As of writing this blog post, Summer 2026 is still over 6 months away. Someone might think it's too early to commit to anything, but I disagree. Earlier the commit, better the outcome, when it comes to holiday planning.
I'm in an extremely privileged position to have the opportunity of taking 8 weeks of paid holiday per year. Since three of those weeks can't be carried over from one year to the next, I need to carefully plan the usage in order to avoid having to spend them when I don't want to. In addition to these, I also usually have a bunch of flex-time hours to spend as well from working long days. In practice, this has amounted to around 9 weeks of paid holiday annually, and allows me to have a long holiday during the summer months, while leaving a bunch of weeks to spend in the winter as well.
In July 2025, I was planning to hike across the Muotkatunturi wilderness area, but had to adjust my route somewhat due to the extreme heat.
I still had a great time, but the fact that I didn't manage to hike across it kinda bugs me. Therefore in 2026, I shall attempt this again, this time around a month earlier to avoid the scorching July temperatures. While I'm at it, might as well attend the Midnight Sun Film Festival before the actual hike. In fact, I already booked travel for that. I attended the festival in 2024 and can only recommend to any fan of cinema! It is a very unique experience in all the positive sense of the term.
So, the preliminary plan is clear:
Looking at the plan, ambition kind of creeps up on me. I've been pondering the possibility to extend my hike all the way up to Utsjoki, across the Paistunturi wilderness area. This requires careful planning though, since I don't really want to carry over two weeks of food with me unless that's absolutely necessary. Last year my daily rations including fuel and whatnot weighed around 850 grams, which does add up quite quickly. Good thing is that by making a pit stop in Karigasniemi, I could technically just either buy more rations from there, or even mail pre-made ones there to await pick-up by me. This way, I'd only need to get more fuel and maybe some small things from Karigasniemi. This plan would come with the benefit of being able to make the decision to hike across the Kevo Strict Nature Reserve at the last possible moment in Karigasniemi. Obvious disadvantage would however be that I could not book the return trip well in advance, and would most likely be forced to pay a higher fare. In addition, the cost and trouble of mailing rations to Karigasniemi would be lost as well.
Regardless, the plans are shaping up to look like taking entire June off at least, and most likely a few weeks from July as well. I guess the dream would be to spend most of June and the entirety of July on holiday, but that might not be possible for understandable business reasons at my employer.
I'll try to update this blog whenever my plans become more concrete. Needless to say, I'm already quite hyped!