ICEHOTEL
in SwedenIs a night in the ice worth it?

What ICEHOTEL actually is

ICEHOTEL is two buildings in the village of Jukkasjärvi, on the Torne river, and a set of warm rooms around them. ICEHOTEL 37 is this winter’s hotel: twelve art suites, ice rooms, a Main Hall and a Ceremony Hall, open from December into April. ICEHOTEL 365 is the year-round building: nine deluxe suites, nine art suites, an Experience Room and ICEBAR BY ICEHOTEL. The warm rooms, cabins and restaurants stay open all year.

The art is the point. Each art suite is designed by a different artist, the winter building is new every year, and ICEHOTEL’s published list for this edition runs to thirty names, its creative director included. ICEHOTEL also says that ICEHOTEL 365 is cooled by solar power in summer. We have seen no independent figures for that, so we pass it on as the hotel’s claim rather than our own.

How a night in the ice works

Warm check-in opens at 15:00, and the cold rooms open to overnight guests at 18:00. Until then they belong to day visitors. Inside it is around minus five whatever the weather outside is doing. You sleep on a mattress laid with reindeer hides, on a frame of wood and ice, in a sleeping bag rated to minus twenty-five, with pillows. ICEHOTEL lends winter overalls, boots and gloves, and suggests you sleep in a base layer, thick socks and a hat.

You sleep in the ice. You live in the warm building beside it.

There are no toilets, no sockets and no luggage storage in the cold rooms. All of that is in Riverside, the warm building, which has toilets, showers, saunas and storage, and a locker or changing booth for each guest. The winter rooms close with drapes rather than doors; the year-round suites have doors, and the deluxe suites add a private warm bathroom and sauna. In the morning there is warm lingonberry juice at Riverside. It is how a night at ICEHOTEL works when we arrange it, with a warm room booked alongside.

One cold night, and where to put it

ICEHOTEL recommends one night in the ice and the rest in warm rooms, and so do we. It is an experience rather than a rest, and almost nobody needs a second to understand it. Book a second cold night only if you want a second artist’s suite. The cold rooms are the Ice Room, the Art Suite, the Art Suite 365 and the Deluxe Suites 365; the warm ones are the Arctic Cabins and the Kaamos rooms.

Put the cold night first or last, as the hotel advises, so you change rooms only once. If you would rather arrive rested, a warm night first and the ice in the middle works too, at the cost of a second move and a few hours between check-out and the next room. A cold last night before an early flight is the one arrangement we avoid.

When to go

ICEHOTEL 37 opens on 11 December 2026, with the opening ceremony at 18:00. The hotel is completed in sections, so not every room may be ready for the first guests. Polar night arrives at almost the same moment: SMHI has the sun’s last appearance in Kiruna and Jukkasjärvi around 10 December, and no sunrise again until early January. The hours around midday are twilight, not black.

ICEHOTEL names December and February as its busy months, and says rooms are easier to find in January, March and April. March is the start of spring here, with long, bright days and snow that throws the sun back at you, so bring sunscreen. The closing date for 2027 is not published yet. In 2026 the year-round building was running on its own from 13 April.

Getting there

Jukkasjärvi is about twenty minutes from Kiruna airport, and ICEHOTEL puts it 17 kilometres east of Kiruna along the E10. Kiruna is about 90 minutes from Stockholm Arlanda with SAS or Norwegian, and for winter 2026–27 ICEHOTEL also lists direct flights from Copenhagen and Düsseldorf; check those against the airlines’ own schedules before you rely on them. SJ’s night train from Stockholm stops at Kiruna.

ICEHOTEL’s bus and taxi transfers run only in the winter season, and have to be booked before 15:00 the day before. From December to April you can also arrive by dog sled, a transfer of about seventy-five minutes. Abisko is 93 kilometres further west, a little over an hour by road; if you are weighing the two, our Abisko or Kiruna guide sets them side by side.

The days around the night

ICEHOTEL is one evening. The days are what make the trip. In winter there is ice sculpting, cross-country skiing, the sauna and snowmobiles, and the best of it involves animals and people: driving your own dog team, a day with a Sámi herding family, and an evening of food cooked over a fire in a Sámi kitchen. Our Dogs’ Week is built from the kennels near Jukkasjärvi; The Road West starts here and ends at the Norwegian coast.

The northern lights are possible, and nobody can promise them. ICEHOTEL’s own aurora tours say plainly that there are no guarantees and no refunds if the sky stays empty. IRF, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, runs an aurora alert covering about 300 kilometres around Kiruna, which tells you what is happening now, not what will. A private aurora night, with someone watching the cloud and a vehicle to chase the gaps, is the honest way to improve the odds. Our northern lights guide explains the rest.

The village before the hotel

Jukkasjärvi was here long before the ice. Kiruna Lapland dates the village to the seventeenth century, as a trading and fishing place on the Torne, and the oldest building at the Old Homestead is a cabin from 1736. The church was built in 1607–08; its middle section dates from about 1607, and the chancel and porch from 1726. The parish calls it the oldest church in the province of Lapland. Its altarpiece, by Bror Hjorth, was a gift from LKAB in 1958.

ICEHOTEL dates its own story to 1989 and its founder, Yngve Bergqvist. The early years are told differently from one source to the next, but they agree on the shape: an igloo built for art, visitors who stayed the night inside it, and a hotel that has been rebuilt every winter since. The ICEHOTEL name was first registered as a brand in 1996.

Children, health and the cold

Children can sleep in the ice rooms and suites, but ICEHOTEL recommends them for children over seven, and the person making the booking has to be eighteen or over. With younger children, book warm rooms and visit the ice by day. ICEHOTEL asks guests to say at the time of booking if they use a wheelchair or have other needs, and has published no statement on how accessible the cold rooms are.

We have found no medical guidance from the hotel on sleeping in the cold, including for pregnancy or circulation problems. If either applies, ask ICEHOTEL directly before you book, or choose a day visit and a warm room. Ice is a living material, the hotel says, and repairs can happen while it is open. If the weather makes the cold rooms unusable, its terms offer a warm room or a refund.