Levi

Levi is one of the biggest winter sport resorts in Finland. It is in the Kittilä municipality in Lapland, by the village Sirkka. Levi is a very popular place among young people, and in addition to being a ski resort it is a significant nightlife centre for people from rural Lapland.



Understand


As a very prominent peak, the Levi fell was already known for its impressive views in the 19th century, but the area was completely roadless and hard to access. Lake Immeljärvi between the fells Levi and Kätkä has been a sacred place for the Sámi people for ages. Small-scale tourism to Levi started in the 1930s when the road from the south was completed. In those days, the visitors had to coach-surf; residing in the homes of the villagers was the only option. The first cottages for rent were built in the 1950s, and the first hotel, now called Hotel Levitunturi, was opened in 1981.

In the 1960s, downhill skiing became popular in Finland, and the Kittilä municipality built the first piste with a ski lift on the northern slope of the Levi fell in 1964. When a small airstrip in a forest near Kittilä village was enlarged for military purposes during the 1970s, making the strip large enough for commercial flights as well, things truly started to happen. Regular flights to Kittilä airport started in 1982 and the first international charter flights arrived in 1993, giving Levi a substantial customer potential. The great economic depression in the 1990s enabled a group of entrepreneurs in Levi to buy skiing resort equipment extremely cheaply from the bankrupted skiing resorts in southern Finland, prompting a boom in local business. In 2004, Levi hosted the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup for the first time, definitely making it a world-class winter sports resort.

While in 1980 there were just six people working for the municipality-owned ski lift company, in 2014 there were about 200 companies serving more than 600,000 visitors a year. Today, the resort has over 24,000 beds, making the tiny Sirkka village (fewer than 900 permanent residents in 2018) the second most populous place in Finnish Lapland during the winter (after Rovaniemi).

Summer activities in Levi are still of a small scale but the business is growing. For example, a full 18-hole golf course was opened in 2006.

By plane
is some 10 km south from Levi, 5 km north from the municipal centre. The airport has daily connections from Helsinki, and during season also a few regular services from elsewhere, and charters from the British Isles and Central Europe.

Most coaches coming from the south visit the airport on their route to Levi. Tunturilinjat operates a shuttle bus between Kittilä airport and Levi (price €8/adult) scheduled after the departures and arrivals. You can also use a taxi.

Rovaniemi airport is an other option, usually with more affordable flights.

By train
There are several daily trains from southern Finland to Rovaniemi. From the railway station you need to transfer to a bus, which waits next to the station. Overnight trains with sleeping cars and car-carrier wagons operate from Helsinki and Turku to Rovaniemi and from Helsinki to Kolari (getting from Turku to Kolari requires a transfer in Tampere, no car-carrier option). Tunturilinjat has a shuttle bus connections from Kolari railway station to Levi (€24/adult). The trip to Levi takes 2½ hours from Rovaniemi and 1 hr 15 min from Kolari.

By bus
Coaches operate from Helsinki to Levi via Lahti, Jyväskylä and Oulu, but the trip takes over 16 hours! You must change coaches in Rovaniemi, but there is plenty of time for that. The regular connection leaves Helsinki at 01:20 and arrives in Levi at 17:55. In the other direction coaches can be used to get in from Kilpisjärvi, Hetta and Muonio, and in summer there is also a service from Tromsø. See Matkahuolto for timetables, Eskelisen Lapinlinjat operates the one from Tromsø.

A ticket from Helsinki to Levi costs about €100/adult and from Rovaniemi about €32/adult.

By car
From southern Finland you can drive E8 or E75 to Oulu, from there either road: E75 to Rovaniemi and national road 79 to Levi, or E8 to Kolari and via national road 80 to Kittilä. The distance from Helsinki is about 1,000 km. If you start fairly early in the morning you can drive up to Levi in one day. During the winter season the traffic on the road 79 between Rovaniemi and Levi might be surprisingly high.

The best way from Denmark or further south in western Europe is the road E4 to Luleå, then road E10 to Överkalix, and then Swedish road 392 to Pajala and road 403 to Kolari. From Kolari the Finnish road 80 intersects with Finnish road 79 about 12 km south of Levi.

