Home » Latest » Outdoors » We Tried the FINNISH SAUNA (rolling in the snow)

We Tried the FINNISH SAUNA (rolling in the snow)

6

InfoSearched 128 0 Outdoors

8.4

SaveSavedRemoved 3

A Finnish sauna session with a snowbank chaser turns into the ultimate hot-cold gut check for two YouTubers in Lapland.

Kara and Nate have logged episodes from six continents by now, but few segments test their nerve quite like the one they filmed at Apukka Resort outside Rovaniemi, Finland. In episode 623 of their travel vlog, the couple heads deep into Finnish Lapland to do what generations of Finns have done for centuries: sweat hard, then throw themselves into the snow.

The video, titled “We Tried the FINNISH SAUNA (rolling in the snow),” follows Kara and Nate through several distinct sauna setups at the resort, including a traditional wood-burning sauna and a sauna built entirely out of ice and packed snow blocks. The real test, though, comes when they step outside mid-sweat into sub-zero Arctic air and roll straight into a snowdrift.

• Kara and Nate film at Apukka Resort in Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland, sampling multiple sauna styles including a dedicated ice sauna built from blocks of ice and snow.
• The sauna interiors run between roughly 70°C and 90°C, and the couple repeats the classic contrast cycle: heat inside, then rolling directly in deep snow outdoors before heading back in.
• The segment doubles as a firsthand look at authentic Finnish sauna culture rather than a resort spa gimmick, with the ice sauna serving as the video’s most visually striking stop.

Apukka Resort Offers Ideal Accommodations

Rovaniemi sits on the Arctic Circle and markets itself as the official hometown of Santa Claus, but for Kara and Nate the draw was the region’s sauna infrastructure. Apukka Resort, a wilderness property built around log cabins and glass igloos, gives visitors access to several different sauna formats in one place — which is exactly why the couple chose it as the setting for a deep dive into the ritual rather than a single quick dip.

Wood-Burning Heat Versus a Sauna Made of Ice

The traditional wood-fired sauna Kara and Nate try first is the format most closely tied to Finnish heritage — a stove-heated room where the air itself, not just the benches, carries the heat. The ice sauna is the novelty counterpoint: a structure carved from dense ice and snow blocks that still manages to hold a livable pocket of warmth inside despite being built from the same material the couple later rolls around in outside.

The Heat-to-Snow Cycle

The core of the video is the contrast ritual itself. Inside, the sauna runs between 70°C and 90°C, hot enough to induce a heavy sweat within minutes. From there, the couple steps directly into freezing Lapland air and drops into deep snow, then heads back inside to reheat before doing it again.

Heat past 70°C, then straight into the snowbank — that’s the whole ritual, repeated until you stop flinching.

Their reactions track the arc most first-timers describe: an adrenaline rush and laughter on the first roll, followed by a sharper, less charming cold as the exposure lingers, and genuine relief scrambling back toward the heat. It’s less a spa treatment than a dare the two of them talk each other into on camera.

The Functional Purpose of Rituals

Finns don’t treat the sauna-to-snow cycle as a stunt — it’s framed as a circulation booster and a reset for the nervous system, the same logic behind cold-plunge culture that’s since spread well beyond Scandinavia. For Kara and Nate, whose channel has already put viewers inside everything from an off-grid expedition yacht to a mountain-side sky lodge in Peru, the segment fits their pattern of chasing physical, slightly uncomfortable local traditions rather than just filming scenery.

The couple wraps the episode having done the full cycle more than once, snow still clinging to them as they duck back into the heat one last time. No scorecard, no ranking against saunas elsewhere on their route — just two people who came to Rovaniemi to try it and left with the footage to prove they didn’t chicken out.