Best Honeymoon Destinations in Northern Europe
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.
Does the idea of a tropical beach honeymoon leave you cold? Perhaps you'd rather do something a little different.
Northern Europe and Scandinavia make surprisingly romantic honeymoon destinations. Think long evenings under the Midnight Sun, dark winter skies filled with the Northern Lights, private saunas, cosy cabins, snow-covered landscapes and beautifully designed hotels.
For couples who want their honeymoon to be about experiences as much as relaxation, the Nordic countries offer plenty of possibilities. I've spent much of my working life travelling around the Nordic region, and one of the things I enjoy most is finding places that feel genuinely different from one another.
Rather than point you to a single hotel, here are some of the kinds of honeymoon the north does well, each with the destinations that suit it. The right version is something we shape with you.
Sleep under the Northern Lights, in a glass igloo or a room of ice
If there is one Nordic honeymoon image that stays with people, it is this: lying in bed together and watching the sky. Finnish Lapland is the heart of it, around places like Ivalo, Muonio and Ranua, where our glass igloos and domes put the aurora directly above your bed.
Across the border in Swedish Lapland, the original ICEHOTEL at Jukkasjärvi, near Kiruna, offers something stranger and more memorable: a room hand-carved from ice and snow, where you sleep warmly inside a thermal bag on a bed covered with reindeer hides. Northern Norway has its own ice and snow hotels near Alta and Kirkenes.
An ice room is not a conventional honeymoon hotel, and that is precisely the point. Many couples pair a night or two in the ice with warmer nights in a glass igloo or a boutique lodge nearby, so the experience is a highlight rather than the whole trip. Around it, Lapland fills the days with husky and reindeer safaris, snowmobiling and the quiet work of watching for the Northern Lights.
Choose an Arctic adventure over a hotel stay
Some couples want their honeymoon to feel like an expedition rather than a rest. The far north of Norway is built for that, around Kirkenes and the Barents coast, and Tromsø, the lively Arctic city often called the gateway to the north. Our Nordic wildlife journeys and aurora and Nordic winter trips put you out in the landscape: a king crab safari in Kirkenes that ends with your own catch cooked and eaten by the water, husky sledding across frozen country, ice fishing, and long nights spent looking for the lights. The islands of Senja and Lofoten, reached from Bodø, add dramatic peaks and fishing villages to the same kind of trip.
It is less about luxury in the traditional sense and more about doing something together you are unlikely to do anywhere else. For a couple who would rather come home with a story than a spa receipt, this is the honeymoon.
Retreat to your own sauna and a slower pace
Not every honeymoon needs activity from dawn to dusk. One of the most quietly romantic things the north offers is privacy: a cabin or lodge of your own, often with a private sauna and little around you but forest, lake or long summer light.
Our health, wellness and slow travel journeys are built around exactly this, and the region's distinctive stays include design-led lodges and wilderness hotels where the point is to do very little, together. Spend a few hours outside, then return to your own sauna and warm up at the end of the day.
A honeymoon weekend in a Nordic city
A honeymoon need not involve snow or wilderness at all. The Nordic capitals reward a few unhurried days: good food, strong design, art and water, without the pressure to see everything.
Our Nordic and Baltic city breaks can centre on Oslo, where you might stay in a historic hotel, explore with a private guide, walk through the Vigeland and Kistefos sculpture parks, visit the MUNCH museum, and book a floating sauna on the Oslofjord. Helsinki, Copenhagen and Stockholm each offer their own version of the same unhurried pleasure, and Bergen pairs a compact old harbour with the fjords on its doorstep.
Be pampered beside a geothermal lagoon
If your idea of a honeymoon leans towards pampering, Iceland has something no beach can. Near Reykjavík, on the Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland's Blue Lagoon Retreat sits beside its own private geothermal lagoon, with a subterranean spa and in-water treatments set in a volcanic landscape unlike anywhere else. This is the kind of stay where you can happily spend most of the day doing very little, which, after a wedding and all its planning, can be exactly right.
A lagoon stay also pairs naturally with a few days seeing more of the country, whether that is a self-drive journey along the south coast or a short itinerary of waterfalls, black beaches and hot springs.
Let us shape it around you
Most of our honeymoons are built one by one. If you have an idea of the kind of trip you want, or only a season and a feeling, our Luxury & Bespoke specialists would love to shape a private journey around the two of you.
Marking an anniversary rather than a beginning
If you are marking years together rather than the start of them, the same region rewards a different kind of trip. I've written separately about anniversary journeys in the Nordics, from returning to one place across two seasons to a remote Arctic wilderness that puts a shared history in perspective.
More inspiration
For more ideas on travelling in the north, browse our inspiration articles.
About the author
Satu Vänskä-Westgarth is Director of Product at 50 Degrees North. A Finn living and working in Norway, she knows the Nordic region intimately and travels across it throughout the year.