DAY EIGHT

SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 2025

THE JOURNEY HOME & FINAL THOUGHTS

This morning, we headed back to the Ivalo airport in various groups to catch our flights back home. It was a pretty uneventful day, with a short flight from Ivalo to Helsinki, and then a short layover before my flight back to NYC.

So many skiers! 😄

Particularly good airline meal on the long flight - a beef stew with mashed potatoes and green beans, with a small Greek salad. Good job, Finnair!

some final thoughts

  • Seeing the Northern Lights has been such a bucket list thing for me for years, but booking a trip to see them is always going to be a crapshoot! You never know if they’ll show up, or, if they do show up, if the sky will be clear enough to see them. I did try to stack the deck as much as possible with my timing, but I’m so thrilled and grateful that it panned out! And they did not disappoint in the slightest. What an absolutely incredible phenomenon.

  • When I booked this trip, I braced myself for the kind of cold weather I couldn’t possibly fathom, but it was honestly not bad at all. It stayed primarily in the 20s Fahrenheit, which is basically a typical NYC winter day. That said, the night we were out on Lake Inari taking in the aurora, and the day we were ice fishing… the cold definitely started to seep into my bones. I was glad to have those “hot hands” warmers, but could’ve brought more of them.

  • I knew nothing about the Sámi culture before this trip, and learning about them and their unique Arctic lifestyle was fascinating. Between meeting the locals at the reindeer farm and then following up with the Siida Museum, I feel like I have such a new understanding. Weirdly, when I got home I saw that the Museum of Natural History in NYC was doing a lecture on Sámi culture and reindeer! Isn’t that always the case when you’ve never heard of something and then it shows right up?? (I absolutely would’ve gone, but it was sold out.)

  • Helsinki really has some uniquely designed modern buildings. The Oodi Library is one of them, but there were a bunch on that road that look genuinely futuristic in the scheme of this old European city.

  • Of all of my world travels, the Helsinki airport is by far where I was questioned the most by immigration and customs. I obviously had nothing to worry about, but it was surprising!

  • That “shuttle” ferry to Tallinn was something else. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a gigantic duty free shop, in the middle of a boat no less.

  • I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect food-wise in Finland, but definitely wasn’t expecting such highbrow food in the middle of the Arctic wilderness! That lodge is a foodie destination on its own.

  • This was a great group of people. We all got along well, and had so much fun racing around the snow and taking in this absolutely spectacular environment. Pete our guide was also really lovely – this trip has less of a Pack Leader presence than some of the other Flash Pack trips I’ve taken, just given the nature of this itinerary that’s all organized directly through the lodge, but his friendliness and chill vibe was contagious and he made us all feel at home.