Kiruna itineraries for three, five and seven days

7 min read Updated October 2026 Compare all tours

Most winter visitors stay in Kiruna for somewhere between a long weekend and a week. The three plans below are built around a few fixed points: the short daylight, which decides when outdoor tours make sense, the late evening, when the aurora is most active, and the distances to Jukkasjärvi and Abisko. Places to sleep are given only as Kiruna, Jukkasjärvi or Abisko, so you can fit the plan to wherever you have booked.

What shapes every plan

Daylight comes first. In Kiruna the sun does not rise from 11 December to 1 January, and on 21 December there is twilight between 08:56 and 14:18. By 1 February the sun is up from 08:56 to 14:50, and by 1 March from 06:59 to 16:45. Husky rides, snowmobile trips and the drive to Abisko belong in these hours, which leaves the evenings free for the sky.

The aurora is usually strongest between about 21:00 and 23:00, but clouds sit below it and can hide it completely. One evening tour gives you one chance. Plans that spread aurora evenings across the stay leave room to move a tour when the forecast looks poor. Nights in Abisko add to the odds, since the Swedish Tourist Association describes a local weather effect there that often brings clear skies when the area around is cloudy. More on reading the sky is on our northern lights page.

The arrival day is short in most cases. Flights from Stockholm Arlanda take about 90 minutes, and the airport bus leaves after every arrival for the nine-kilometre ride into town. The night train from Stockholm needs around 14 hours. Flights, trains and connections are covered under getting to Kiruna.

A long weekend in three days

Three days give you one day in Jukkasjärvi, one morning with dogs and two evenings for the aurora. Stay in Kiruna, where nearly every tour picks up its guests.

• Day 1. Arrive, take the bus into town and look around the new centre near the tourist center at Malmvägen 9B. In the evening a short aurora chase by van takes 3.5 hours, so you are back in bed at a reasonable time.
• Day 2. Spend the morning in Jukkasjärvi. A guided half day from Kiruna spends about 70 minutes at the Icehotel, visits the Sámi museum with its reindeer and ends with a walk through the village. In the evening, a minibus tour heads towards Abisko National Park and changes its route to find a clear sky; it takes 4.5 hours and accepts guests from 12 years.
• Day 3. Book a husky ride for the morning. Passenger tours of 2.5 to 3 hours leave the afternoon free for the flight home, since the airport is only about nine kilometres from the centre.

If your weekend falls between Tuesday and Saturday, the LKAB visitor mine is an option for the second or third afternoon. Its public winter tours usually start at 14:00 from the tourist center, last about three hours and go down to the 540 m level inside the mountain.

Five days with time for reindeer and a snowmobile

Five days allow a slower pace. The first two days can follow the long weekend above. On the third day, use the light hours for a snowmobile tour. Jukkasjärvi Vildmarks Turer rides through the Torne river valley with a coffee break in a hut, and Explore Arctic runs daytime rides of about two hours on the machine with at most four snowmobiles. On the river valley tour you need a car driving licence to drive, while the Explore Arctic rides offer a seat in a sled for guests without one.

The fourth day belongs to the reindeer. Giron Reindeer, a Sámi family business, welcomes guests at its farm in the village of Rávttas, 20 km northwest of Kiruna, for feeding, a reindeer sled ride, lasso throwing and a lunch with reindeer meat. The tour takes about three hours and collects you in central Kiruna. Our page on reindeer and Sámi culture lists other hosts. Use that evening for your second aurora tour.

On the last day there is room for the longer self-drive husky tour of five hours, which includes soup, sandwiches and fika at the kennel in Kalixforsbron. Keep it for a day with an evening flight or another night in town.

A five-day trip is also a good length for a night in Jukkasjärvi. Overnight guests at the Icehotel get into their rooms from 18:00, when the building closes to day visitors, and the rooms stay at around minus 5 degrees. Several tours on this page collect guests at the Icehotel as well as in Kiruna. The village itself is described on our Jukkasjärvi page.

Seven days with nights in Abisko

A week lets you split the stay between Kiruna and Abisko, 93 km to the northwest. The table shows one way to do it. Days one to three follow the long weekend in a slightly different order, and the Abisko part runs from day four to day six.

SJ trains run between Kiruna and Narvik every day of the year and stop at Abisko Turist, the station inside the national park. Buy the tickets online in advance, because they are not sold at the station or on board. The bus from Kiruna bus station to Abisko Turist takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Regional line 91 serves the route only in its seasons; the tourist office gives February to April on one page and February to May on another, so check the dates before you rely on it. From December, Visit Abisko also runs a shared transfer from Kiruna and the airport to the hotels in Abisko and Björkliden.

From Abisko Turist it is about 800 metres to the STF mountain station and the naturum visitor centre, and around ten minutes on foot to the chairlift of the Aurora Sky Station. Its night visits run from 19 October 2026 to 27 March 2027, from 20:30 until 01:00 at the latest. The chairlift can close in bad weather, which is why the plan keeps a second aurora evening on day five.

The daytime tours in Abisko are short, about two hours each, and they pick up only at accommodation in Abisko. A guided morning hike follows the river canyon for 3 to 4 km and is not suitable for children under 7. On the snowmobile tour through the Abisko valley, drivers need to be 18 with a valid licence. More ideas for the park are on the Abisko National Park page.

If you prefer one base for the whole week, the Abisko and Björkliden day trip from Kiruna covers the canyon, the Silver Waterfall and lunch in Björkliden in six hours. Our day trips page compares it with the other tours out of town.

Adjusting the plans to the month

In December the outdoor tours run in twilight, and the Icehotel opens its winter season during the month. Late January brings the Kiruna Snow Festival, held on the last weekend of the month since 1986; in 2027 it starts on 27 January, and the snow sculptures on Stadshustorget fit into any town day. In February and March the days grow quickly, and from March the light lasts well into the afternoon. The Aurora Sky Station night visits end on 27 March, and most winter activities stop around mid-April, when the snow begins to go. The month-by-month details are on our best time to visit page, and getting around Kiruna explains the local buses and taxis between tours.