I completed the final leg of my Retirement Travel Trifecta when my family and I ventured over 12,000 round-trip miles to the Arctic Lapland in late May and early June 2026, reaching our final destination Alta, Norway, on the Norwegian Sea, surrounded by the Midnight Sun.
Along the round trip we explored wild areas of Finland, Norway, and enough of Sweden to say that we have been there. And I achieved all three of my Arctic photographic goals: capture the Altafjord, the 7,000-year-old rock art at the Alta Museum, and the indigenous Sami people in their traditional garb, a long shot I knew going in.
We traveled through the picturesque Finnish Lapland Lake Region from Rovaniemi to Pello, Sweden, and the Torne River that borders the two countries, en route to the Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, before reaching Kautokeino, Norway, capital of Europe’s only indigenous people, the Sami.
Alta is the northernmost city in the world with 15,000 inhabitants, where the police have never carried weapons. The surrounding Altafjord includes the Alta Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that features 7,000 year-old rock art left by hunter gatherers following melting glaciers.
Photo Albums
- Norway — A Sami Miracle in Alta
- Norway — Altafjord and the Scandinavian Mountains, One Secret Arctic Paradise
- Norway — Alta, Alta River, Altafjord
- Norway — Kautokeino, Capital of the Sami
- Finland — Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park
- Lapland Lake Region — From Rovaniemi in Finland to the Torne River at Pello, Sweden
Blogs
- The Southern Indiana-Northern Finland Connection: The Sami and Native Americans
- To the Scandinavian Arctic in the Midnight Sun, via Europe and the Upper Amazon River
