How to spend 1 day in KEMI, Finland
Activities in Kemi
So… as I said, you can do a lot of activities depending when are you visiting. There are two options I found when planning, depending on the weather: warm days, and winter activities.
In this description I will include the 🎫ticket prices and my own experience.
Activities all year round
Snow Experience 365
An awesome indoor snow castle with ice slide. This place can be visited all year. As a young adult I had a lot of fun: I tried the slide, the royal ice bedchamber 😅 you can take your drink and drink it inside the “castle”. If you are travelling with kids, it will be an unforgetable experience.
Take note, that you will get a daily ticket which means that you can go inside and if you are cold, you can get out to warm up then get back later. I think this is awesome.
🎫 prices (2024 autumn)
15 EUR adult
13 EUR student
PS: if you are visiting in the winter, tickets can change because they will have an outside castle as well.
Takajärvi Beach
Beach with beautiful forest view. You can also take a picnic, go for a walk or just ride around with a bicycle.
Bicycle renting in Kemi is very cheap and you can read more about it if you access this link:
And don’t forget to visit Kivilonka, which is a historical landmark near the beach.
Location:
Bike ride
You can rent a bike and go cycling on the coast or ride to several parks, city attractions:
Just go for a walk
In Kemi, as in all of Finland, there are a lot of nature-close places. You can take a walk in the city, visiting the main street and grab a coffee, or just walk around the coastline, admire the buildings and the nature.
Visit the museum
You can visit Kemi’s historical museum.
Winter activities
As in Lapland, in Kemi there are a lot of winter activities. Some of them are pricey, but unique, on the other hand, there are some activities which can be done all year. In this section I will present you the activities that only can be done during winter.
Visit the Ice Castle
As I said previously, the snow castle can be visited all year, but during winter they have an outside ice castle.
Sampo trips
Just go icebreaking!
Unfortunately I couldn’t go because there was no ice and snow in late October, but you should definitely try it!
How did we spend 1 day in Kemi
We arrived early in the morning with the Santa Express so our first thing was to get breakfast and drink a cup of coffee.
We did this at Cafe Hertta Kemi, where the staff was very nice, the place cozy and the food delicious. I totally recommend for everyone.
After breakfast we checked-in at our accommodation which was Villa Kemi. A cozy, modern, finnish home. They have more room options on booking, with all the facilities you need for a few days.
As an extra, they have two saunas on different floors. If you want to use it, just go for it! It’s included in the price.
Check the booking link ⬇️
As a quick city tour we checked some locations by walk about which I talked at the beginning of this little guidebook.
Unfortunately, at late October there is no snow, so we didn’t get to go to the ice-breaker adventure. Even though, we had a really good time to walk around the city and get to know the atmosphere.
Aurora Borealis hunting
As for the night, we went outside to catch the auroras. I used the app called ‘Aurora Realtime’ (link below) and there was a perfect place for hunting in Kemi.
GPS koordinates: (65.7246695, 24.5585907)
Where to eat
Cafe Hertta Kemi
They have the best local pastries I’ve eaten so far. It’s a very cozy place near the train station.
Prices 💵
You can buy caffe from 3,50 EUR (espresso), 4 EUR (americano), and other bevages above 4 EUR: kaakao, cafe latte, chai latte and so on.
As for the pastries, there are cookies, kuivakakku, pulla and anything traditional/seasonal. The prices for the pastries are 2,5 EUR or more.
If You come earlier, you can even get your tasty breakfast here. In the weekdays for 12 EUR, on the weekends for 14 EUR.
Kalle’s Burger
Here you can find a lot of specialties and some ordinary burgers too. I totally recomend for a quick eating.
Restaurants serving traditional food
Here are the restaurants serving that are serving local food. Here you have to think about fish dishes, cheese specalities and other type of meat.
Bars
Kemi is a little city, so you won’t have a lot of options for choose, but here are some possibilities:
The home for unique & authentic travel
