A 10-day tailor-made journey through Finland and Sweden, from Helsinki and Finnish Lakeland to Stockholm and Swedish Lapland. Private guides, bear hides and lake saunas throughout.
10 days
|From £6,690 pp
A 10-day tailor-made journey through Finland and Sweden, from Helsinki and Finnish Lakeland to Stockholm and Swedish Lapland. Private guides, bear hides and lake saunas throughout.
Helsinki to Swedish Lapland, by way of Finnish Lakeland and Stockholm. This journey moves through four distinct landscapes and two countries, each with a different relationship to water, wilderness and the way people live outdoors in summer.
It begins in Helsinki, a city of neoclassical architecture and a food culture built around the lake and sea produce of the surrounding region. From there the route heads north into Finnish Lakeland, where Anttolanhovi sits on the shore of Lake Saimaa and the days are built around smoke saunas, open water and a landscape of 14,000 islands.
Stockholm follows, two nights in a city that has one of the strongest design and restaurant cultures in Scandinavia, and a private yacht waiting to take you through the archipelago that frames it. The trip finishes in Swedish Lapland, above the Arctic Circle, where a night in a bear hide, a morning canoeing alongside beavers in the Råne River Valley and three nights at an Arctic lodge in the forest bring the journey to a close.
Do Not Disturb builds this trip around your pace, with private guides, the right properties at each stage and transfers that connect everything without friction.
Arrive into Helsinki and transfer privately to your hotel. The city is worth getting out into immediately. Senate Square, at the centre of the city, is framed by the Helsinki Cathedral and the neoclassical buildings that make up the administrative heart of the Finnish capital.
The design district south of the square concentrates the city’s independent shops, studios and restaurants into a few walkable blocks. The covered Old Market Hall on the South Harbor has been trading since 1889 and is where the fish, cheese and produce of the surrounding region have been sold each morning for well over a century.
Helsinki sits on a peninsula surrounded by the Baltic Sea, and the city has a relationship with water that runs through everything from its public saunas on the waterfront to the fish that comes off the boats at the harbor each morning.
An hour north of Helsinki, the landscape shifts into Finnish Lakeland, where the country feels most like itself. The landscape is water as much as land, with lakes covering around a third of the total surface area of the region and 14,000 islands scattered across Lake Saimaa alone.Your base for two nights is Anttolanhovi, a property on the shore of Lake Saimaa with freestanding villas that sit among the trees above the water.
On arrival, Do Not Disturb can arrange a smoke sauna session at the property. The smoke sauna is one of the oldest forms of sauna in Finland, heated by burning wood for several hours before the fire is extinguished and the heat and steam from the stones are left to fill the room. The experience is different from a conventional sauna in ways that are worth experiencing rather than describing. Cooling off means stepping outside and into the lake.
The second day is spent on the water. A private boat takes you across the lake, following a course through the waterways and the islands to the quieter corners of the Saimaa system. The lake is home to the Saimaa ringed seal, one of the rarest freshwater seals in the world, with a total population of around 400 individuals. The boat makes stops on the islands along the route, with a picnic lunch on board.
For those visiting in July, the Savonlinna Opera Festival runs in a 15th-century castle on an island in the lake and is worth an evening. Do Not Disturb can arrange tickets and transfers.
A short flight from Helsinki takes you across the border into Stockholm. The city sits across 14 islands at the point where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea, and the relationship between the city and the water defines how Stockholm works.
The old town, Gamla Stan, occupies its own island and has been the centre of the city since the 13th century. The Södermalm district to the south has a different character, with the city’s independent restaurants, galleries and shops concentrated around Götgatan and the streets that run off it.
Your private guide covers the city over the first day, with time in the Vasa Museum on Djurgården, which houses the warship Vasa, a Swedish Navy vessel that sank on its first voyage in 1628 and was raised from the harbor floor in 1961 in near-perfect condition. The museum is built around the ship and gives a sense of the scale of 17th-century Swedish shipbuilding in a way that photographs do not prepare you for.
On the second day, Do Not Disturb has arranged a private yacht for the day in the Stockholm Archipelago. The archipelago stretches 60 miles out into the Baltic and covers around 30,000 islands.
Your skipper and crew take you out through the inner islands, stopping on Fjäderholmarna for lunch before continuing further east into the outer archipelago where the islands become smaller and the water opens up.
A flight north from Stockholm takes you to Lulea, the gateway to Swedish Lapland. From the airport, a private transfer takes you into the forest to Arctic Retreat, a lodge of log cabins sitting above the Råne River in one of the most undisturbed stretches of boreal forest in Europe. The lodge is in Lappland in the traditional sense, and the life it is built around reflects that.
On the first full day, Do Not Disturb arranges a canoeing excursion in the Råne River Valley. The beaver population in this stretch of the river is one of the most established in Swedish Lapland, and the excursion is built around paddling quietly through the river’s more remote channels in an attempt to get close to them on the water. The beavers are most active in the early morning and in the hours before dark.
The second day is centreed on brown bears. A naturalist guide takes you by vehicle into the forest to a purpose-built hide, where you wait and watch for bears moving through their natural range. Brown bears in Swedish Lapland emerge from hibernation in April and May, and summer is the season when they are most active and most visible. Do Not Disturb can arrange for those who want to stay overnight in the hide, which gives the best chance of a sighting in the low light of the early morning.
The third day is at leisure at the lodge, with time in the spa, on the river or simply in the forest.
The last full day in Lapland is unscheduled by design. The forest around Arctic Retreat operates at its own pace and the lodge is built for those who want to sit with that rather than fill every hour.
A morning walk along the river bank before breakfast, time in the spa, a final hour in the sauna, or simply coffee on the cabin deck with the trees on three sides. The lodge’s kitchen prepares a farewell dinner that evening, with a menu built around Arctic produce and the ingredients of the surrounding forest and river.
The following morning, a private transfer takes you through the forest and back to Lulea Airport. Depending on your international routing, you may have a few hours in Stockholm on the way home. Do Not Disturb can build a stopover into the return if you want one last evening in the city, or connect you through to your home airport with as few stops as possible.
Do Not Disturb handles the full return routing from Lulea to your departure city, including any Stockholm stopover, transfers and onward connections.
Spend time with Sami hosts in Swedish Lapland, learning about reindeer herding, seasonal migration, and a culture that has shaped life across northern Scandinavia for thousands of years.
Experience one of Sweden's oldest wellness traditions on a private island surrounded by the Baltic Sea.
Experience traditional Finnish smoke sauna and ice immersion at Lake Saimaa with a master sauna practitioner.
A private yacht journey through the Stockholm Archipelago offers access to islands, anchorages, and coastal communities beyond the reach of standard sightseeing routes. With more than 30,000 islands scattered across the Baltic Sea, the experience reveals a side of Sweden best understood from the water.
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