Bucket List / Experience Goals
Sleep In A Glass Igloo Under The Northern Lights
Still to do
Lie in a warm bed under a glass dome and watch the Northern Lights ripple across the Arctic sky.
The adventure
It's minus twenty outside, the snow is deep and blue in the moonlight, and you're lying under a duvet in a glass igloo looking straight up at the sky. The stars are sharp and endless. And then a faint green arc appears above the forest.
It grows, brightens and starts to move: curtains of green, sometimes edged with pink, rippling and folding across the sky. You've seen the Northern Lights before, but never from bed, warm, with nothing between you and the aurora but a pane of heated glass. Days in Lapland bring husky sledding, reindeer and saunas, but it's the nights that make the trip.
Why it’s epic
- Watching the aurora from bed through a glass roof.
- Snow, reindeer and husky safaris by day.
- Finnish saunas, often with an ice-hole plunge.
What it is
Glass-roofed igloos and cabins in Lapland, above the Arctic Circle, let you watch for the aurora borealis from bed.
How to do it
Book a resort such as Kakslauttanen near Saariselkä or one of the glass-roofed hotels around Rovaniemi and Levi, and fly to Ivalo, Kittilä or Rovaniemi.
Top tip
Many resorts offer an aurora alarm; sign up, so you can sleep until the lights appear.
Need to know
- The aurora is never guaranteed; stay at least three nights for the best chance.
- Winter temperatures can fall below minus 30°C.
- The glass igloos book up a year ahead for the darkest months.
Plan this trip
- Rough cost
- £5,000 or more per person, including flights from the UK
- Time needed
- A few nights
- Best time to go
- Late August to April
- Fly into
- IVL airport
Glass igloo nights are expensive, especially around Christmas.
Make it happen
Why it’s on my list
Not done yet. If you’ve done it and have tips, tell me about it.
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