Levi is Finland's ski capital and one of the country's major centres of Arctic tourism. At the foot of its fell (the rounded, bare hills typical of Lapland), deep in the north, is a modern resort village. It has dozens of slopes, chairlifts and a gondola, and it's surrounded by hotels, cabins and glass igloos. In winter Levi offers reliable snow for months, northern lights, husky and reindeer sleds, snowmobiles and a ski-resort atmosphere, après-ski included.
But Levi is about more than skiing. It's one of the best bases in Finland for the full Lapland experience. You can sleep under a glass roof waiting for the northern lights, learn about reindeer culture, cross snowy forests on a dog sled, and sweat it out in a sauna before plunging into the snow. In summer it becomes a green, peaceful destination for hiking, mountain biking, golf under the midnight sun and endless nature, at much friendlier prices.
This guide takes a practical look at Levi: how to get to this corner of the north, what to do in each season, what skiing and activities cost, how to get around the resort and how to make the most of it without overspending. One key point up front: the northern lights are NOT guaranteed. They depend entirely on the weather, so it's worth allowing several nights. And another: in high season you need to book everything (accommodation, ski passes, safaris) well in advance.
For centuries the Levi area, in the municipality of Kittilä, was home to the Sámi and to northern Finnish communities. They lived by reindeer herding, hunting and fishing in a very harsh Arctic environment. The name Levi comes from the fell that towers over the village. Ski tourism began to develop here in the second half of the 20th century, when Finland started to tap the winter potential of its northern hills. Over the decades Levi grew into the country's largest and most modern ski resort, and it hosts Alpine Skiing World Cup races. Today Kittilä and Levi show how tourism transformed the economy of rural Lapland, with all the challenges that brings. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great north of reindeer, northern lights and midnight sun: the land of the Sami people, the Lapland razed in 1944 and reborn, and the cities of the Baltic coast.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before the ski slopes, hotels and gondolas, the area where Levi stands today was, above all, Arctic land: a world of bare fells, stunted pine forests, lakes and rivers, swept by very long, dark winters and brief summers of endless sun. In this harsh setting lived the Sámi for thousands of years. They are the Indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, and they were in Lapland long before the Finnish state took shape and settlers arrived from the south.
The Sámi of this part of Lapland developed a culture closely adapted to the Arctic. Their way of life revolved around raising and herding reindeer, following the herds between winter and summer pastures, together with fishing in the lakes and rivers, and hunting. Their bond with the land, their knowledge of the climate and the animals, their language (one of several Sámi languages) and their traditions made up one of the oldest Indigenous cultures in Europe. The municipality of Kittilä, home to Levi, and the whole surrounding region are part of the historical Sámi homeland.
Over the centuries Finnish settlers also arrived. They made their homes in the area through subsistence farming, livestock and forestry, part of a wider settlement of the north that gradually displaced and put pressure on Sámi communities. Reindeer herding, however, remained central to the economy and identity of the north, and it still is today, practised by both Sámi and Finns. Levi takes its name from the fell that towers over today's village, Levitunturi. For a long time this corner of Lapland was a remote, sparsely populated place, where life was shaped by the reindeer, the extreme seasons and the struggle to survive at the northern edge of the world.
Like the rest of Lapland, the area around Kittilä and Levi was scarred by the end of the Second World War. Finland had fought the Soviet Union in the Winter War (1939-1940) and then allied with Nazi Germany in the Continuation War (1941-1944). In September 1944 it signed an armistice with the Soviets that required it to expel the German troops stationed in the north. The result was the Lapland War (1944-1945), fought between the former allies.
As the German army was forced to withdraw towards Norway, it carried out a brutal scorched-earth policy: it destroyed villages, farms, bridges and anything else that might be useful, and it laid mines. Much of Lapland was left in ruins. The civilian population of the north had been evacuated on a huge scale, hundreds of thousands of people along with their livestock, reindeer included. When they returned after the war, many found their homes and villages burnt to the ground. Rebuilding Lapland was an immense task that went on for years, backed by international aid and a huge national effort.
