Ice Hotel

It sounds like a very nice and romantic place to be. Discovery channel did a special on it. The ICEHOTEL is built and rebuilt every year with thousands of tons of ice and snow in the little village of Jukkasjârvi in northern Lapland, Sweden.

Intro taken from its website:

In Swedish Lapland, 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, lies the village of Jukkasjärvi on the River Torne. Jukkasjärvi in Saami (Lappish) means "meeting place ", which is what the former Saami village has been for half a millennium. ICEHOTEL AB, the company that runs ICEHOTEL, has worked with tourism since the mid 1970s, and offers a wide range of activities such as white-water rafting, fishing, visits to a Saami camp, reindeer and dogsledding tours. Before ICEHOTEL, very few tourists came to Jukkasjärvi during the long, dark, cold and snowy winters. In 1989 however, Jukkas AB (now ICEHOTEL AB) decided to look upon winter as an asset instead.

A review from an English traveler:

Finally been & done it! It took a hell of a lot of organising, but tying everything up before going was well worth it. Doing it outside a travel agent also paid off big time! If you book the package through an agent you are tied to the trips they include. Often too long & before your ready & have acclimatised. You need 3 days. A good idea if you make your stay in the Ice Hotel itself, your 2nd night. You can then look at the Suites when your shown around & request one particular that you like. It may not be available but you could be lucky. It is despite the extra cost a very good idea to have a warm hotel room (Kaamos) as well as the Ice Hotel. This gives you somewhere to rest & relax, otherwise your things are in a locker in the warm,changing,Loo area. The night you stay in the Ice Hotel you can get your room after 6.30 pm all visitors leave by then. However it is Minus 5 & you can't take your things in your room as they would freeze. So you find most people busy with activities or The Vodka Ice Bar until it is time to sleep. You then collect a sleeping bag & liner to take to your room. You undress in the changing room & make a b-line for your bed & bag! It is quite comfortable & snug once in, but the mattress is hard!!! That actually bothered me much more than the cold. If you haven't slept ina sleeping bag since you were a child? It is a little claustrophobic, but the rooms are lovely. Good idea to sit warmly clothed & lie looking around "it is lovely" We had a suit, & it was worth the extra money. We had a drape of Ice with patterned snow flakes & free Fall written in with the bed cut in to the wall around 4 feet off the ground. It all glistens & sparkles & is an experience. You can turn your light off at the edge of the bed & they wake you between 7.30-8am with a hot fruit drink a little like Ribena. Booking the Hot tub privately is also a good idea. sitting in hot water with minus 30 plus outside & often snowing "is lovely" looking at the stars. Make sure you get the temperature right before you leap in & be aware it is much hotter at the bottom than on the surface! I got roasted & had to get out while my partner spent 20 mins pilling Ice & snow in to get the temperature down. Add more logs after your in & adjusted. The trips are very very expensive for us. ( the Swedes earn around 4 times our salary, so its about the same as it would be here for us, but as we are on much smaller incomes, it feels hard. An hour & a half Snowmobile (not to be missed!) is around £95.00 The Hot tub private around £75 (book last of the day & they will leave you until whenever. We came out around 3 in the morning, no one bothered us. The same with the Dog Sled again around £80-90 I think for an hour & a half. The 3 & a half hour trips & overnights out are much more expensive again. But your away from the Ice Hotel for a long time. OK if you have 3 days, but with 2 your not going to see it all. Better you book the outings the days after you arrive, you will have accustomed yourselves to the temperature better & got the feel of how much clothing you need. They say 3 layers. Believe me if your Dog Sledding Snowmobile you need more, especially on your feet & hands. You will need a face mask! Scarf around your chest & at least 2 pairs of socks. The little heat pads you get in the ski shops are a good idea, especially if you suffer from cold extremities!.. A meal for 2 in the restaurant will cost the best part of £100 with no booze! There is nothing else in the town. Apart from a little supermarket & believe it or not a Hamburger take away caravan! But at minus 30 ish it's gonna be cold before you start.! We bought stuff in the supermarket & made sandwiches Hot chocolate & cake in our hotel room. There are tea/coffee things & a hairdryer. The restaurant closes at around 11pm so the night you go to the Theatre "if you do" you won't get in to the restaurant. They are helpful they will make & leave sandwiches for you. The menu is mainly Fish & Reindeer. My partner won't eat either. they did Chicken for him on request. No problem Breakfast is wonderful the bread is fresh made with fresh yeast, there is so much, if you eat well, to be honest you really don't need much else!... We went in to Kiruna, there is very little there. Nothing of any particular interest. A supermarket a linen.tableware shop, a very nice tea rooms with good food & a nice Coffee/Chocolate/gift shop run by an extremely sweet Gay guy who is so, so helpful & very amusing! It cost around £20 each way in a cab although there are buses. Believe me you don't want to stand around waiting in that weather! In the Village by the Ice Hotel there is a nice little church & beside there a plot of land the Sami people keep a few tents & reindeer. Sadly at a distance these were the only ones we saw. You need to go up in the the mountains with them on a trip to see more. Beware very cold. Hotel room are very warm & cosy, lovely & clean. When you start getting booted & suited to go out "it will become unbearable!!!" As you dress open the windows & doors let it air & freeze down to make it comfortable to dress. As you leave shut up again It will be cosy again when you get back. Drinks are around £7 a time, ice bar or bar anywhere in fact. Beer more than £5, so be prepared. Just to let you know we went to Stockholm on the way. The round trip plus the Grand 5 star Hotel was around 4oo each which was great Stockholm very nice . We will definitely go again & spend longer, but it made a good start to the Kiruna trip & also helped greatly with cost. Thistle Hotel groups tour operator on-line lets you book round trip with days away! So they did our round flights although we only stayed with them for the 2 days in Stockholm & then went off to Kiruna buying the tickets Stockholm-Kiruna-Stockholm. Great time. I would do it again & change little that I organised!. There is a train to Kiruna from Stockholm over night & I think I would add a day to do that next time "simply for the views!" Had too much trouble finding out how to book this time. But I think would be worth the try. Hope this helps. Sam

Unlike the visitors, I'm really interested in actually living there. Imagine with the vehicles I have (in my dream), especially the WRC STi, I can slide on ice for a very long time. A constant subzero temperature, now that warms my heart.


ICEHOTEL English page
360 degree panoramic view
more reviews from other travelers
Pictures from websites, here and here.