at the Aurora Safari Camp in the Råne River Valley. Far from towns and their light, it is a fine spot for watching the aurora. Settle into your Tipi Cabin, kept warm by electric heating and a pellet stove with a crackling enclosed flame, and look out from its north-facing glass veranda. The cabin has an en-suite incineration toilet and wash basin. Showers are at the camp's two wood-fired saunas, the Forest Sauna and the Sauna in the Ice, where you can book private sessions. Snowshoes, Nordic skis and winter bikes are included to use as you wish once you've had instruction. Optional additions include guided snowshoe trekking, wildlife trekking and ice fishing, depending on time. In the evening, warm up in the Sauna in the Ice, frozen into the lake, and watch the forest's edge, where moose or deer sometimes appear.
Weather permitting, you may also join an optional hot air balloon flight, available from late February into March. Drift silently above the Arctic landscape beneath the polar sky, with a chance of the Northern Lights overhead. The flight lasts around 15 to 25 minutes, and before or after you can relax by the fireplace with light snacks, learning about the aurora and about ballooning in the Arctic, and take part in the launch and retrieval of the balloon.
After breakfast, the day is yours to spend in the winter wilderness. Included equipment covers snowshoes, Nordic skis and winter bikes, with trails through the forest and across the frozen lake, and both saunas are there to return to.
If you're after more adventure, we can arrange an optional snowmobile excursion in the afternoon, starting directly from the camp with no car transfers needed. It runs around three and a half hours, with warm drinks, exploring the forests and frozen waters of the Råne River Valley.
This morning, head out with a dog sledding team through snowy forest, in near-complete stillness. An extended dog sledding tour is available as an option. Afterwards, transfer around an hour to the Arctic Bath and check into your cabin above the water, connected to the shore by a floating walkway. A wood deck outside offers a place to sit with coffee and blankets, or to watch for the Northern Lights. The cabin includes a bathroom with shower, air-conditioning, minibar, spa bar, Wi-Fi, floor heating and a pellet stove. Spa access is included today, with a range of saunas and rituals, along with a robe, swimwear and slippers.
Today you meet Anna, a young Sámi woman who lives nearby with her family, raised in the reindeer-herding tradition. In the lávvu, you'll sit around the fire and listen to stories and joik, traditional Sámi singing, and share a three-course meal prepared over an open fire with locally produced ingredients. The camp sits just outside Jokkmokk, close to the Arctic Circle, and you'll have the chance to get close to the reindeer and feed them. Around this experience, enjoy optional wellness treatments at the Arctic Bath, booked on arrival.
After breakfast, transfer to Luleå Airport.
All prices listed are per person, based on two people sharing a room. Prices are indicative.
Please note that the itinerary and price are subject to availability. We do our utmost to create an itinerary as close to this published tour as possible.
The Sámi Experience at the Arctic Bath is unavailable between 22 and 28 December.
Aurora Safari Camp
The camp has three Tipi Cabins and two Glass Igloos. Tipi Cabins sleep one to four guests in single, double, twin or family configurations. Each is heated by electric heating and a pellet stove, with a north-facing glass veranda and an en-suite incineration toilet and wash basin. Glass Igloos sleep one or two guests in double or twin beds. Each has a glass roof, panoramic north-facing windows, an entrance area for removing winter clothing, and an en-suite incineration toilet and wash basin. Igloo guests also have use of the Aurora Lounge, a cabin between the igloos with a fireplace and complimentary refreshments. Neither room type has its own shower. Showers are available at the Forest Sauna and the Sauna in the Ice, with private timeslots for guests.
Just a five-minute drive from the Arctic Bath, we can add a night at the Treehotel: a stay in a bird's nest high in the forest, or a UFO for the evening.
Sustainable travel
Aurora Safari Camp was established in 2013, inspired by the small, secluded bush camps of Kenya and adapted to the climate and conditions of northern Sweden. Since 2022 it has been owned and run by Jonas Gejke and Naila Sher, a husband and wife who met in Kenya and ran safari camps there before moving to Swedish Lapland with their family. That year they remodelled the camp and moved it further up the Råne River, to a secluded spot with five heated woodland cabins, a central dining cabin and two wood-fired saunas. Naila's Kenyan hospitality and Jonas's knowledge of Swedish cooking and hosting shape a stay that feels personal from the moment you arrive. Treks offer a good chance of glimpsing wildlife such as moose, red fox and roe deer.
