How to Pack To Stay Warm In Lapland

I’ve had a lot of questions about what to wear in Lapland. Were we warm enough? Are clothes expensive? And most of all, how did we pack 5 people's snowsuits in one case?! I think when you book a winter holiday we all overthink the cold. Seeing the temp before we went at -20 or more, I didn’t know how we were going to cope.

But first things first, the cold doesn’t feel the same as the UK cold. I know that sounds silly but it’s a different cold. Maybe it’s because we were all wrapped up properly and in England, I half the time forget my coat 🫣

Before buying anything I read a lot of Facebook posts saying that thermals couldn’t be cotton as cotton holds the sweat. Who knew that something labelled as thermal might not be any good as thermal? We started buying stuff in the summer when the winter items were on sale. Someone on a Facebook page actually posted a code to get half-price off sale items in Decathlon. Saved us hundreds of pounds! Thermals were from £3.99 each. The kids ski suits were £22 each, the boots were £15, we oversized on everything so we could wear it again. What I couldn’t find in the sales I brought on Vinted. In total I spent no more than £250 on everything for all 5 of us! And everything is nicely packed away ready to reuse it again on our next trip in February.

So the trick to keeping warm is layering.

• Base layer

• Middle layer

• Outer layer

For the base layer, I recommend a wedze thermal top and thermal trousers. As said before not cotton against the skin. Polyester ones will do. Add a normal pair of socks before you add the thick ones too.

The middle layer can be normal clothing. My daughter and I wore leggings and the boys wore joggers. The Primark fleece-lined leggings were really cosy and warm. I also brought fleece PJs from Primark which they wore some days. Top half we had normal jumpers/hoodies/fleeces. Top with thick ski socks, the Merino ones we found were the best.

For the outer layer, the youngest two had all-in-one ski suits. I read that if they were rolling around in the snow it wouldn’t creep up their backs, not that they did much of that 🤣

Myself, partner, and son wore salopettes (ski trousers) and a ski jacket. We all wore a nice cozy hat, and normal cheap gloves with mittens or ski gloves on top. We all had snoods each too. Boots were just cheap waterproof snow boots. Went for the cheapest I could find for us all, did the job and was warm.

You might wonder how I got all this in this case. The answer is I didn’t. The all-in-one suits were shoved in with our car seat luggage bag (you can see it here) in the hold along with ski trousers. We wore our jackets and boots on the plane. I saw a lot of families do the same thank god as I was worried we may look a bit silly! I only packed 2 sets of thermals and middle layers each, a couple extra for the toddler. We all know how messy they can be. In my hand luggage, I packed one set of thermals, hats, and gloves ready for landing in Finland. We had a vacuumed packing bag which helped save a lot of space too. (you can get them here)

So there you have it, my long-winded blog on cold weather and clothes in Finland. I hope this helps everyone prepare for their magical holiday.