Finland -> Norway -> Denmark in 3 weeks

[Fanytastic]

Looking for help on planning my itinerary for my *tentative* Scandinavia in December later this year.

My plan is to fly to Finland via Helsinki and spend around 2 nights there, after that making my way to Rovaniemi, Lapland. For my itinerary in Lapland, i plan on visiting the Arctic Circle Husky Park, Ranua Wildlife Park, Santa Claus Village (during Christmas) and catching the Northern lights (any suggestion/recommendation on where to go for the best view?)

From Rovaniemi, i will travel to Tromso, Norway but there's a problem here. I can't find any means of transport from Lapland to Tromso. As for my itinerary wise, still haven't really decide on what i want to do here yet apart from catching the northern lights, dog-sledding and whale spotting.

From Tromso, my next two stop will be Bergen then Oslo before heading over to Denmark and then maybe Germany. This part of my itinerary is still relatively unclear since i have not really touch on it yet.

My biggest concern now is on how to get from one place to another within the three countries itself.

 

[lunafan]

Looking for help on planning my itinerary for my *tentative* Scandinavia in December later this year.

My plan is to fly to Finland via Helsinki and spend around 2 nights there, after that making my way to Rovaniemi, Lapland. For my itinerary in Lapland, i plan on visiting the Arctic Circle Husky Park, Ranua Wildlife Park, Santa Claus Village (during Christmas) and catching the Northern lights (any suggestion/recommendation on where to go for the best view?)

From Rovaniemi, i will travel to Tromso, Norway but there's a problem here. I can't find any means of transport from Lapland to Tromso. As for my itinerary wise, still haven't really decide on what i want to do here yet apart from catching the northern lights, dog-sledding and whale spotting.

From Tromso, my next two stop will be Bergen then Oslo before heading over to Denmark and then maybe Germany. This part of my itinerary is still relatively unclear since i have not really touch on it yet.

My biggest concern now is on how to get from one place to another within the three countries itself.

I did something similar for my honeymoon in 3 weeks.
Singapore > Finland (Helsinki) > Iceland > Norway (Bergen) > Norway (Oslo) > Denmark (Copenhagen) > Sweden (Stockholm) > Finland (Helsinki)

Didn't get a chance to visit Lapland or Tromso so I can't help you there
I would recommend doing an overnight cruise if you are travelling from Oslo to Copenhagen or from Stockholm to Helsinki. It's a transport + accommodation all in one, saves on cost.

Do the Bergen to Oslo "Norway in a nutshell" package. It's not a tour, just a series of pre-booked tickets for bus, river cruise, train.

Would suggest that you skip Germany because there are too many things to cover.

 

[Fanytastic]

I did something similar for my honeymoon in 3 weeks.
Singapore > Finland (Helsinki) > Iceland > Norway (Bergen) > Norway (Oslo) > Denmark (Copenhagen) > Sweden (Stockholm) > Finland (Helsinki)

Didn't get a chance to visit Lapland or Tromso so I can't help you there
I would recommend doing an overnight cruise if you are travelling from Oslo to Copenhagen or from Stockholm to Helsinki. It's a transport + accommodation all in one, saves on cost.

Do the Bergen to Oslo "Norway in a nutshell" package. It's not a tour, just a series of pre-booked tickets for bus, river cruise, train.

Would suggest that you skip Germany because there are too many things to cover.

I would most probably go for the overnight cruise from Oslo to Copenhagen. I guess i will be skipping Stockholm since my friend tell me it's pretty boring in Sweden.

I shall go google for the "Norway in a nutshell" package. Since my plan is to travel down to Bergen and Oslo from Tromso, hopefully they have packages that include Tromso also. I was thinking should i buy a one way trip to Finland then fly back to SG from either Munich/Copenhagen (which is slightly more expensive as compared to round trip) but for the round trip, i still need to travel back to Helsinki.

Anyway, did you get the eurail pass while you were there for your honeymoon???

 

[lunafan]

I would most probably go for the overnight cruise from Oslo to Copenhagen. I guess i will be skipping Stockholm since my friend tell me it's pretty boring in Sweden.

I shall go google for the "Norway in a nutshell" package. Since my plan is to travel down to Bergen and Oslo from Tromso, hopefully they have packages that include Tromso also. I was thinking should i buy a one way trip to Finland then fly back to SG from either Munich/Copenhagen (which is slightly more expensive as compared to round trip) but for the round trip, i still need to travel back to Helsinki.

