Yes. You can travel from Zurich to the glass igloos of Finnish Lapland entirely by train and ship, with three nights on board, and the fastest realistic routing reaches Rovaniemi on the morning of the fifth day, roughly three and a half days after leaving Zurich. The route is Zurich to Hamburg by night train, on to Copenhagen and Stockholm by day, the overnight ferry to Helsinki, and the Santa Claus Express sleeper north to the Arctic Circle.
The longer answer involves which way to cross the Baltic, how far the igloos really are from the railway, and whether every leg is worth doing overland.
The route at a glance
Five legs, three nights on board and one sea crossing. Times are typical at the time of writing and change every year, so treat them as a shape rather than a booking.
| Leg | Operator | Typical time | Night on board |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zurich to Hamburg | ÖBB and SBB Nightjet (NJ 470) | Evening to morning, about 9 to 10 hours | Yes |
| Hamburg to Copenhagen | DB and DSB EuroCity Express | About 4 hours 40 | No |
| Copenhagen to Stockholm | SJ | About 5 to 6 hours, often one change | No |
| Stockholm to Helsinki | Viking Line or Tallink Silja | Late afternoon to next morning, about 17 hours | Yes |
| Helsinki to Rovaniemi | VR Santa Claus Express | Evening to morning, about 12 hours | Yes |
Zurich to Stockholm: the long day across the north
The journey starts well. Since December 2025 the Zurich to Hamburg service has used the new generation of Nightjet carriages, running as NJ 470, and SBB lists the full range of accommodation: standard and deluxe sleeping cars, Comfort and Comfort Plus cabins with their own toilet and shower, couchettes, and the new solo and couple mini cabins. Tickets go on sale up to 360 days ahead, and fares are on nightjet.com. For a journey of this length I would book a cabin with its own shower. You will not see a hotel bathroom again until Copenhagen.
From Hamburg the train to Copenhagen takes about four hours forty, routed the long way round through Jutland because the old train ferry across the Fehmarn Belt stopped carrying trains in 2019 and the tunnel that replaces it is not yet open. From Copenhagen, SJ runs on to Stockholm in roughly five to six hours depending on the departure, frequently with a change in southern Sweden.
Hamburg to Stockholm in one day off the night train is possible, but you arrive late and tired. A night in Copenhagen makes the outbound journey feel like travel rather than transit. [PAU: add personal note on Copenhagen as an overnight stop, if you have one]
Crossing the Baltic: ferry to Helsinki or night train north
Stockholm is where the route forks, and the right branch depends on what you are travelling for.
Option one: the ferry and the Santa Claus Express
This is the route to the glass igloos. Two companies sail Stockholm to Helsinki every night. Tallink Silja uses the Silja Serenade and Silja Symphony, leaving Stockholm in the late afternoon for a crossing of about seventeen hours, with cabins running from simple inside berths through Commodore class to suites. Viking Line sails the same route with Gabriella and Viking Cinderella, calling at Mariehamn in the Åland Islands, and at the time of writing its timetable reaches Helsinki around ten the next morning.
These are big cruise ferries with bars, shows and duty-free shopping rather than quiet ships, and they can be lively. Pay for a sea-view cabin in one of the upper categories and the experience changes considerably. [PAU: add personal note on Viking Line versus Tallink Silja, and which cabin you would book]
You then have a day in Helsinki before the night train. VR's Santa Claus Express is a double-decker sleeper with a restaurant car, wifi and breakfast brought to the cabin, and it can carry your car if you want one in Lapland. At the time of writing the main evening departure leaves Helsinki at about half past seven and reaches Rovaniemi a little after seven the next morning, but check the timetable on vr.fi for your date.
The cabin choice matters more than people expect. According to VR's night train page, there are two-person cabins on the lower deck, two-person cabins with their own shower and toilet on the upper deck, and a nostalgic three-person cabin. Private cabins start from €59 and cabins with a shower from €74, with no discounts on cabins. Book the upper deck. At those prices it is the cheapest luxury on the entire route.
Option two: the Swedish night train to Kiruna and Abisko
The alternative is to stay in Sweden and take SJ's night train from Stockholm up to Swedish Lapland. In 2026 passengers for Kiruna, Abisko and Narvik have had to change at Boden, but Trafikverket announced in June 2026 that SJ will run the service from December 2026 to December 2028 with daily sleeper and couchette cars to Narvik without a change. Check sj.se for the first departure dates before you book.