Arctic Bath was designed by Swedish architects Bertil Harström and Johan Kauppi as a tribute to the region's timber heritage. Its circular main building draws on the history of log driving, when timber was floated downriver to the sawmills, and like the water cabins, it floats in summer and is frozen into the ice in winter. The hotel is certified by Nature's Best, Sweden's sustainability label for nature-based tourism, and belongs to the Considerate Collection of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which works to standards aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. The restaurant is built around local flavours, and in 2025 Arctic Bath was among the first hotels in the Nordics to be awarded a Michelin Key.
This approach has drawn recognition. In 2025, Arctic Bath was among the first hotels in the Nordics to be awarded a Michelin Key. In 2026, Arctic Bath received Falstaff's Engagement for Sustainability & Innovation award and scored 98 out of 100 in the inaugural Falstaff Hotel Guide Nordics, one of the highest ratings given to a Swedish hotel. The same year, LA LISTE named it a Discovery Gem, an award reserved for little-known places worth a special trip, and one of only five hotels worldwide to receive the distinction.
Animal welfare policy
At 50 Degrees North, animal welfare is a priority across all our tours and packages. We carefully select suppliers who adhere to strict animal welfare standards, ensuring that wildlife interactions are respectful and comply with local, national and international regulations. We avoid excursions that involve captive wildlife, except where they are properly regulated, and all activities are designed to minimise disturbance to natural ecosystems. Travellers are informed about responsible animal interactions through our Responsible Travel Tips, and our guides are trained to lead by example, promoting ethical conduct towards both wild and domesticated animals. Read our article on animal welfare to learn more.
Important note
Weather conditions may occasionally affect certain activities, and the schedule may be adjusted to ensure the best possible experience for all guests. For multi-activity stays, the order of activities is often confirmed locally on arrival. Activities may vary slightly in duration or location due to weather and local conditions. Any activity that cannot be rescheduled because of weather will be refunded as a general practice, as determined by the activity provider.
Discover Swedish Lapland through its winter activities, cultural encounters and one-of-a-kind places to stay, among them the Aurora Safari Camp, Arctic Bath, Treehotel and ICEHOTEL. From dog sledding and snowmobiling to northern lights viewing and Sámi traditions, this is a look at the best of the Arctic north.
Looking for an unusual honeymoon destination? Northern Europe offers something very different from the traditional beach escape, from glass igloos and Arctic wilderness to private saunas, luxury hotels and geothermal lagoons.
Our recommendations for private and secluded boutique hotels and lodges with personalised service and authentic experiences in remote, natural locations. Contact us for a personalised, tailor-made itinerary that includes one or several of these properties.
Nordic wellness is the everyday practice of sauna, cold-water swimming, time in the forest and food shaped by the seasons. It is not a spa concept or a retreat you check into. Across the Nordic countries, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark, these habits are simply how people live, and have lived for centuries. Finland and Iceland are Nordic rather than Scandinavian, but the traditions run through all five. This guide explains what a Nordic wellness holiday involves, and where to experience it on a journey shaped by wellness and slow travel specialists who live this way themselves.
The thread running through all of it is restraint. Wellbeing here is not about adding more, but about stripping back to what matters: space, quiet, time, and a body that has been warmed, cooled, walked and fed.
Nordic wellness draws on a handful of old habits rather than a single treatment. The core elements are the sauna, cold-water immersion, regular time outdoors, and a diet built around wild and seasonal produce. What sets the Nordic approach apart is that these are ordinary, daily, and free, woven into the rhythm of the week rather than reserved for a special occasion. On holiday, that means wellbeing is rarely more than a few steps from wherever you are staying.
Cold-water swimming is a Nordic habit worth borrowing. Many people find it leaves them alert and clear-headed, with the lift lasting well into the day. It takes some nerve the first time, and it is meant to be brief.
