Wilderness Hotel Inari: Aurora Cabins, Log Cabins, Prices and Is It Worth It

Updated 1 October 2026.

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At Wilderness Hotel Inari you fall asleep under a glass roof on the shore of Lake Inari, watching for the aurora from bed. On cloudy nights, the Sámi village of Inari and the Siida museum are just down the road.

What it is, and what it costs

The property belongs to the Wilderness Hotels group, which also runs Nellim and Muotka among others. Of those three, Inari is the least remote and the most practical: on the lake shore, five minutes from the village, with the Ukko restaurant serving Lappish food under a panoramic window over the water. Reception runs from 07:00 to 23:00. Accommodation is spread across cabins, semi-detached chalets and rooms in separate buildings.

A Wilderness Room for two was 264€ a night on 20 to 23 November 2026, and aurora cabins and chalets were 580 to 613€ on 15 to 18 January 2027. Christmas, the February ski-holiday week and early March were not on sale on the booking platforms, so ask the hotel for those dates. On 22 to 24 March 2027 a Wilderness Room was 312€ a night and the Arctic Chalet 563€, both with breakfast and dinner.

Rates are booking-platform prices per night for two adults, checked at the end of September 2026. Prices are for the 2026-27 season and change annually, so check current rates for your dates.

Cabins, chalets and rooms compared

Four accommodation types, and the difference between them is bigger than the names suggest.

In mid-January the Aurora Cabin was 580€ a night and the Arctic Chalet 613€, so the choice between them is not about price. The Aurora Cabin has a glass roof directly above the bed: if the aurora is the reason you are coming, that is the one to book. If you want floor space and a separate living area, the chalet gives you 44 m² instead of 29 m².

What a night includes

Breakfast depends on the rate you book. The constant is the Ukko restaurant: traditional Lappish cooking and a panoramic view over Lake Inari.

The alternative is the hotel’s own stay packages, sold in lengths of two to seven nights with breakfast or full board, from 670 to 2,511€ per person depending on length and season. Whether a given package includes transfers from Ivalo, activities and thermal clothing varies by package, and that is the thing to check line by line before you compare it with a room-only rate plus separately booked activities.

Where it is and how to get there

The hotel is 47 km by road north of Ivalo airport, and Saariselkä is about 70 km south. You can check flights on the airport’s own pages at Finavia. From the airport you have three options: a hire car, a paid transfer, or a package that includes the transfer.

The village itself is a five-minute hop from the hotel, and it holds more than its size suggests: Siida, the Sámi museum and nature centre, is the single best indoor day in Finnish Lapland and it is right there. The regional tourist board, Visit Inari-Saariselkä, lists what else is open in winter.

Aurora on Lake Inari

Lake Inari opens a wide, flat northern horizon straight off the hotel’s shore, and the village is small enough that light pollution is a non-issue once you walk away from the buildings. Aurora arcs low in the north before they climb, so a lake beats a forest, and a forest beats a resort with floodlit pistes. This is why aurora-first travellers keep going past Saariselkä to get here.

None of that guarantees anything. You need clear sky and geomagnetic activity on the same night, and the honest planning answer is to stay three nights minimum in the dark season. The Finnish Meteorological Institute’s aurora and space weather service is the forecast Finns actually check, not the app with the green push notifications.

Activities, and what they add

The hotel sells aurora camps and aurora hunts, husky safaris, snowmobile trips and ice fishing, all priced separately from the room unless you are on a package that names them. Budget for them separately: half-day safaris are the biggest line in most Lapland budgets after flights and beds.

For people who will not drive themselves out at midnight in −25°C (−13°F), a booked aurora camp or hunt is the difference between seeing something and sleeping through it.

Inari, Nellim or Muotka

Inari, Nellim and Muotka are the same company and sell the same style of glass-roofed aurora cabin. What differs is how far out you are and what is next door.

My reading: if this is a first trip to the far north, Inari is the sensible one of the three. Nellim and Muotka are quieter, with nothing next door, and on a bad weather week you will be inside the hotel with your own thoughts for four days. Inari gives you a museum, a village and a fallback.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

It suits aurora-first travellers, anyone coming for Sámi culture, and couples or small families who want a lake and a real place rather than a themed resort. It suits people who are comfortable being 47 km from the airport and further still from anything resembling nightlife.

Look elsewhere if you want ski lifts, which means Saariselkä or Levi, or if the trip is built around Santa, which means Rovaniemi. Also look elsewhere if you need the shortest possible transfer with small children in tow; Ivalo has options 15 minutes from the terminal, and in December that difference is worth money.

Practical warnings before you book

Two things catch people out. First, the distance. There is no walking to this hotel from a plane. Decide early between a hire car, a pre-booked transfer and a package with transfers, because the cheapest room plus two expensive taxi legs is not the cheapest holiday.

Second, May. The hotel is closed for the whole month, so a late-spring trip needs another base.

The alternatives

If Wilderness Hotel Inari is booked out or priced past your limit, four places compete for the same traveller. Aurora Village Ivalo sits about 15 minutes from Ivalo airport with glass-roofed cabins, which is the shortest transfer of the group. Northern Lights Village Saariselkä has glass-roofed cabins beside Saariselkä village and its ski slopes. Kakslauttanen is the famous one, with the glass igloos most people have seen in photographs. Star Arctic Hotel sits up on the Saariselkä fell with elevation and a view rather than a lake.

The trade is straightforward: Inari buys you darkness, a lake horizon and a Sámi village; the Saariselkä and Ivalo options buy you a shorter transfer and more to do in daylight.

When to book for the aurora season

Late November was the cheap end, with rooms from 264€ a night, and mid-January had aurora cabins at about 600€. If you are flexible, January is where aurora cabins are obtainable at ordinary rates. March stays take a two-night minimum.

If you are tied to Christmas or the February ski-holiday week, book as early as you can bear and ask the hotel directly. And if you are a family, put the log cabin in the basket first: it is the only unit that sleeps six.

How I researched this

Facts about the hotel, its seasons, the room types and the packages come from wildernesshotels.fi, read in September 2026. Booking.com showed no rates for this hotel, so the nightly rates are Agoda rates as shown on Google Hotels on 28 and 30 September 2026 for the dates named, two adults. Nobody from Lapland Trip Planner has stayed here; the verdict is a researched comparison, not a review.

Common questions

Written by Ville Laukkanen

Ville is a Finn who runs Lapland Trip Planner. The site is a researched planning guide: hotel rates come from Booking.com listings and activity prices from the operators' own pages, each dated, and nothing is presented as a personal stay or trip unless it was one.