Kittilä: skiing and the northern lights in Lapland

In the heart of Finnish Lapland, Kittilä remains the gateway to the Levi ski resort, one of the most famous in Finland.

The center can be comfortably visited on foot; cars or shuttles serve the resort.

Mount Levi, Finland's primary ski resort, hosts Alpine World Cup stages each year under the artificial lights of polar night.

A few minutes away, the glass igloo villages around Levi allow you to observe the aurora borealis while staying warm beneath heated transparent ceilings.

Continuing into the Laponian forest, you can arrange sledding excursions drawn by huskies or reindeer, traditional activities still practiced by local Sámi communities.

As evening falls, a sauna bath followed by a plunge into fresh snow ends the day according to traditional Finnish custom.

Levi became the first ski resort in the world to host World Cup alpine skiing competitions under artificial lights during the polar winter night, an innovation that later became common elsewhere.

The region around Kittilä lies far enough north to guarantee, on clear winter nights, some of the highest aurora borealis visibility rates in continental Finland.