Those post-war years also set off a deeper transformation of northern Finland. Over the following decades the state invested in infrastructure, roads and development to bring Lapland into modern Finland. The traditional economy of reindeer, forestry and subsistence began to sit alongside new activities, and slowly an idea took root that would change the fate of places like Levi. Those snowy hills and endless winters, until then a hardship, could become a resource. The cold, the snow and the Arctic landscape, which for centuries had made life in the north so hard, were starting to be seen in a new light.
Levi's growth as a ski resort is a fairly recent story, tied to the rise of winter tourism in Finland during the second half of the 20th century. As the country modernised and people gained more free time and higher living standards, skiing took off. That meant cross-country skiing, deeply rooted in Finnish culture, and also the newer alpine skiing. The fells of Lapland, with reliable snow and broad slopes, were ideal for downhill skiing, even though they lacked the height and vertical drop of the Alps.
On Levi fell, next to the village of Sirkka (the original heart of today's Levi village, in Kittilä), the first lifts and slopes were built. A landscape once used for reindeer herding began to fill with chairlifts and drag lifts, and in time a gondola. A tourist village grew up around the slopes, with hotels, cabins, restaurants, rental shops and everything else a modern resort needs. Levi bet heavily on quality and variety, and over the decades it became the largest and most popular ski resort in Finland.
A major milestone was becoming a regular host of international competitions. Levi became a fixture on the Alpine Skiing World Cup calendar (slalom), which put the resort on the world sporting map and brought top-level investment and infrastructure. Snowmaking and the long natural season (November to May) allowed Levi to offer one of the longest ski seasons in the country. In just a few decades, a reindeer herders' fell had become one of Europe's leading winter resorts.
In recent decades Levi, like the rest of tourist Lapland, has seen a real boom in Arctic tourism that goes far beyond skiing. International travellers discovered the appeal of winter Lapland as a whole: the northern lights, husky and reindeer sledding, snowmobiles, glass igloos, saunas with a roll in the snow and the whole mystique of the far north. With its modern infrastructure, a nearby airport in Kittilä and its status as the country's biggest resort, Levi set itself up as one of the best bases for the full experience.
The kind of visitor changed too. Finnish and Scandinavian skiers were joined by tourists from across Europe, Asia and other continents, flying in on charter flights in search of snow, an Arctic Christmas and the northern lights. Glass-roofed igloo hotels went up, husky farms and safari companies multiplied, and the village grew to serve an ever busier high season. Tourism became the main economic engine of Kittilä, transforming a region that until recently had lived mostly from reindeer and forestry.
This success brought prosperity, but also challenges that Levi shares with other Lapland destinations: pressure on prices and housing in high season, extreme seasonality (an almost total reliance on winter), the environmental impact of so many activities and, above all, the big underlying threat of climate change, which puts at risk the snow, ice and cold that the whole model depends on. Striking a balance between making the most of tourism and protecting the nature and culture of the north, Sámi heritage included, is the big debate of today.
Today Levi is the largest and best-equipped ski resort in Finland and one of the country's top Arctic tourism destinations. With more than forty slopes, a gondola, plenty of lifts, snowparks, miles of cross-country trails and a season that runs from November to May, it's the benchmark for Finnish skiing. It caters to families and beginners as well as experienced skiers, and it hosts World Cup races. But like all of Lapland, Levi today is much more than skiing: it's a base for experiencing the Arctic winter in every form.
The village is modern and compact. It offers ski-in hotels, cabins, restaurants serving Lappish food, après-ski and all the logistics for the big experiences: northern lights hunting, husky and reindeer safaris, snowmobiles, nights in a glass igloo and saunas with a roll in the snow. In summer, when the snow is gone, Levi reinvents itself as a place for hiking, mountain biking, golf and the midnight sun. Prices are much lower and it's completely calm, showing the other side of the fell.
Behind the shiny resort, though, lies the memory of a much older place: the Sámi land of the reindeer, the winters of survival, the devastation of the Lapland War and the rebuilding of the north. Perhaps better than anywhere else in Finland, Levi sums up the transformation of modern Lapland. It went from a poor, remote frontier, where the cold was a hardship, to a global tourist destination, where that same cold and snow have become its greatest wealth. The big challenge for its future is to keep that success going without losing the nature, culture and balance that made it possible.
