The ‘raw’ travel destination that’s one of Europe’s best-kept secrets

Fighter jets soaring over swamps, getting eaten alive by insects and trying to sleep in 24/7 sunlight… Metro’s Video Editor Chris Rickett tells us why Finnish Lapland is – yes, really – at its best in summer.

Forget the magic of Christmas, crunching snow under fur-lined boots, hot chocolate breath twirling in the air, and the soul-affirming magnificence of Aurora Borealis.

Why don’t you hear much about Lapland in summer?

Is it because underneath all that winter snow is actually considerable swamp and spongy marshland?

Is it because of Yöttömän yön aika, aka midnight sun, where the sun doesn’t set for an entire month?

Or is it because that’s when Räkkä is invoked, the peak season for the biting fly and blood-sucking insect? (Bring bug spray, you’ll be fine.)

For me, the draw is simple: I am running on empty and feel spiritually drawn to a cabin in the woods like a baddie in a slasher movie.

I stayed at a traditional summer cabin in the middle of Finland when I was nine years old and to this day, it’s one of my most cherished memories.

There were no electronics. We took the dog out onto the lake with us and slept undisturbed in hammocks for hours without judgement or the sight of another human being for days.

The boys’ WhatsApp group is tired of me suggesting we replicate that trip, now in our thirties.

My Best Man said ‘no x’ when I declared quite-firm-actually interest in a Finnish cabin core stag of cards by lamplight.

So I’m venturing into the pines solo to prove them, and everyone else in my life, wrong.

Will I be pampered with fine dining, open air yoga sessions and a small team of staff consistently looking to go above and beyond? Yes.

But will I also be living an authentic experience in real nature in a less romanticised part of the world? Also yes.

It’s hardly extreme tourism, but it’s raw. It’s getting up close and personal with remote living, rather than just pretending for Instagram.

The idea of going off-grid in the wilderness has enduring appeal.

But nowadays, some guests in remote settings are finding even mild forms of ‘immersion’ rather difficult.

Kelly Forbes, CEO of UK-based responsible luxury travel agency A’Aru Collective, recently told the BBC that clients have complained about being woken by birds in the morning (in the Seychelles)…

Their villa being too close to the ocean (in the Maldives)…

And animals ‘brushing up against their tent’ (in a Kenyan safari reserve)…

At Skog Aurora Igloosin Swedish Lapland, a guest noted that the silence was so complete it almost made their ears ring.

These stories point to a growing chasm between the idea of a remote, nature-led holiday and the reality of experiencing one.

As environmental psychologist and transport researcher Dr Sonja Haustein, a professor at the Technical University of Denmark, puts it: ‘Do you really want to travel somewhere remote, or is it really about how you want to see yourself and want to be seen by others?’

‘If you’re seeking status,’ she added, ‘maybe there is a more comfortable way to do it than going completely off-grid.’

So that’s why I’m here at Skýra Retreat, a family-run, cabin getaway-cum-luxury wellness oasis in Lapland’s Rovaniemi, Europe’s largest town by area.

But you certainly wouldn’t know it upon entry.

I’m told that if I start walking in a certain direction through the forest, I could keep going, hundreds of kilometres, until I fell into the Arctic Ocean without encountering another settlement.

Around Christmas time, however, you can hardly see the wood, nor the trees, because of the mass influx of tourists, both naughty and nice, partaking in the Winter Wonderlandification of Santa Claus Village.

Here in summer, travellers are sleeping on one of Europe’s best-kept secrets: mökki, the essence of traditional Finnish cabin culture.

Picture being surrounded by towering trees that sound like waves breaking as they sway in the breeze.

Imagine wild swimming in lakes that boast the second cleanest water in the world.

Now manifest that scene as an attainable European reality without the price (or the hassle) of flying to North America.

With Skýra only having one winter season under its belt since opening at the tail end of 2025, I am the first to experience its take on mökki.

The place is built around a former 1950s village schoolhouse that closed in 2005. Being a protected building, much of the original features remain.

Guests can book suites that were formerly teachers’ chambers or opt for a log cabin, they’ll dine in the old gymnasium, and experience the same flickering lights, occasional power outages, and chugging oil heater as past students did. 

Just with an added layer of tasteful interior design – think Mad Men mid-century swagger in a Twin Peaks setting.

Where I am, from June 6 to July 7, guests can expect zero darkness under midnight sun.

‘It’s about resetting. Your body will tell you when it’s tired’, Skýra’s founder Susanne Hulbekkmo tells me, after I praised her for the masterstroke of putting blackout curtains in each room.

Despite being a 5am waker to falling-asleep-at-every-pub-and-bar-that-will-accommodate-me-past-8pm type, while in Rovaniemi, I find myself enjoying a rare lie-in and, even rarer, being active after midnight.

Take that, society. No more dictating nighttime by light time.

They say Lapland has eight seasons, rather than the traditional four, so a ruffling up of sleep schedules is a small price to pay for a brief romance with summer before darkness consumes.

I was warned that my visit may coincide with some Finnish Air Force training and I do, at times, hear a soft boom before an F-35 fighter jet emerges overhead.

I’m pleasantly surprised when Susanne tells me why she wouldn’t change it.

‘One of the reasons why there was a school in this particular place is because of the army. 

‘A lot of the children who have been growing up in this school has been the children of the army people, so it kind-of belongs.

‘It’s always been here and I hope it will always be here.’

It’s that protective grasp of its past identity that makes Skýra hum with lived history.

Or, maybe, that’s the literal buzz of mozzies, midges and black flies that surrounds the place.

Skýra swerves the most severe thick, black, roaming clouds of mosquitoes by being situated in an area without many leafy trees, which allows for a draft to usher them along.

Deeper into Rovaniemi forestry, however, it’s bad in summer.

‘Unpleasant but not dangerous’ is the official line.

Worst case scenario you’ll get some raised itchy bumps from the tiny biters, who do not carry disease, to wear like a badge of honour.

Best case scenario is you heed the advice to wear light colours and use repellants and the provided netted hats to achieve a peaceful co-existence.

In fact, rather than celebrate the sanctuary, Susanne recommends ‘going to somewhere with a lot of mosquitoes, try to have a net around you, and sit there and just listen to it’, which is a practical mindfulness technique that your favourite yoga influencer probably doesn’t preach.

Every bite on my limbs is worth the uninterrupted silence of reading a book to an audience of nothing but tree trunks and creepy-crawlies.

It takes resilience to lower yourself into a cold plunge, which is a more-manageable bath tub here in the summer as opposed to an ice hole in the lake in winter, but the Finns swear by it because it makes them feel alive.

And I do. As I did when I was nine years old and borrowed the world just for myself for a few days.

It’s a fairytale destination. A proper one.

Chris Rickett was a guest of Skýra and Finnair, but don’t expect us to sugarcoat anything — our reviews are 100% independent.

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