Pine Sky Suites — Comfy Activity Apartments in Ivalo

Why here

You sleep above the counter that hands you the skis and toboggans.

Xwander owns this building. The ground floor is Soppi, our own outdoor store and rental counter, and the six apartments are the floor above it, one staircase up from the street.

Some days you want a guide. On the others you hire a toboggan or a fatbike at the counter and go straight out of the door. There is no pickup time to keep.

There is a reception downstairs, open 08:00 to 20:00, and there are restaurants around the building. That is the convenience of a working village: somebody to ask in the morning, and somewhere to eat that we do not run.

You take the whole apartment rather than a room, and the door code reaches you by email the day before you fly.

The address

Ivalontie 12 is one address for the store, the rental counter and the stairs.

Thirty-six of the forty-four tours we publish give this address as their departure point. If your day starts with a guide, it starts one flight of stairs below your own front door. The gear counter is on the way past. The stairs are the transfer.

We let six apartments at the top of those stairs, from a 26 m² studio for two to a 50 m² flat with a separate bedroom that sleeps six. Each is taken whole, with its own front door. Four are named after a painting on the wall: Aurora Suite, Bear's Nest, Fox's Nest, Pine Studio. Auntie's Place and Riverside are named after something else.

A bear painted on the bedroom wall of Bear's Nest, above the bed. — The bear over the bed in Bear's Nest.

6Apartments, each taken whole
22Guests, all six taken together
26–50 m²Smallest to largest
36Day tours that leave from this address
08:00–20:00The counter downstairs

The six

Six apartments, and no two of them the same.

Six apartments share one upstairs corridor. Six people fit in the Aurora Suite and two in Pine Studio, and between them lie a bedroom door and twenty-four square metres.

Aurora Suite

The big one, with the painted wall and its own washing machine.

Fifty square metres, and the bedroom has a door. Neither of the other two shown here does. The bedroom takes a 180 cm bed or two singles. The living room holds two more singles and a sofa bed, and that is how the number gets to six. The kitchen is a full kitchen, not a kitchenette, and the washer and dryer are in the apartment rather than downstairs.

Sleeps: 1–6
Size: 50 m²
Bedroom: Separate, with a door. 180 cm bed or two singles
Also sleeping: Living room: two singles and a sofa bed, 120 × 190 cm
Kitchen: Full kitchen
Bathroom: Bathroom with shower
In the apartment: Washing machine and dryer · air conditioning · baby cot on request
The unflattering fact: Six is the maximum, and six means two of you sleep in the living room.

Fox's Nest

An open alcove instead of a bedroom, and a fox in the hall.

Thirty-four square metres arranged around a sleeping alcove that has no door. It takes a 180 cm bed or two singles, and a sofa bed in the living room takes the third guest. There is a kitchenette rather than a kitchen, a desk under the window, and the fox is painted in the hallway you walk through to reach any of it.

Sleeps: 1–3
Size: 34 m²
Bedroom: An open alcove. 180 cm bed or two singles
Also sleeping: Living room: sofa bed, 120 × 190 cm
Kitchen: Kitchenette
Bathroom: Bathroom with shower
In the apartment: Air conditioning · desk · baby cot possible
The unflattering fact: The alcove has no door. If you need one, take Bear's Nest or the Aurora Suite.

The sleeping alcove of Fox's Nest, open to the living room. — The alcove, open to the living room.

The living room of Fox's Nest with the sofa bed along the wall. — The living room and the sofa bed. The fox is painted in the hallway.

Pine Studio

Twenty-six square metres, one room, a forest on the wall.

The smallest thing we let. One room holds the bed, the kitchenette and the table; the bathroom is separate and the forest is painted behind the bed. It takes a 180 cm bed or two singles, and it suits two people who are out of the building by nine.

Sleeps: 1–2
Size: 26 m²
Bedroom: The room. 180 cm bed or two singles
Also sleeping: —
Kitchen: Kitchenette
Bathroom: Bathroom with shower
In the apartment: Air conditioning · baby cot on request
The unflattering fact: It is one room. Two people who want separate rooms want a different apartment.

The other three

Three more, from thirty-five square metres to fifty.

Bear's Nest

Sleeps
2–3

Size
36 m²

What is in it
One bedroom with the bear painted over the bed, a living area, a kitchen and a bathroom
Auntie's Place

Sleeps
2–3

Size
35 m²

What is in it
One bedroom and a living area
Riverside

Sleeps
1–5

Size
50 m²

What is in it
One bedroom, and more beds than one bedroom holds

The building

One staircase, one shop, one sauna in the basement.

The parts of the stay that are not inside your own front door.

The store downstairs

Soppi, our own outdoor store and rental counter, fills the ground floor, and the same counter books the sauna, hands over the fatbikes and sells the guided days. It is open 08:00 to 20:00. Gear is rented, not lent — it is a shop, and you are a customer in it like everybody else in Ivalo. Ask at the counter what the snow is doing.
The sauna in the basement

A small shared sauna, heated by our staff half an hour before your slot and left on for an hour and a half. It takes three adults, or four if it is a family with children. The last slot of the day is 17:30, because that is when the staff day ends. You bring your own towel, and the counter lends bathrobes. Reserve it at the Soppi counter downstairs.
Laundry, and where the bins are

There is a shared washing machine in the basement. The Aurora Suite has its own washer and dryer and does not need it. The recycling is in the basement under the stairs — glass, metal, plastic, paper, card, deposit bottles and the rest — and the tap water is drinking water.

