Tromsø Reindeer Tours: Sledding, Feeding & Sámi Culture

A Tromsø reindeer tour takes you out of the city to a reindeer camp, where you feed a herd by hand and hear about Sámi culture and reindeer herding. Six of the eleven tours listed here also offer a ride on a sled pulled by reindeer, if there is enough snow on the day. Five companies run them, and when we checked in October 2026 their prices ran from $111 to $332 per person.

For most first visits, the tour to book is Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s Reindeer Sledding & Feeding with a Sami Guide. Its listing pairs a sled ride, snow permitting, with feeding a herd of 300, a warm lunch in a Sámi tent, and stories and joik around the fire. It has 6,863 reviews at an average of 4.7, far more than any other tour here, and started at $197 when we checked. Tromsø Arctic Reindeer describes itself as a Sámi reindeer-herding family. The listing names no camp and no meeting point. It describes a pick-up in the city centre and a short seaside drive, and the operator confirms the details after you book.

See dates for the sledding and feeding tour →

Where the Camps Are, and How Long the Drive Takes

The drive is part of the day, and it varies a lot. Four camps are named in the listings:

• Lavangsdalen, for K Ringberg’s family-friendly tour, about 30 minutes by bus.
• Breivikeidet, Tromsø Lapland’s camp for its evening of feeding and dinner, 45 minutes to an hour away.
• Ramfjordbotn, Tromsø Lapland’s sledding camp at Sjursnesvegen 144, also 45 minutes to an hour, and the only camp whose listing lets you drive there yourself.
• Camp Tamok in Tamokdalen, about 90 minutes each way, listed by Arctic Resorts and, according to its listing, operated by Destination Tromsø.

The others are vaguer. Reindeer Experience Tromsø says its tour is about 15 minutes from the city centre and that the sledding happens at a different camp, but names neither. None of Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s four listings names its camp; the company’s own site says its herd spends the winter in the valley outside the city and the summer up in the mountains. Tromsø Lapland describes its daytime feeding tour as north of Tromsø and gives no location for its evening sled tour.

Meeting points are simpler. Every listing that names one uses central Tromsø: the bus terminal at Tromsø Havn Prostneset for three Tromsø Arctic Reindeer tours and for Camp Tamok, the main entrance of the Radisson Blu hotel for three Tromsø Lapland tours, and the pavement outside the Magic Ice Bar for K Ringberg’s minibus. Several listings exclude hotel pick-up, so plan how you will get to the meeting point.

Sledding Needs Snow, Feeding Doesn’t

The sled ride is what most listings lead with, and it is the part the weather controls. Tromsø Lapland’s two sledding tours say so in writing: the ride lasts 30 minutes at most, it is subject to good snow, and if it cannot run at all you get a partial refund while the rest of the tour goes ahead.

Reviews show that happening right across the season. A guest in early November found no snow at all. In mid-March a ride on the sledding and feeding tour was called off for ice, and another at Ramfjordbotn lacked snow. At the end of March warm weather ended the sledding on Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s evening tour and left the ground muddy, and in April more rides were lost to the weather. The feeding went ahead every time. On the sledding and feeding tour, reviewers said they simply had more time with the herd, and one got a partial refund. Reindeer sledding in Tromsø covers which tours include a sled, the weight limits and what to wear.

So the choice comes down to how much the sled matters to you. If the ride is the point of the trip, book a sled tour and let the snow decide. If you mostly want time with the reindeer, a feeding tour has no sled ride to lose. If price decides, one listing lets you pick a single activity for much less.

Prices, ratings and review counts from our October 2026 data check; operators use seasonal pricing, so treat them as the shape of the market, not a quote.

What an October Visit Can Book

When we checked in early October 2026, no tour here had a bookable date before 31 October. Three Tromsø Arctic Reindeer tours opened on the 31st: the sledding and feeding tour, the feeding-only lunch tour and the evening sled tour with dinner. Tromsø Lapland’s four tours and Reindeer Experience Tromsø’s started on 1 November, K Ringberg’s on 10 November, the snowshoe tour on 16 November and Camp Tamok on 1 December.

