Thawing off after Sweden - Jenny, Adrian & Arthur

Hi Andy,

We returned safe and sound from our Artic Adventure to Sweden last night and while I wait for yet another load of laundry to finish I wanted to let you know how we got on.  

We were met by the delightful Ken in Kurina and he was with us right until the very end even taking our bags to the airport while we travelled by dog sled.  

He was absolutely charming and was there to make our holiday as stress free and and as full of adventure as possible. While it was astonishingly cold when we arrived, -27 degrees, they hadn’t had enough slow to open more than 1 slope where we were staying in Bjorkliden, which was a bit disappointing, but Ken took us over the borden to Norway where it as a bit better, 2 t-bar lifts, so we could get a bit of skiing in.  

The accommodation was gorgeous with lots of space, a log-burning fire, sauna and hot tub which was charmingly translated to ‘BubblePool' in English. Since we weren’t skiing that much we took a day to just hang out in the cabin and make use of the time to relax which was easily done in such a picturesque location. The food was superb at the hotel and the only other restaurant in town which Ken took us to on alternate nights - never eaten so much reindeer. Loved the use of local produce. The quiet stillness of the landscape is mesmerising.  

The advice of the tour operators was spot-on in suggesting we have private excursions rather than join groups as both the snowmobiling and dog-sleighing we did was brilliant. All the guides were very accommodating to Arthur, whether that was going a little bit faster on the snowmobiles, we won’t say just how fast, or letting him stand behind the sleigh to get the feel of driving the dogs which I am sure wouldn’t normally be possible in large group tours.  We saw moose and reindeer on our excursions and were lucky to see the Northern Lights on 3 separate occasions.

 The Ice Hotel was really busy but again following the advice of the local guides we had the dry room to give us a space to be together before heading off to sleep on our bed of ice. It was a fun experience, probably never do it again, but it more than met up to our expectations. Having the dry room meant we didn’t have the ’Scout Camp’ experience like those who didn’t having wait in communal spaces before bed and using the communal bathrooms in the morning. A crazy thing to do but we are glad we did it. 

Overall, we had a fabulous time. Ken looked after us fabulously well and having him with us the whole time meant we were truly able to relax as he handled everything from dinner reservations to ski hire, getting ski passes, driving us to and back from dinner, sorting our the snow mobiles and coordinating with the dog-sleigh adventure and Ice Hotel reservations - he was there to make sure we were well looked after by everyone. Please pass on our thanks to the local tour operators and our appreciation of and to Ken for making it possible to tick of so many things on our bucket list at once. We thoroughly loved it and would definitely recommended to anyone else to go.  

Thanks again,

Jenny, Adrian and Arthur.