Santa Claus Village Webcam: Free Travel Hack for Lapland

Planning on visiting Santa in his village in Lapland?

Don’t miss out on this awesome free travel hack – the Santa Claus Village webcam!

In this post, we’ll tell you how you can use the livestream to plan your Lapland holiday better.

You’ll also find inspo on how to make your visit to Santa’s village even more magical!

Warning: only Nice List people are allowed in this post! If you’ve been naughty, message us on Insta to tell us what you’ve done – and we’ll see if we want to share the secret tips with you too. 😝

PS Don’t try to cheat, Santa sees all. 😉

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please read our Disclaimer.

Here’s a little bit about our journey, if you are new here! If you know us, feel free to skip this part.

After leaving our old life in Scotland in March 2022 (it rains too much there), we travelled full-time for almost 2 years. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, it was. If you think that carrying overpacked backpacks in 45°C heat around streets that aren’t even on Google Maps is fancy. And that’s just 1% of all the fun we had! 😆

During the 2 years we volunteered in Italy and Bulgaria (free travel while learning new skills, anyone?), explored other amazing European countries and backpacked Southeast Asia. Btw, even our secret wedding was more of an expedition than a wedding. 😅

And, of course, we researched and planned everything ourselves, because you gotta keep the budget low, right? If you are like us, you’ve come to the right place, because we want to share all the useful travel tips and info with you!

Excited? Good. Let’s get into it so you can go on your own epic adventures too!

Use this if you are planning a Lapland holiday

Do you have a trip to Lapland coming up?

So exciting!

We had the best time there and not just because we got married at the start of the trip. Although, that was pretty epic too, we had a secret wedding with just one unsuspecting guest (Mirka’s sister) and got married wearing the most unconventional clothes. 😄 (“pretty epic” is a British-style humour, the wedding was THE BEST! And weird like us. 😄).

If you are planning your Lapland adventures, this will help:

• We did Lapland on a budget, saving a ton of money while having an awesome holiday – staying in epic accommodation, including an Aurora Cabin, doing winter activities like riding with the reindeer and more!
• If you are planning on meeting Santa in Santa Claus Village, make sure you meet the real one and don’t get scammed! Find out all you need to know here.
• Got any questions? You can always book a call with us and we can chat through your plans together.

What is the Santa Claus Village webcam?

The Santa Claus Village webcam is a livestream from a camera pointed on the Arctic Circle and the entrance to the Santa Claus Office.

We’re talking about the official Santa Claus Village, in his home town Rovaniemi, in Finland.

The camera is live 24/7, so at any point during any day, you can pop on it to see what Santa’s village looks like!

You can check it right now here: Santa Claus Village webcam.

There are multiple links to multiple livestreams available, when you google the webcam, but they all show the same feed, from the same camera, so the experience is the same (except sometimes one livestream might get delayed a bit more than another).

Now that you know what the Santa Claus Village webcam is, let’s talk about how you can turn it into a free travel hack for your Lapland trip!

How to use the Santa Claus Village webcam when planning a Lapland trip?

We know something about you.

You are a smart traveller.

So you won’t just be daydreaming over the Santa Claus Village webcam.

You will use it as your secret weapon when planning your awesome Lapland trip!

Here is how.

Using the Santa Claus Village webcam to check weather

Sure, you can look up last year’s weather reports.

You can also check future weather forecast, for when you’ll be over at Santa’s village.

Or you can join one of the many Lapland groups on Facebook and ask travellers who are currently in Rovaniemi for an update on weather.

But nothing beats just opening up the Santa Claus Village webcam and seeing the temperature right on your screen, as well as whether there’s snow, or if it’s raining, sunny, cloudy or anything else!

Outfit planning with the Santa Claus Village webcam

The one possibly unhinged way we used the Santa Claus Village webcam when planning our Lapland trip?

For spying on people!

Okay, that sounds way more unhinged than it was!

What we mean is, we used it to figure out what people wear to Santa’s village and Lapland in general.

Because you can learn all about the different layers and materials. But what does that really mean in practice?

Will it really be weird if we wear jeans to Santa’s village?

Is everyone rocking up to meet the big guy in full skiing outfits?