On our autumn, winter and spring journeys to Finland, Norway and Sweden, many lodges have easy access to a swimming spot, and local hosts are usually glad to arrange it. Almost every one of our handpicked stays in Iceland has a cold pool or a hot spring within walking distance. In summer, the lake or the shore does the same work, the water still cool enough to wake you fully.
The habit holds in the cities too. In Copenhagen, locals swim from the harbour docks year round. In Helsinki, a harbour dip is paired with a session at one of the public saunas. If the idea sounds a step too far, there is no obligation, and the leisure centres, private saunas and day spas at our hotels offer gentler ways in.
The sauna is where the Nordic day is set down. In Finland especially it is less a luxury than a room in the house, a place for cleansing that is as much mental as physical. There are more saunas in Finland than cars.
The forms vary. A herbal sauna paired with a traditional treatment, the dry heat of a wood-fired sauna, or the slow, soft heat of a smoke sauna, heated for hours then left to settle before you enter. Many of our Lapland lodges offer several to move between. The feeling afterwards, loosened and unhurried, is the point of the whole exercise.
Time outdoors is the quietest part of a Nordic wellness holiday, and often the one people remember. A walk in the woods, an hour by a lake, a cross-country ski across open country: none of it is strenuous, and all of it slows you down.
There is research behind the instinct. Studies of forest bathing, the practice the Japanese call shinrin-yoku, link regular time among trees to lower blood pressure and reduced stress, though most people notice the change in mood long before anything else. Our journeys are built to put this within reach, taking you off the well-trodden routes and into the countryside, so a quiet hour outdoors is never far away.
Under Everyman's Right, you are free to walk the forests and pick what grows wild in them, berries, mushrooms and wildflowers among them. In late summer and autumn it is common to find berries to gather at almost every stop, and they carry the vitamins that come with them.
The same principle reaches the table. Local chefs take real pride in their regional produce, so dinner tends to be seasonal, local and often organic, the landscape you walked through that day, served on a plate. It is a plainer, more honest kind of eating than the word "superfood" suggests.
Any 50 Degrees North journey can be shaped around rest as much as sightseeing. A few carry the rhythm through from beginning to end:
Swedish Aurora Glamping and Arctic Wellness moves between two very different saunas in Swedish Lapland: a wood-fired sauna frozen into a lake at a small wilderness camp, and the circular spa of the Arctic Bath on the Lule River, with its cold bath open to the sky.
Lapland Adventure Week pairs Finnish Lapland with time at a Nordic wellness centre and its range of treatments.
Green Forests & Blue Lakes, our Finnish self-drive, ends beside Lake Saimaa with a private lakeside villa, its own sauna, and time to do very little.
For the pairing of wellbeing with the Northern Lights in the darker months, or a slower self-drive through the countryside in summer, tell us what a good reset looks like for you, and we will build it in.
There is no wrong season. Autumn and winter suit the sauna-and-ice-swimming contrast and add the chance of the Northern Lights. Summer brings long daylight, lake swimming and berry-picking. Spring is quiet and uncrowded. The practices stay the same; only the setting changes.
Yes. From late autumn to early spring, the dark evenings that suit the sauna are also when the Northern Lights may appear. On Swedish Aurora Glamping and Arctic Wellness, you move between wood-fired saunas at a wilderness camp and the Arctic Bath on the Lule River, with a chance of the aurora on clear nights.
No. Ice swimming is brief, a matter of seconds to a minute, and always optional. Local hosts supervise, entry points are gradual, and a warm sauna is usually waiting alongside. Anyone unsure can start with a cold pool or skip it entirely.
Everyman's Right is the Nordic tradition, protected in law, that lets anyone walk, forage and swim in the countryside regardless of who owns the land, as long as they cause no harm. It covers wild berries, mushrooms and unprotected plants, and it is why foraging features so naturally on a Nordic holiday.
Finland is the spiritual home of the sauna and the most sauna-dense country in the world, which makes it the natural choice. That said, Norway, Sweden and Iceland all have strong traditions of their own, and Iceland adds its geothermal pools and hot springs.
Yes. The sauna is a year-round habit, and summer simply moves the cold plunge from a frozen lake to a cool one. Long daylight and mild weather also make the walking, swimming and foraging easier, so summer is one of the best times to try it.