At that check, then, an October trip could fit a reindeer tour only on its last day, and a sled ride that early depends on whether the snow has arrived. Book for the feeding and the camp, and count a sled ride as a bonus if it happens. October daylight is ordinary autumn daylight: on 5 October the sun rose at 07:15 and set at 17:48. The polar night, when the sun does not rise at all, comes later, roughly from late November to mid-January. Best time for a reindeer tour in Tromsø goes through the season month by month.

Sámi Culture at the Camps

Tromsø lies in Sápmi, the Sámi homeland that reaches across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola Peninsula. It is not in Lapland, the English name for a province of Sweden and a region of Finland. One of the companies here trades as Tromsø Lapland; it is a Sámi-owned business, and the name says nothing about where the city is.

Within Norway’s Sámi reindeer grazing area, owning reindeer is by law a Sámi right, with narrow exceptions, and herding is organised in districts; the Troms reindeer grazing area, which takes in Tromsø, has 14 of them. Two of the five companies here say they are Sámi-owned: Tromsø Arctic Reindeer, a Sámi reindeer-herding family, and Tromsø Lapland, founded in 2009 by a member of one of the last northern Sámi communities in Norway. The other three describe Sámi guides, a Sámi host family or Sámi culture in their listings without saying who owns the business, and this site describes them the same way.

A few words you’ll hear at the camps. A lávvu is a portable tent on straight poles. A gamme is a lower hut covered in turf or wood, traditionally built for longer stays, and the listings use the two words loosely. Joik is a vocal tradition that evokes a person, a place or an animal rather than describing it. Gákti is traditional Sámi clothing, worn for occasions that matter, and it is not a costume. Bidos is the reindeer stew several of these tours serve, a dish the operators say belongs to weddings and celebrations.

Sametinget, the Sámi Parliament of Norway, holds that Sámi people should take part in shaping the tourism built on their culture. Travel guides add a practical point: ask before you photograph a person. Sámi culture in Tromsø goes further, including why many Sámi find older English words for them offensive.

Evenings and the Northern Lights

Three tours run in the evening so you can look up after dinner: Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s sled ride with a three-course dinner, Tromsø Lapland’s dinner tour with a sled, and its evening of feeding and dinner at Breivikeidet. None of them promises the aurora. A sighting is not guaranteed, though the camp is set up for one. The aurora shows over northern Norway from September to April when the sky is clear and dark, and the long nights of November to February give the best odds. Reindeer and the northern lights in Tromsø compares the three evenings.

The Welfare Question

Visitors do ask whether the reindeer are well treated. Norway’s Reindeer Husbandry Act says it shall contribute to sound animal welfare for domestic reindeer, inside and outside the Sámi grazing area. On the tours, Tromsø Lapland caps sled riders at 110 kg on its lunch tour and 100 kg on its evening tour, limits it says keep the reindeer safe and healthy, and the operators call off sled rides when the snow is poor. The one specific complaint this site found is a single traveller’s review of Camp Tamok that describes poor conditions for the sled dogs kept at the same camp. It is unverified, and it is about the dogs, not the reindeer. Is reindeer sledding in Tromsø worth it? takes the question further.

The Rest of the Lineup

Beyond the three tours in the cards, the list holds Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s feeding-only lunch tour, with 3,813 reviews at 4.7 and no sled, Tromsø Lapland’s daytime feeding tour with lunch in a gamme, a snowshoe walk with feeding for ages 8 and up, and the three evening tours. Tromsø Lapland’s lunch tour at Ramfjordbotn appears in the comparison above, beside the sledding and feeding tour and the cheapest option.

Camp Tamok is the outlier. It costs $332, takes about 90 minutes each way, and is a wilderness camp with its own dog yard that keeps 5 to 6 reindeer, against the herd of 300 that Tromsø Arctic Reindeer’s listings describe. It makes a long day out to a small herd rather than a bigger version of the other tours. Which Tromsø reindeer tour? sets the camps and prices side by side, and the tours page lists all eleven.

For a first visit, start with the sledding and feeding tour. It has by far the most reviews, a sled ride when the snow allows, and the herd, the lunch and the joik whatever the snow does.

Check dates for the sledding and feeding tour →