If you drive back to the south in winter, make sure you have good sunglasses and have windscreen and wipers in good condition, as the sun will shine in your eyes most of the time it is above the horizon.

Get around


Levi has a bus system called Ski Bus with two routes marked R1 and R2. Ski Bus runs from November to May. A Ski Bus ticket is included to the ski lift pass for €3/day. Otherwise, a day ticket for bus bought from ZeroPoint costs €4. From the bus you can only buy single ride tickets for €4 (2021). In the Levi centre you can easily walk or ski around.

For longer trips to the forests in the winter, you can use cross-country skis or hire a snowmobile. A driving licence is required (one for car or motorcycle suffices) at least on snowmobile "routes" (reitti – counted as public roads), while a permit must be bought for the snowmobile "tracks" (ura – the permit counts as landowner permission for the specific track network). Driving on rivers and lakes does not generally require licence or permit, but is restricted in many areas around Levi. Get directions and mind ice safety. Regardless, you must be 15 years old and sober, and use a helmet. You can probably get the permission via the rental business, but check. Be careful: it is easy to make fatal mistakes. Riding a snowmobile on a road is forbidden, with some minor exceptions (such as using a bridge).

There is an assortment of maps and directions, including info on current conditions on the routes. The skiing track and snowmobile route networks extend far from Levi – the former through the national park to Hetta, the latter to Koli in North Karelia and to Kilpisjärvi and Inari in the north. A map on snowmobile routes in Kittilä can be bought.

Cycling is a good option during summer. There is a map on bike routes available from Levi Bike Park, from where you can also find more information.

By taxi

 * Lähitaksi Levi +358 200 99200
 * Levi-Kittilän Taksit Oy +358 200 99800
 * Smartphone apps: Valopilkku, 02 Taksi, Taksini
 * Smartphone apps: Valopilkku, 02 Taksi, Taksini

See and do
Being a ski resort, Levi is much more about doing than seeing. The thing worth seeing is the landscape including Mt. Levi (Levitunturi).

Winter sports. There are 230 km of cross-country skiing tracks and 886 km of snowmobile routes. For alpine skiing Levi has 45 pistes totalling 37 km in length. The longest piste is 2,500 m long and maximum vertical drop is 325 m. Piste information is available on the resort's web page. Levi is known for organizing an FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in November.

If you want to take a break from winter sports, you can go on snowmobile or husky safaris and reindeer rides. These are arranged by tour operators, most of whom arrange summer activities too.

See also Kittilä.



Köngäs
Activities in Köngäs, some 10 km north of Levi, and its surroundings.

Eat
The restaurants offer a good variety of local delicacies. Especially worth trying are reindeer (poro) in all its forms, willow grouse (riekko) and several varieties of fish such as salmon (lohi), arctic char (nieriä) and common whitefish (siika). These are usually fried or smoked and eaten with mashed potatoes. In addition to local specialities, hamburgers, pizzas and kebabs are also available.

Many restaurants and bars are inside hotels.



Sleep
Being one of the biggest resorts in Finland one could think there will be no problem to get bed in Levi. However, during the holiday season it may appear surprisingly difficult to find one! Most popular times are around Christmas and New Year, Easter and the Finnish winter holiday held during the three-week period from mid-February to early March. Right after the New Year when local people get back to work, skiing resorts get crowded with Russian tourists. Accommodation alternatives vary from camping to luxurious cottages and spa hotels.



Stay healthy
The health care centre is in the municipality centre Kittilä, at Sairaalantie 2. Call in acute cases that are not emergencies.

In emergencies, call  (who probably can alarm the ski patrol etc.).

First aid staff at rentals of Zero Point and South pistes. Ski Patrol (red jackets) and volunteers with first aid skills ski daily at the pistes. Phone. Can also be alarmed via lift personnel.

There are two private medical services in Levi (Sirkka) itself. Check prices or your insurance.

Go next

 * Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, some 20 km away by ski. The park is the third largest and the most visited one in the country, with many more services than in most national parks in Finland.