Anyway, did you get the eurail pass while you were there for your honeymoon???

Hmm I'm not sure why your friend told you it's boring in Sweden. I kinda find Oslo and Helsinki the boring ones. I guess to each his own.

Tromso is too far, it is better to take a flight over to Oslo. There are packages including Bergen and Tromso but those are leisure cruise that may take a lot of time. More suitable for people who fly over just purely for the cruise.

Open jaw tickets are expensive. Won't recommend it unless you manage to find good promotion

Went to Europe a couple of times, never used the eurail pass haha. It's just way too expensive. It is cheaper to pre-book individual trips in advance.

 

[jarvis]

Open jaw tickets are expensive. Won't recommend it unless you manage to find good promotion

These days, open jaw tickets are priced similarly to normal tickets, assuming the cities are both cities which the carrier flies to. Using SIA as an example, if you get a S$10k result for an open jaw ticket, it usually means the carrier does not fly direct to that city (or at least not on the day you selected) and it's a code-share partner. If you know they do fly to that city, play around with the date to find the days they fly there. Otherwise another alternative is to book thru the code-share partners' website instead if it's cheaper.

 

[galacticnick]

Aren't the Northern Lights fading?

 

[noslek]

Looking for help on planning my itinerary for my *tentative* Scandinavia in December later this year.

My plan is to fly to Finland via Helsinki and spend around 2 nights there, after that making my way to Rovaniemi, Lapland. For my itinerary in Lapland, i plan on visiting the Arctic Circle Husky Park, Ranua Wildlife Park, Santa Claus Village (during Christmas) and catching the Northern lights (any suggestion/recommendation on where to go for the best view?)

From Rovaniemi, i will travel to Tromso, Norway but there's a problem here. I can't find any means of transport from Lapland to Tromso.

Since there's no direct flight, if you want to fly, chances are you'll have fly from Rovaniemi-Helsinki-?Oslo/Stockholm/etc-Tromso. I happen to find that Norwegian flies to both Rovaniemi and Tromso on Monday and Friday in Dec, but their timing seems to clash and you won't be able to do a smooth transfer in one day.

Land transfer won't be that straightforward either. I don't have experience from Rovaniemi to Tromoso, but my friends and I managed from Rovaniemi to Narvik in Norway and it's by no means easy, which included a change of bus in different country (got off in Finland and cross the bridge to Sweden to catch another bus), then overnight in Kiruna, Sweden (where we caught aurora!!) and onward to Narvik on a train. I'm thinking Rovaniemi to Tromso will be something like that too - not sure if you want all these hassle in snow-clad roads.

Since you'll need to fly to Finland anyway, why don't you start off in Rovaniemi (ie book SIN-RVN via HEL if you fly Finnair), then down to Helsinki and move on to Norway?

 

[starfish.starfish]

I did Iceland --> Finland --> Norway in feb.
the rome2rio website was very helpful to plan the flight routes, you can check that out.
We flew Rovaniemi to Helsinki (stayed there for 2 nights ) then to tromso via Stockholm. Yes not easy to get to tromso from Rovaniemi.
Also consider cruises. Not that expensive and a nice way to travel down Norway.

 

[Fanytastic]

Hmm I'm not sure why your friend told you it's boring in Sweden. I kinda find Oslo and Helsinki the boring ones. I guess to each his own.

Tromso is too far, it is better to take a flight over to Oslo. There are packages including Bergen and Tromso but those are leisure cruise that may take a lot of time. More suitable for people who fly over just purely for the cruise.

Open jaw tickets are expensive. Won't recommend it unless you manage to find good promotion

Went to Europe a couple of times, never used the eurail pass haha. It's just way too expensive. It is cheaper to pre-book individual trips in advance.

I realised it will be more expensive to get the Eurail pass so i'm just going to pre-book individual trips instead since tickets will be cheaper if i book it earlier.

 

[Fanytastic]

Since there's no direct flight, if you want to fly, chances are you'll have fly from Rovaniemi-Helsinki-?Oslo/Stockholm/etc-Tromso. I happen to find that Norwegian flies to both Rovaniemi and Tromso on Monday and Friday in Dec, but their timing seems to clash and you won't be able to do a smooth transfer in one day.

