Finnish Lapland

Above the Arctic Circle, the midnight sun doesn't really set in July — it dips and comes back up almost immediately, giving you something close to 22 hours of usable daylight. Rovaniemi makes a good base for white-water rafting on the Ounasjoki and for reaching the working reindeer farms around Saariselkä and Levi, where the Sámi cultural encounters are substantive rather than staged for tourists. Finland's 'everyman's rights' law means wild berry picking is a genuine, legal, everyday activity here, not a novelty photo op, and the 82-kilometer Karhunkierros trail through Urho Kekkonen National Park is the country's most celebrated long-distance route for a reason.