Colin flew to Levi in May 2023 to remote work for a few weeks. His first time in Lapland. On day three he found a house being built, put an offer in with no mortgage, no residency plan and no idea whether any of it would work. Livi was at home in Cheltenham nursing a one-year-old. She wasn't surprised.
Colin flew to Levi on a remote working trip — a few weeks with a laptop and a snowboard, testing whether Finnish Lapland in the off-season was as good as people said. He had no particular plan beyond that.
On day three he found a plot of land with a house being built on it. Log construction, south-facing, surrounded by forest. Everything he'd spent years drawing in his head when people asked what his dream home looked like. He called the estate agent. Then he called Livi.
"I rang her and said I'd found it. She was nursing Finley — he was one — and she just said 'okay, let's see.' She's used to me. She wasn't wrong to trust it."
The offer was accepted. Colin now had four months to sort out Finnish residency, a mortgage with a Finnish bank, and everything else that comes with buying a house in a country you've been in for seventy-two hours.
They got the keys in November 2023 — mortgage through Nordea, residency sorted, somehow. The family flew out for Christmas — three weeks to walk the schools, feel the cold properly, and answer the honest question: could we actually live here? By January they knew the answer.
"We flew back in January. Then packed up the house. Then drove back. We weren't visiting anymore."
Between the offer being accepted in May and getting the keys in November, Colin had four months to make the impossible logistics of moving a family of five to Finland actually work. Finnish mortgage applications. Residency permits. Selling a life in the UK. He did it.
Colin's mum grew up in Helsinki in the 1960s — his grandparents lived there, and she always talked about Finland with a particular warmth. The kind of warmth that stays with you. Finland was always a name that meant something in the family, even though Colin never visited as a child.
The skiing came separately — Colin's parents took him to the French and Austrian Alps every year growing up, and it became his thing. The mountains, the cold, the physical freedom of it. Snowboarding took over from skiing and never let go.
When he landed in Levi in May 2023 — Finland, mountains, snow, everything his childhood had pointed at — something clicked. His mum was part of the reason he went. She loves that he stayed.
"She always talked about Finland. I grew up hearing about it. I just never thought I'd end up living there. She finds that quietly hilarious."
In 2012, Colin and Livi had lived in the Alps for a year — they knew what a life built around mountains and outdoor living felt like, and they'd never quite stopped wanting to get back to it. The Alps were the dream for a long time. Lapland turned out to be the answer.
Hugo, Rowan and Finley all speak fluent Finnish. We are proud and slightly humbled in equal measure. They are, by every measure, more at home here than we are — and that was always the point.
The eldest. Old enough when he arrived to understand the move properly — and curious enough to embrace it completely. In Finnish school within weeks, speaking the language within months. He now corrects our pronunciation, kindly, which makes it considerably worse.
Fluent Finnish
Rowan arrived at the perfect age for everything to just become normal. He doesn't remember not living here. Snow in October is simply October. A frozen lake is simply a lake. His complete lack of drama about Lapland is one of the best things about living here.
Fluent Finnish
Finley is Lapland. He has never known anything else. Finnish is just the language he learned. He has no concept that this life is unusual or remarkable. He is, without knowing it, our strongest argument for the decision we made.
Fluent Finnish
Colin has spent his career in hospitality and customer experience — which means he thinks about what actually makes something work, not just how it looks. He grew up skiing in the French and Austrian Alps, switched to snowboarding and never looked back. He knows the fells around Levi the way most people know their commute, and he'll tell you honestly whether an activity, a resort, or an experience is worth your money — because he's been watching people spend it here for three years.
When Colin called from Levi on day three with a house, Livi was at home with a one-year-old and two other children. She said "let's see" — and then spent the next eight months making it logistically possible. The residency paperwork, the school research, the trial Christmas, the packing of an entire family life into a removal van. She's the reason this happened. She also knows, practically and honestly, what families need when they arrive in Lapland — because she is a family that arrived in Lapland.
Most Lapland content is written by people who came for a week. We moved here on an impulse on day three of our first ever visit. That's a different kind of knowledge.
Three years of living here means three years of watching families and couples arrive, navigate Lapland, and leave. We know what worked, what didn't, and what they wished they'd known before they came.
We moved here with a 1, 3 and 7-year-old. We know what works with small children in Arctic conditions, what age things start clicking, and what not to attempt with a tired three-year-old at −18°C.
No commissions. No paid partnerships. No tour operator relationships. We built this because the honest guide we wanted to give arriving travellers didn't exist. It does now.
This is the thing most Lapland content won't do. If something isn't worth the money, we'll say so. If there's a better version of an experience that costs half the price, we'll tell you where to find it.
We can't fully explain why Colin put an offer on a house on day three of his first ever visit. But we've seen enough travellers leave here changed to know it wasn't just us. This place does something to people. We want to help you find it properly.
We moved here on day three of our first visit. We're not going to give you generic travel advice. We're going to tell you what we actually know — and help you build a trip that works.