We took a camper van trip to Lapland after Christmas for three nights. The plan was to get acquainted with our new van, a van I bought for my holding company for a small scale rental business. We’ve done these trips with our family a few times in the past and really enjoyed them, hence we also wanted to make one during a winter time.

Our plan was quite simple, stay three nights and visit places we’ve seen previously. Especially my youngest son was eager to get to hand feed birds (Kuukkeli / Siberian Jay) in Konttainen, Kuusamo. We therefore planned our first night to Konttainen, followed by a night at Hepoköngäs and one final night just north of the airfield at Kajaani, close to the beach. Truthfully, we only planned our first night and went from there – that’s the best part of camping with a van, you can stay where you want essentially.

Day 1 – Konttainen
At Konttainen, it was foggy again, an experience we had more or less two years ago. Nevertheless, the 2km trail was worth it and we fed some birds at the bottom of the trail, after seeing the sights above this 407 metre hill.

Day 2 – Hepoköngäs
Hepoköngäs is home to one of Finland’s tallest waterfalls – some 20 metres in height. We stayed the night at the small car park next to the waterfall. It was great, because it was surrounded by tall trees, hence no wind impact to the pop-top roof. The first visitors arrived at around 9am so we got a really nice and peaceful night to ourselves.

After breakfast, we went to visit the frozen waterfall. We’ve also seen it in the autumn time, so this was a familiar, but a new sight for us in the winter. You could still here the water gushing underneath the ice sheet.

We walked back up to the hut at the level of the waterfall top and decided to also walk the Geo Trail which was about 1.5km in length. It had not been walked for about a week and we only saw one other person that walked the trail into the opposite direction. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of snow so it was quite easily walkable even with children. The water level had dropped after the river had frozen, so the ice sheet had collapsed. We also saw some trees that had been cut down by beavers.

Day 3 – Paltaniemi beach (uimaranta), Kajaani
We drove down to Kajaani for our last night, which would then be closer to Kuortane, where we aimed to end the trip. We found a nice place by the beach, even though it had been commented to be loud due to the local youth spending their time there. Being Finns we understood that the weather and closeness of New Year’s Eve would most likely keep people inside. At around 8pm we only saw one car there and after that it was very quiet.

From Paltaniemi, we drove to Sotkamo to look for a proper place to ski a little and found a spot on the open lake. After a short, but very windy ski trip we packed our skis and decided to head back to Kuortane. It was a 350km or so drive and took some 5 hours, due to very poor driving weather.

Summary
Overall, it was a great trip. The van was warm to sleep and the technology worked as anticipated. We also anticipated to find some shortcomings here and there given the van is new and all initial problems have not been disovered yet. We did find some and I look to fix those with the seller before the summer season begins.

Camping vans and the whole caravan scene had a really negative stereotypical feel to it, for me. However, having tried camper vans for a few years with the family, it has resembled the same freedom flying has done – you have the ability to pretty much decide where you want to go and stay the night. Finland’s laws allow for a pretty flexible approach to staying the night where you want. Of course, unwavering respect for the nature and others’ properties is key here. You’re always a guest wherever you go and it goes without saying that you need to leave the place in a better place than when you arrived, that means no trash, grey water left behind or any other visible signs of you being there.

I’m really looking forward to spending more time with the family in nature and also doing a longer European roadtrip this year.

Happy new year 2025!