Free private parking, on the lot in front of the store entrance.
Free Wi-Fi throughout the building.
Shoes come off indoors. It is not a house rule, it is the country.
No smoking in the apartments or anywhere indoors.

What a night here includes

The kitchen, the machine in the basement and a village you can walk out into.

Self-catering, in a building we own, with the shop on the ground floor. Here is the whole of it, and here is what it is not.

Included with every apartment

The apartment: Yours alone, with its own front door
Kitchen: Full kitchen in the Aurora Suite; a kitchen in Bear's Nest; a kitchenette in Fox's Nest and Pine Studio
Bathroom: In the apartment, with a shower in the Aurora Suite, Fox's Nest and Pine Studio
Bed linen: Provided
Wi-Fi: Free, throughout the building
Parking: Free, on the lot in front of the store entrance
Arrival: Self check-in, any hour. Door code by email the day before you fly
Check-out: 11:00, unless we agree otherwise
Downstairs: Soppi — our outdoor store, the rental counter and the reception, open 08:00 to 20:00

Not included, and worth knowing before you book

There is no restaurant in the building itself. The village restaurants are a short walk, and every apartment we have recorded has a kitchen or a kitchenette of its own.
The sauna is booked and charged. It is not part of the room.
The laundry is charged by the round. The Aurora Suite is the exception and has its own machine.
Gear is rented, not included. The counter downstairs is a shop, and you settle it there.
Towels for the sauna are your own. The counter lends bathrobes, not towels.
The apartments are up a staircase. Every one of them.

We confirm the bathroom towels when we take your booking, so you know whether to pack your own.

We sell these apartments inside a holiday week rather than by the night. The shortest stay, the cancellation terms and whether a cot, an extra bed or a dog can come are all settled with the week. You get them in writing before any money moves. If a dog or a cot is coming, say so in your first message.

Around

The village does the shopping. The forest does the rest.

Ivalo is a village that works for a living, and the apartments are in the middle of it rather than on a resort's edge.

What is unusual is not the village. It is that thirty-six of our tours start at this address. The distance between one of our apartments and one of our guides is a staircase. Lake Rahajärvi, where our Winter Fun Camp runs, is ten minutes out of Ivalo. Inari and Saariselkä are the day trips, and the guide drives.

Ivalo sits above the Arctic Circle at 68°N, about 290 km north of Rovaniemi, three and a half hours up the E75. Snow lies from November into April in most years. For a few weeks around midwinter the sun does not rise at all — kaamos, the polar night — and the middle of the day comes up blue instead. It is enough light to walk in.

You cook here, so the shopping is part of the stay. The supermarket and the pharmacy are Ivalo's own, the same ones the people who live here use. The people downstairs know the opening hours.

Getting here

Ivalontie 12, and the key is already on your door.

Address: Ivalontie 12, 99800 Ivalo. The apartment entrance is the first door to the left of the store entrance
Ivalo Airport (IVL): On one of our holiday weeks the airport transfer is included both ways
Bus: There is a bus station in Ivalo, and our transfers meet it as well as the airport
Transfer: We run airport pickups. Ask for one with your dates
Parking: Free, on the lot in front of the store entrance
Arrival: Self check-in, any hour. The door code reaches you by email the day before you fly, and the key waits in an envelope taped to your apartment door
Check-out: 11:00, unless we agree otherwise
Access: One flight of stairs from the street to every apartment

Nothing depends on what time your flight lands. We send the code before you travel. The letter inside the apartment says the rest, and the store downstairs is open 08:00 to 20:00.

If stairs are the question that decides it, ask us first. We describe the way in door by door, or say plainly that it will not work. You get that answer before you fly, not at the door.

What it changes

You decide the day at breakfast, and dry the clothes it soaks without leaving the building.

A hotel puts you on its hours. An ordinary holiday flat leaves you to arrange the days yourself.

Gear chosen on the morning

Skis, snowshoes, fatbikes and toboggans are hired by the day at the counter downstairs, so nothing is booked in April or carried onto the plane. You choose after you see the weather.

Eat when you get back

There is no restaurant in the building, and no dinner sitting to be back for. The apartment has a kitchen or a kitchenette, the restaurants are around the building, and a long day can end with soup at 22:00.

Somewhere to dry the week

A shared washing machine sits in the basement, and the Aurora Suite has a washer and dryer of its own. A week of wet gloves does not have to go home in the suitcase.

Your own front door

Each apartment is let whole, 26 m² to 50 m², with its own front door. Children sleep behind a shut door, and a group of twenty-two takes the corridor and still shuts six doors at night.

The weeks that sleep here

Three of our holidays put you in this corridor.

Each of the three names an apartment in its own inclusions. Every other week we sell chooses its accommodation with you, so it is not on this list.

The other three

Tell us who is coming and we will tell you which door to use.

Six apartments, twenty-two guests between them, one corridor. Which one you want depends on whether you need a bedroom door, how many of you there are and how early you are leaving in the morning. Write to us with the dates and the number of people, and we will answer with the apartment, not with a brochure.

Ask which apartment fits your party

Stays

Season note

Comfy Activity Apartments in Ivalo.