Arctic Sprint, part 2: Arctic Circle, northern lights, Lofoten in a storm

We made it to the Arctic Circle. We skipped the North Cape.

From Helsinki it was one long day north. The further up, the more forest and the more snow. One stop in the Finnish woods, otherwise drive, code, swap. In Rovaniemi you have Santa Claus Village and the line of the Arctic Circle. Pretty touristy, but when you’ve driven your own van up from Berlin, you take the photo at the sign anyway. Dinner was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Rovaniemi is also where we made the call. The original plan was the North Cape, the northernmost point you can drive to in Europe. We dropped it and spent the time on the Lofoten islands instead. Better nature, more time in one place instead of even more kilometres.

On the way to Lofoten, somewhere between Finland and Norway, the northern lights showed up. That’s the reason we drove north in winter. It was also the first flight of the drone we’d borrowed from a friend, and we filmed the lights from above.

Lofoten greeted us with storm and rain. Didn’t matter at all. Mountains coming straight out of the sea, bridges from island to island. We tried fishing from the shore and just drove around for a few days.

A small van life reality check: on the way down the Norwegian coast, we showered at a public swimming pool. Paying an entrance fee to take a shower is a new experience.

Now we’re heading south towards Stockholm. The pipeline grows with every driving day.