Land transfer won't be that straightforward either. I don't have experience from Rovaniemi to Tromoso, but my friends and I managed from Rovaniemi to Narvik in Norway and it's by no means easy, which included a change of bus in different country (got off in Finland and cross the bridge to Sweden to catch another bus), then overnight in Kiruna, Sweden (where we caught aurora!!) and onward to Narvik on a train. I'm thinking Rovaniemi to Tromso will be something like that too - not sure if you want all these hassle in snow-clad roads.

Since you'll need to fly to Finland anyway, why don't you start off in Rovaniemi (ie book SIN-RVN via HEL if you fly Finnair), then down to Helsinki and move on to Norway?

Yup, i went to google around on how to get around from Rovaniemi to Tromso but it seems like that is no easier way of getting around there. Initially i thought it will be easier to travel down to Tromso from Rovaniemi since it is relatively nearer as compared to Oslo.

I did Iceland --> Finland --> Norway in feb.
the rome2rio website was very helpful to plan the flight routes, you can check that out.
We flew Rovaniemi to Helsinki (stayed there for 2 nights ) then to tromso via Stockholm. Yes not easy to get to tromso from Rovaniemi.
Also consider cruises. Not that expensive and a nice way to travel down Norway.

Ok thanks, let's hope rome2rio can help me solve my transportation woes

 

[ashethen]

I did Iceland --> Finland --> Norway in feb.
the rome2rio website was very helpful to plan the flight routes, you can check that out.
We flew Rovaniemi to Helsinki (stayed there for 2 nights ) then to tromso via Stockholm. Yes not easy to get to tromso from Rovaniemi.
Also consider cruises. Not that expensive and a nice way to travel down Norway.

What do you mean when you say it's not easy to get to tromso from rovaniemi? Flight and rail connections not available? If I were to drive, would it be difficult?

Sent from Samsung SM-G930F using GAGT

 

[Bad kids]

There are no direct flight from Tromso to Rovaniemi. Basically, to travel to each cities, need to take domestic flight from the main airport. So you will need to fly to Stockholm, Olso and Helsinki.
I just came back driving from Tromso to Kiruna.
It is very challenging if you are not familiar in winter driving. The journey took 7 hours and among that there are the left-hand driving, narrow and curvy roads, speed limits, snow-storm, road closure and how to get yourself out when you are stuck in snow. And many more.
If you can handle, you can try.

What do you mean when you say it's not easy to get to tromso from rovaniemi? Flight and rail connections not available? If I were to drive, would it be difficult?

Sent from Samsung SM-G930F using GAGT

 

[ronangan]

Looking for help on planning my itinerary for my *tentative* Scandinavia in December later this year.

My plan is to fly to Finland via Helsinki and spend around 2 nights there, after that making my way to Rovaniemi, Lapland. For my itinerary in Lapland, i plan on visiting the Arctic Circle Husky Park, Ranua Wildlife Park, Santa Claus Village (during Christmas) and catching the Northern lights (any suggestion/recommendation on where to go for the best view?)

From Rovaniemi, i will travel to Tromso, Norway but there's a problem here. I can't find any means of transport from Lapland to Tromso. As for my itinerary wise, still haven't really decide on what i want to do here yet apart from catching the northern lights, dog-sledding and whale spotting.

From Tromso, my next two stop will be Bergen then Oslo before heading over to Denmark and then maybe Germany. This part of my itinerary is still relatively unclear since i have not really touch on it yet.

My biggest concern now is on how to get from one place to another within the three countries itself.

We went to Sweden to try to catch the Northern Light. Kiruna, to be more precise. However, we went on the wrong DAYS! Lol... The moon was as big as it can be thus it's a FATAL to our main objective. However, we were not disappointing at all! Night scene with full blooming moon was also very very nice! Also giving us another reason to come again. We booked tours (They are damn expensive but we have no choice) though and we like them all! The husky ride, the visit to their reserve parks and all. By the way, we bought GlobalPass, Sweden was the last country we visited for our Europe trip. We took an overnight train to Kiruna, round trip. But for you, can consider taking the Scandinavia Pass instead. If you utilize it properly, it's a big bang saving on transportation and of cof accommodation too (For the overnight train). Their GST is 25%! Hahaha...

NOTE: Catching Northern Light can be LUCK depending event but also with proper preparation such as when is the best season to go and bla bla bla but it boils down to local climate too, even if there is ZERO MOON and MEGA EXPLOSION up there on the surface of the sun, but if it's CLOUDY, CLOUDY, CLOUDY! Well, you gets to see CLOUD! Lol... TIPS: Try night flight, it's above the cloud, thus, you have high chances catching Northern Light up there, during the flight.