If you’ve always wished you could see what real people really wear in the place you are going to, this is it. You can just open up the Santa Claus Village webcam and see for yourself!

Of course, your outfit depends on the weather and your personal tolerance for cold, but the webcam is a great point of reference and a source of inspo too!

Using the Santa Claus village webcam for crowd assessment

Okay, this sounds super fancy, but, basically, what we mean is using the webcam to see how many other suckers will be fighting for Santa’s attention with you.

Kidding!

Or not. Depends on how set you are on talking to Santa and how much you hate other people. 😂 

Also, btw, Santa isn’t always that busy. We barely had to wait when we visited. You can read all about our experience here.

This hack of checking for crowds works really well if you are planning your Lapland trip way in advance.

Sure, things can change, but if you have more than a year to go before your holiday, you can check how busy Santa’s village is around the time you’re planning to visit.

You can see it in March.

You can see it in the middle of summer.

And you can see the chaos of Christmas time.

Btw, with destinations like Lapland, planning way in advance is actually super smart. It’s how we managed to do the trip on such a small budget – we shared all about that here.

If you want to see how busy the village gets at different times, to plan your trip better, make sure to pop a reminder into your calendar—“check Santa Claus Village webcam”—so you don’t forget.

Now, let’s talk about how you can use the webcam once you are actually in Santa Claus Village.

Do this with the Santa Claus Village webcam when you visit Rovaniemi

The main thing people do with the Santa Claus Village webcam?

And what it was, probably, intended for?

They wave home, to their relatives and friends, as they are crossing the Arctic Circle!

Now, here are a few things you should think about, if you want to do this too.

What to think about when planning your visit to Santa Claus Village

• Do you want to tell people in advance about the webcam or do you want to surprise them on the day, messaging them something mysterious like: “click on this link and you’ll see a surprise”? If you do choose to surprise them, make sure they will actually be online and check the link when you are there and not 5 hours later, wondering why you wanted them to look at a random dude crossing the Arctic Circle!
• Do you want to use the webcam to tell someone who isn’t there something? You could make a sign and then hold it up to the camera—it’s a great idea if someone who isn’t there with you is celebrating their birthday on the day, or if you want to wish someone Merry Christmas.
• Naturally, people use the Santa Claus Village webcam for things like proposals—you can livestream it for all your friends and family to see, plus you can have a recording of the proposal! Make sure to check out the angle in advance, so you or your future spouse isn’t off camera, by accident. 😅
• Speaking of recording, even if you aren’t proposing, you might want to have a memory of crossing the Arctic Circle. You can either ask someone in advance to record the livestream for you, or you can screen record yourself as you are there (screen record the feed on your phone).
• Keep in mind the feed is a bit delayed, so if you are doing something like showing a message to the camera, the person on the other side of the livestream might see it a bit later.

Basically, get creative!

Get your kids to bounce around the Arctic Circle as their grandparents watch them from home.

Ask your crush out on a date in a unique way.

Or just remind all the suckers at work that you are on a holiday, chilling with Santa, while they are slaving away in the office. 😂

We’d like to ask you for one thing, though. If you do use the Santa Claus Village webcam for something like this, will you let us know? We love to hear good stories!

You can reach us in the comments below or directly on our Instagram.

And if you need help planning your Lapland adventures, you can also book a call with us where we can talk through it all with you!

Bonus tip for using the Santa Claus Village webcam

One more thing you can use the Santa Claus Village webcam for?

Entertaining yourself (or anyone else in your travel party) before your Lapland holiday!

Do you have kids that are bouncing off the walls, not able to wait until they get to meet Santa? (Make sure to take them to the real one, not the fake, btw.)

Create a ritual where every day you check in (briefly, of course, because screen time!) on Santa in his village at different times—can you spot him?

We even did this ourselves—not to try and see Santa, but just to see the village, making Lapland feel a bit more real, when we still had months to wait before we would be there ourselves!

Basically, have fun with the Santa Claus Village webcam, it’s such a great free hack that can help you in many ways!

So. Have you checked in on Santa yet? 😏

Oh, btw, if you want, give us a shout telling us when you’ll be visiting him, and we can try and see you on the Santa Claus Village webcam!