This is a wonderful route, ending on the Ofoten Railway down to the Norwegian fjords. It is not, though, the glass igloo route. The best-known glass igloo hotels are in Finnish Lapland, and getting from Kiruna across to them overland is slow. Pick the Swedish branch for the ICEHOTEL, Abisko and the Norwegian coast; pick the Finnish branch for the igloos.
Where the glass igloos actually are
This is the part that catches people out. The railway ends at Rovaniemi, and not every igloo is near it.
Arctic SnowHotel and Glass Igloos is the easy one. It sits outside Rovaniemi, about thirty minutes from the city centre and forty from the airport, with a shuttle at €20 per person each way. Its 39 glass igloos have heated 360° glass roofs, motorised beds, a private shower and an aurora alarm, and breakfast and the sauna are included. The igloos open from 1 September; the snow hotel itself opens on 15 December 2026.
Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort is the one most people picture, and it is a long way further north at Saariselkä. The resort's own transfer from Ivalo airport takes about forty minutes; from Rovaniemi it is a substantial road journey. Kakslauttanen offers small and large glass igloos with their own shower and sauna, a Kelo-Glass Igloo that pairs a log chalet with a glass-roofed bedroom, and larger units for groups, all available through the aurora season from about the third week of August to the end of April.
Levi, west of Rovaniemi, also has several glass igloo properties and works well if you want a ski resort with restaurants around you rather than a remote forest.
What does a night cost? Less transparently than I would like. Neither Kakslauttanen nor Arctic SnowHotel publishes a simple nightly igloo rate on its main pages. Kakslauttanen lists winter half-board accommodation from €501 a night, and rates move a great deal with the date, with Christmas and New Year the most expensive weeks. Get a quote for your exact nights before you build the trains around them. [PAU: add a realistic per-night range for two in a glass igloo, from your own supplier quotes]
When to go for the aurora
Visit Finland gives the season in Lapland as late August to early April, with September to October and February to March as the peak months, when the lights appear on about every second clear night. Visit Norway notes that the peak hours are often between 11 pm and 2 am.
My own preference is for late February and March. The aurora is active around the equinox, the nights are still long, and you get daylight back for the dogs, the snow and the landscape. I have written more about this in my practical guide to the Northern Lights in Norway, and the reasoning is the same in Finland. The lights are never guaranteed. Clear sky is the whole game, which is the strongest argument for three nights in one place rather than one night in an igloo on the way through.
A day-by-day for the outbound journey
My recommended pace, with two hotel nights. The fastest version skips Copenhagen and arrives a day earlier.
Day 1, Zurich. Board the evening Nightjet to Hamburg at Zurich HB.
Day 2, Hamburg to Copenhagen. Breakfast in Hamburg, then the EuroCity Express north through Denmark. Arrive in Copenhagen in the afternoon. Hotel night.
Day 3, Copenhagen to Stockholm. A morning departure with SJ across the Øresund and up through Sweden. Arrive in Stockholm by late afternoon. Hotel night.
Day 4, Stockholm. A free morning, then board the ferry in the late afternoon. Dinner on board as you pass through the archipelago.
Day 5, Helsinki. Dock in the morning. A full day in Helsinki, then the Santa Claus Express in the evening.
Day 6, Rovaniemi. Arrive early, transfer to the igloos, and sleep through the afternoon if you plan to stay up for the sky.
All the way by rail, or fly one leg?
My honest view: the outbound journey by rail is worth it, but only if the journey is part of the point. You trade two days for a run of genuinely good experiences, three of them at night. If you are coming from Zurich with a week of leave and the igloo is the whole reason, fly. The overland route would eat most of it. I make a similar argument in the case for night trains: they are brilliant when they replace a hotel night and a wasted day, and less brilliant when they replace a short flight you could have taken anyway.
The compromise that works best is to fly one way. Go out overland and fly home from Rovaniemi or Ivalo via Helsinki, or fly to Helsinki and keep only the Santa Claus Express, which is the most memorable night of the five legs anyway. For Kakslauttanen in particular, the railway leaves you a long way short, and flying into Ivalo is simply sensible.
This is also how I have built Alpina's Northern Lights Arctic Adventure. It is a nine-day journey across Finland, Sweden and Norway that begins with a flight into Rovaniemi and continues by rail, coastal ship and the Ofoten Railway, staying at the Treehotel, the ICEHOTEL in Kiruna, Tromsø, two nights on the Hurtigruten and the Snowhotel in Kirkenes. A day in Helsinki and the Santa Claus Express can be added at the start for anyone who wants the train north. [PAU: add personal note on why you start the itinerary in Rovaniemi rather than overland from Zurich]
If you are weighing up the whole route overland, write to me with your dates. The answer usually depends on how many nights you have.