How We Got to Lapland from the US: Philadelphia, Dublin and Ryanair to Rovaniemi

How did we get to Lapland from the US?

We flew Philadelphia to Dublin, spent five days with friends and family in Ireland, then took a round-trip Ryanair flight from Dublin to Rovaniemi.

If you have family or a cheap stopover option in Europe, it’s worth a look: a few days there before Lapland lets everyone adjust to the time difference before the cold and the late nights begin.

How long is the flight from Dublin to Rovaniemi?

About three hours.

And yes, all the Ryanair rumors are still true.

How far is Rovaniemi Airport from the resorts?

Our resort, Apukka, was only 20 minutes from the airport.

SantaPark is about 2 km from the airport and Santa Claus Village about 3 km. Read our Apukka review.

When should you get to Rovaniemi Airport for a Ryanair flight?

At least 1 hour 45 minutes before your flight. Bag drop was slow, security was slow, and we felt rushed.

• Buy water before passport control: there may be none available afterward
• Bring snacks from your hotel, since you might not have time to get food at the airport

How did we get around once we were there?

By taxi, so we could keep our own schedule.

Apukka offers a bus to Santa Claus Village (€20 when we went), and a taxi cost us €35. Our driver, Pyry, from the resort’s recommended taxi company, was wonderful, safe and reliable.

How do you get to Lapland from the US?

Almost everyone connects. Finnair’s own path is via Helsinki, and the village says that flight runs every day of the year.

This page used to be only our route. It still includes that, further down, because it is the one we can swear to. For everyone else starting in the US, the shape is a long flight to Europe and a short hop, or a long flight and a night train. Santa Claus Village says Finnair flies between Helsinki and Rovaniemi daily, all year, and Norwegian flies the same city pair several times a week. In winter, other airlines add direct flights from European cities into Rovaniemi. We did not fly those, and we are not going to invent a door-to-door hour count from New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. The long leg is the ocean. The Finnish leg is the easy part, until the jet lag shows up.

Other one-stop patterns are a European hub that isn’t Helsinki, then onward to Helsinki or straight to Rovaniemi when the seasonal flight exists. Which hub is “best” changes with the week. Check the airline for that Wednesday, not a blog that froze a schedule last spring. If the connection in Helsinki is tight and you have two children and a pile of coats, it is the wrong connection. We would rather sit in Helsinki for two hours than run.

Is the overnight Santa Claus Express worth it with kids?

It is a real option from Helsinki, and we didn’t take it. VR runs it. The hours depend on the date.

VR’s Santa Claus Express is the night train from Helsinki or Turku to Rovaniemi, and also onward toward Kolari or Kemijärvi. You can book a seat or a sleeper cabin. Some cabins have their own shower and toilet. There is a restaurant car, the cabins have power, and you can bring a car, a bike and luggage. VR’s Helsinki to Rovaniemi page says the cities are about 820 kilometres apart, the fastest train is 8 hours 22 minutes, and a seat was listed from €22.90 when we checked. That starting fare will move. The night train is the one where you sleep the trip instead of spending a day in a seat. VR tells you to use the trip search for the exact departure, because the timetable changes by date. We are not going to copy a third-party clock time and call it official.

With kids, a sleeper is the version that makes sense, and a seat on an overnight train is how you arrive tired and proud. You still need a way from Rovaniemi station to the hotel. Bus 8 to Santa Claus Village starts in the city, which is the right bus if you are staying on the Arctic Circle. We flew into the airport instead, and Apukka was about 20 minutes from there by taxi. Prices checked November 2026.

How do you get from Rovaniemi Airport to the hotel?

Taxi, the winter airport bus, or a resort shuttle. The village is 3 kilometres from the airport. The city is 8.

Santa Claus Village’s own directions are the ones to trust. Local bus 8 runs all year between the city centre and the village. From November to March, a private Santa’s & Airport Express also links the village, the city and the airport, and Apukka’s shuttle runs between the city, the village and the resort. The village page doesn’t print the current fare. We won’t borrow one from a tour blog. In November 2025 our taxi from the resort to the village was €35, and Apukka’s bus was quoted at €20. That was our trip, not a rate card.

The same page names two taxi options: Taksi Rovaniemi, and Menevä. Our driver was Pyry, through the resort’s recommended company, and he was calm on the kind of evening when the walkways at the hotel had turned to ice. SantaPark is about 2 kilometres from the airport, which is close enough that a resort on the Arctic Circle can be simpler than it looks on a map of “Lapland.” If you are going to the SnowHotel, use their pickup. It is not an airport hop.

Should you rent a car in winter?

We didn’t. Rent one for Ranua or for chasing the lights, not for SantaPark.

The village sits 8 kilometres north of the city on highway E75, and the destination is obvious once you are on that road. A car does not help you meet Santa faster. It helps on the day you drive south to Ranua, or the night you want to leave town because the cloud map has a hole somewhere else. We did neither. The walkways at Apukka got dangerously icy on our last night, which is a useful preview of what the smaller roads can feel like after a temperature swing.

We didn’t find a single official sentence we were willing to treat as “this is the winter-tire law, memorise it.” Rental cars in Lapland in winter are expected to be on winter tires. Ask the company what is on the car, studs or friction, before you collect it in the dark. If you are not comfortable driving on snow, don’t make the lights tour be your driving lesson. Book a guide, or stay at a cabin where the sky comes to you. That second one is what we did.

How bad is the jet lag with kids?

In winter, Finland is 7 hours ahead of US Eastern Time and 10 hours ahead of US Pacific Time. The Dublin stop is how we dealt with it.

Our route was Philadelphia to Dublin, five days with friends and family in Ireland, then a Ryanair round trip from Dublin to Rovaniemi of about three hours. Those five days were the jet-lag plan, even though we didn’t call them that at the time. By the time the cold and the late nights started, nobody was still on a US bedtime. If you fly US to Helsinki to Rovaniemi in one push, you don’t get that gift.

What we would do on a direct routing, and did not have to do: nothing at 20:30 on night one. Eat, shower, sleep. Put SantaPark on day two or day three, in the morning, because SantaPark rewards being there at opening and punishes a family that slept through it. The lights can wait until the second night. A child who is secretly on a US afternoon clock will not enjoy standing in a car park at midnight, and you will not enjoy the photos. For Ryanair out of Rovaniemi, we still say get to the airport at least 1 hour 45 minutes early. Bag drop was slow, security was slow, and we felt rushed. Buy water before passport control.

How did we actually fly?

Philadelphia to Dublin, five days, then Ryanair to Rovaniemi and a 20-minute taxi to Apukka.

That is the whole route. No heroic connection, no private transfer, no rented car. The airport notes from the way home still stand: water before passport control, snacks from the hotel, and more time than Ryanair’s minimum. If you are copying us from the US, copy the buffer in Europe, not the specific airline. Dublin was our buffer because we had people to see. Yours might be a night in Helsinki and the train. Both are more humane than landing and getting on a snowmobile.