One family experienced the magic of Lapland in just 7 hours (Image: Handout)
Lapland in Finland, famously the home of Santa Claus, is one of the most popular destinations to visit during the festive season, with its enchanting snow-draped forests and roaming reindeer creating its pristine white winter wonderland backdrop. To experience the magic for themselves, one family flew to Lapland on a private jet for a whirlwind seven-hour day trip.
It might sound like a rather drastic plan, all in the name of some festive merriment in the Arctic wilderness, but with 189 people joining Karianne Brown, her husband, Allen, and eight-year-old daughter, Jessica, it was the ultimate ticket to Santa’s Homeland. And it all started with a Facebook group called Extreme Day Trips.
Launched by Michael Cracknell a few years ago, Extreme Day Trips is all about organising day excursions from the UK to locations across Europe, whether that’s a beach getaway to Ibiza or a city break in Prague. It provides efficient travel for those wanting to explore somewhere new within 24 hours, and allows groups of people of all ages to explore together.
The family flew to Enontekiö, Finland (Image: Handout)
With 189 people booked onto the bucket-list Lapland trip, it was more cost-effective to charter a private plane rather than have each individual fly commercially. This saw Karianne, her family, and 186 others fly from Gatwick Airport to Finland on Saturday, 29 November 2025, on their private jet, complete with a scrambled eggs, ham, mushrooms, and potato-onion rosti breakfast on board!
One of the most popular places to visit in Lapland is Rovaniemi, but in a bid to avoid the touristy hotspot, the group travelled to Enontekiö – a quieter yet equally stunning part of the magical wilderness. Speaking exclusively to the Express about the trip, Karianne, 46, also known as Kari, said: “It was beautiful. It was just like a forest and snow.”
After arriving at around 2pm local time, following a three-hour flight and having just missed the sunset, they took a short drive to the small village of Hetta in Enontekiö, where they enjoyed a lengthy list of unforgettable experiences. “We met with Santa, went on a husky experience, a reindeer sleigh ride and snowmobile, as well as downhill sledging and snowball fights,” the pharmacy technician and YouTuber from Sussex said.
They met with Santa during the extreme day trip (Image: Handout)
“We actually did the snowmobiling and the husky racing on a frozen lake.” Noting a particular highlight from the day, Kari shared, “My family and I were the last ones to do the husky ride, and it was almost pitch black. It was moonlit, and it was absolutely stunning.”
They were even provided with thermal boots and suits to wear during their day trip. The festive fans also had plenty of free time to go sledging down the snowy hills and wander around the gift shop for a spot of Christmas shopping.
Additionally, they were provided with dinner of salad, bread and butter, pasta and minced-meat bolognese in a warm canteen ‘kitchen’, along with unlimited refreshments of warm berry juice and biscuits throughout the day. “There were little warming huts and pit fires, where you could toast marshmallows,” Kari added.
“It was amazing, it felt, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to go really quick, we’re not going to have enough time to do anything, ‘ but also it was long enough to do everything we wanted. I also think, if you have kids with you as well, they might have got too cold and bored if it were longer, but it was short and snappy. If they hated an experience, it wasn’t a problem because they didn’t have to do it for very long, but if they loved it, they could do it again.”
They even went snowmobiling (Image: Handout)
Sharing her one regret from the trip, Kari said, “I think there was an option that if everyone in the group had done the activity, you could go back and do it again, but I didn’t find this out until a few days later. But we were quite lucky with the weather as it had been -22C earlier in the week, but it was only -5C when we went.”
After the once-in-a-lifetime experience, the group returned to Gatwick at around 11 pm.
“When we came back, everyone I’ve spoken to had an amazing time, really, really enjoyed it,” Kari said. “It was phenomenal and absolutely brilliant. It was something that not everybody gets to do. I think my daughter is probably one of the first children in her school to go to Lapland. It’s something I would have loved to have done as a child, but it wasn’t even on my radar.”
Making it even more special, Kari and her husband kept the trip a secret from their daughter for six months until revealing the night before that they would be flying to Lapland. The mum shared, “She was so excited, and on Monday morning, we hadn’t even got through the school gates when she was saying, ‘Guys, guess what I did at the weekend’. It was a perfect age for her as well.”
Kari said the trip was, ‘phenomenal and absolutely brilliant’ (Image: Handout)
This particular trip to Lapland was booked through Gnome and Away Travel, with an additional travel organiser arranging the activities. The cost of the trip was £589 per adult and £559 per child, which includeded return flights with hot meals, coach transfers, a private family meeting with Santa (including a small gift for the children), husky experience, snowmobile adventure (drivers licence required to drive), a reindeer sleigh ride, downhill sledging and snowball fun, dinner, and the loan of thermal suits and boots.
This isn’t the first trip, Kari, who is an admin of the Extreme Day Trips Facebook group, has taken, with exciting day trips to Switzerland, Bucharest, Barcelona, Dublin, and Poland. Due to flight times, they often travel to destinations across Europe.
There’s even talk of taking a whirlwind trip to New York for the day, with overnight flights, along with other European day trips that are available for anyone to join. Kari said, “People are finding that going away in the school holidays is so expensive, so we don’t have to worry quite so much because we can go at weekends and during an insert day.
“Rather than spending 14 nights around a pool, you go to 14 different places. It’s great, and it’s for everybody. We’ve got families, single and solo travellers, older people and young. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who doesn’t want to do it.”
For more information on Extreme Day Trips, you can visit their Facebook group. You can also find Kari’s YouTube page, where she will be posting the vlog from their trip to Lapland.
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