Landing at Rovaniemi Airport

What RVN is like

Rovaniemi sits on the Arctic Circle and is the way in for anyone coming to Lapland for snow, husky trails and the northern lights. The terminal is small relative to the number of people who arrive in winter, so everything happens fast and all at once when two or three flights land together. The thing to understand is the gap between town and everywhere else: the town itself is well covered, but almost every activity you flew here for takes place outside it, in forest and on frozen lakes where the masts stand tens of kilometres apart.

On arrival

Turn the line on as the wheels touch down; the airport and the road into town are well served. The building is small enough that the walk from aircraft to belt takes a couple of minutes, though when several flights arrive together the wait for bags and pick-ups can outlast what the hall comfortably holds. Use that time for the work that actually matters: download the offline map of the area around town, save your accommodation address to the device, and confirm the contact number for any tour you have booked is stored rather than sitting in an email you cannot open. Sub-zero air drains batteries unusually fast, so leave the terminal with a full one.

How far the airport Wi-Fi gets you

The terminal has free Wi-Fi behind the usual registration page, and in a room this size the speed depends very directly on how many people are standing in it with you. When two or three flights land together in high season, a large map download started here often will not finish in the time you are actually standing there, so pulling it down at your departure airport or the night before is the better habit. What is certain is that the Wi-Fi does not travel with you to a forest cabin or an aurora viewing spot, and neither does any other network you did not arrange in advance.

Getting into town

The run from the airport into town is short, whether by the coach that meets flights or by taxi, and accommodation in town generally sits inside steady coverage. The real problem starts when you leave it. An aurora tour takes you to the darkest place it can find, which usually means a decent distance from the nearest mast, and the forest roads have signal in patches around settlements rather than continuously. If you are driving yourself, download the whole area rather than a single route, because a snow road can close and you may end up going round. Daily data use is often modest here, simply because you are offline for long stretches, but the minutes when you are online carry a lot of weight.

What people ask about this airport

• Cold drains the battery faster than data does — Below zero the charge falls unusually fast, so carry a power bank and keep the phone under an inner layer while you wait for the lights.
• Download the area, not the route — Snow roads close and a detour takes you off whatever narrow strip you downloaded, so a wide area is the safer choice.
• Store the tour contact on the device — If a pick-up does not turn up somewhere without coverage, a number sitting in an email you cannot open helps nobody.