Lunch at Kultahippu in Ivalo, a night at Holiday Village Inari, a morning on Lake Inari. Visit Inari's hotels, cabins and tours in Inari and Ivalo.
The Aurora Swing on the shore at Holiday Village Inari on an October morning.
I drove north from Saariselkä in October, and when I reached Ivalo around midday, I pulled in at Hotel Kultahippu for lunch. By evening I was in Inari, and I spent the night in a cabin with its own sauna at Holiday Village Inari. In the morning I stood on the shore and watched the sky begin to glow over Lake Inari. I had breakfast at Hotel Inari in the village centre.
All three places belong to Visit Inari, a family business from Inari. The family started out in the early 1980s with ski and reindeer safaris, and today the company runs two hotels, cabins and activities all year round.
You will find Kultahippu|kultahippu in the centre of Ivalo on the riverbank, and it is only just over ten kilometres from the airport. I ate lunch at a window table in the dining hall, which has a big stone fireplace at one end. Lunch is a buffet, and the à la carte menu has northern specialities and the head chef's own dishes. The day's lunch menu is on Kultahippu's website|kultahippu_lounas.
Visit Inari bought Kultahippu, including the property, in autumn 2025. "Our aim is to combine Kultahippu's unique history and atmosphere with the wide range of activities we have been building up for years", managing director Tommi Lappalainen said at the time of the purchase.
The rooms are in three buildings. The original Kultahippu has been fully renovated, the Jokiranta riverside extension was completed in spring 2018, and Pankkila occupies a restored former bank building.
Hotel Kultahippu in the centre of Ivalo.
I spent the afternoon walking round Inari village and the Sámi Museum Siida, and by the time I stopped at Visit Inari's illuminated sign in the evening, it was already dark.
Holiday Village Inari|lomakyla is on the shore of Lake Inari beside Highway 4, so it makes an easy base for drives north and into Norway. My cabin was one of the Inari Sauna Suites|sauna_suite completed in 2022. The door opened onto a small kitchen. Behind it was a living room with a sofa bed and a separate bedroom, and next to the bathroom there was a sauna of my own as well.
Down on the shore you can also book the Aurora Sauna & Hot Spring|aurora_sauna by the hour, with an outdoor hot tub to step into after the sauna.
Visit Inari's illuminated sign in Inari on an October evening.
The living room of an Inari Sauna Suite.
In the morning the grass was white with frost, and when an orange glow lit up over the lake a little after eight, mist rose off the water and further out on the lake a single boat was moving.
On the shore at the Holiday Village stands the Aurora Swing|aurora_swing. From it you can watch the northern lights over the frozen lake in winter and the midnight sun in summer. That October morning, the lake behind the swing lay still. The water's edge was already under a thin layer of ice.
You can see the same shore before you go, too: the Holiday Village's camera streams a live feed|webcam from Lake Inari around the clock.
Hotel Inari|hotelli_inari is in the village centre, half a kilometre from the Holiday Village. Attached to it is Restaurant Aurora|ravintola_aurora, whose windows look out over Lake Inari towards Juutuanvuono bay.
The Holiday Village cabins and Lake Inari at sunrise.
In the early 1980s Tapani Lappalainen and his father began organising ski and reindeer safaris and outdoor lunches for groups. His own company was set up in 1994, and when Tapani's eldest sons, Tommi and Tuomas, joined as owners in 2015, the company took the name Visit Inari Oy.
Alongside the family, the company employs tourism professionals, most of them local. The company says it follows the Sámi Parliament's ethical guidelines for tourism in the Sámi homeland, and that it favours local suppliers in its purchasing and local food in its kitchen.
In winter there is plenty to choose from: huskies and reindeer|huskyt_porot, snowmobile safaris|moottorikelkat, snowshoe and ski trips, ice fishing and northern lights tours|revontuliretket by car, by snowmobile or with reindeer. In summer and autumn you can head out on a cruise on Lake Inari|risteily, take a river boat to Lemmenjoki|lemmenjoki, go white-water rafting on the Juutua or go hiking. The husky farm|huskytila is open to visitors in summer too, and the northern lights tours start as early as September.