Invader’s Lapland Invasion: Planning a Trip to Hunt the 89 Mosaics

Our job at Lapland Private is to plan great trips, but also to keep an eye on everything happening across the region, even when it has nothing to do with huskies or the Northern Lights. In fall 2026, that brought us one of the more unexpected stories we’ve followed. Right after his September invasion of Stockholm, the French street artist Invader placed 89 of his pixelated mosaics across Lapland, from city streets in Luleå to small villages hours apart.

This one also hit close to home. One of our team members has been flashing Invaders for more than ten years, across North America, Europe, and Asia, so Lapland showing up on the artist’s map didn’t go unnoticed for long. Whether you’ve been playing for years or you’re just curious about the colorful tiles appearing on Lapland’s walls, here’s who Invader is, where the mosaics are, and what it actually takes to plan a trip around them.

Who Is Invader?

Invader is an anonymous French artist who has been placing mosaics in public spaces since 1998. He always appears masked and calls himself an Unidentified Living Artist, which means he can walk through his own exhibitions without anyone realizing it’s him. The idea behind it all is simple: swap the pixel for a small ceramic tile, then take the little aliens from the Space Invaders arcade game off the screen and put them on real walls. Each piece becomes one fragment of a single artwork spread across the world.

He calls each campaign an invasion. In a typical city, he places somewhere between 20 and 50 pieces, sometimes returning later for another wave. Every mosaic gets a score from 10 to 100 points, and that scoring is what turned his work into a game. Fans use his FlashInvaders app to photograph the pieces they find and build up their own score, one city at a time.

Choosing each spot takes long scouting work, a process he compares to urban acupuncture. Over the years, that’s led to some surprising locations: one piece sits at 2,362 meters at the top of a cable car in the Swiss Alps, two are underwater off Cancún, and another was even installed aboard the International Space Station!

If you’re new to the game, there’s one rule worth knowing before anything else: look, flash, and leave every piece exactly where it is. The tiles are fragile, and any attempt to remove one destroys it. That’s also why 89 pieces across Lapland is such a big deal, and why it’s worth a closer look.

The Lapland Invasion at a Glance

89 pieces is a lot, even by Invader’s standards. In most cities he places somewhere between 20 and 50, so Lapland sits well above his usual count, and he’s treated it differently from the start. Rather than naming the invasion after a single city, he added Lapland to his world map as a whole territory. In his own description of the campaign, he also refers to Sápmi, the Sámi homeland that stretches across the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula.

It’s also very recent. Some pieces have installation dates logged as late as early October, so the invasion may still be underway, and only about half of the 89 have been found and flashed so far. Among those located, most are in Swedish Lapland, with a cluster in Luleå and others spread along the coast and as far inland as Jokkmokk, plus several in the Torne Valley along the Finnish border. Some sit on town center streets, others along main roads between towns, so a car quickly becomes part of the plan.

In the app, the pieces show up under the LAP code, numbered from LAP_01 onward. If you’re comparing fan maps and trackers, don’t be surprised if their counts don’t match yet, since each one updates at its own pace as new pieces are spotted.

Why Lapland Is a Different Kind of Hunt

In most cities, the next mosaic is a short walk, a metro ride, or a quick bike trip away, and a long weekend covers a lot of ground. Lapland works differently. The pieces are spread across a region where the drive between two towns can take longer than the time you’ll spend in either of them, and the furthest ones from each other are a full day’s drive apart.

The towns themselves add to the challenge. Luleå has plenty of hotels and restaurants, but many of the smaller places on the map offer far fewer options, and public transport between them is limited. That makes the order of your stops really important. Choose your bases well and your days go to flashing and enjoying the landscape. Choose badly and you’ll spend them backtracking down the same roads.

Then there’s everything that comes with traveling this far north: long, quiet roads, fuel and meal stops you plan ahead instead of finding along the way, and weather that can change a driving day. How much ground you cover also depends a lot on when you go, which we’ll come back to further down. Nothing here should put you off. This invasion just rewards a bit more preparation than most.

Where the Mosaics Are

Last updated: October 12, 2026

This section follows the invasion as it develops. With only about half of the 89 pieces located so far, we’ll keep adding to it as more are found, especially on the Finnish side. Below is where things stand today, area by area.

Luleå and Around

Luleå has the largest cluster found so far, most of it in and around the city center, plus one on the Bergnäsbron bridge. It’s the easiest part of the invasion to cover on foot, and a natural starting point. A few more sit within reach of the city, in Boden and in smaller villages like Klöverträsk, Niemisel, and Övre Svartlå, which is where the driving starts to come in.

The Coast

Heading south from Luleå, Piteå has pieces in its town center, with others nearby in Jävre, one of them right along the E4. Going east, Kalix and Töre each have their own, including one on a wildlife crossing near Kalix, which might be one of the more unusual spots in the whole invasion.

Inland

This is where the distances really open up. Pieces have turned up in Älvsbyn, Arvidsjaur, and Arjeplog, where one sits at a ski lift station, as well as in Kåbdalis and Jokkmokk. Towns here are small and far apart, and each one on the list means real time on the road.

The Torne Valley

Along the river that forms the border between Sweden and Finland, pieces have been found in Pajala, Pello, and Övertorneå, down to Haparanda at the river’s mouth. It’s a quieter part of the region, with long stretches of road between the towns, and a good one to combine with time on the Finnish side.

Finnish Lapland

A few of the Torne Valley pieces sit right on the border, and the invasion is officially listed as covering Lapland as a whole, so more pieces may turn up in Finland. We’ll add them here as soon as they’re confirmed.

When to Go Invader Hunting in Lapland

There’s no wrong season for this hunt, but the one you pick changes the kind of trip it becomes.

Winter is the season for photos. The bright colors of the tiles will really stand out against deep snow and frost, and since the pieces are brand new, this coming winter will be the first time anyone gets to photograph them under snow. For the most dedicated fans, there’s an even rarer shot to chase: a mosaic with the Northern Lights moving above it. It takes clear skies, a good aurora night, and a piece far enough from town lights, so nothing about it is guaranteed. But a few of the more remote pieces make it possible, and very few players anywhere will have that photo in their collection.

Fair warning, though: pieces placed low on a wall or close to the ground could end up partly or fully buried, so not every mosaic may be reachable until spring. Time is the other trade-off. Days are short, especially in the inland towns north of the Arctic Circle, and winter driving calls for a slower pace, so you’ll reach fewer pieces each day. But don’t worry, the roads here deal with winter every year. It just means building your days with more room in them.

Summer suits you better if collecting is the main goal. North of the Arctic Circle, the midnight sun means the light never really fades in early summer, so the usual limits of a hunting day disappear. You can drive to the next town after dinner, flash a piece at one in the morning, and it still feels like the middle of the afternoon. Streets are quiet, roads are empty, and the whole region feels like it’s yours for a few hours. Even on the coast around Luleå, just south of the circle, the nights stay bright enough to keep going long after you’d normally call it a day. It’s a strange and wonderful way to play the game, and it lets you cover far more of the map in the same number of days.

Autumn is a good middle ground. The days are still long enough for plenty of driving and hunting in early autumn, the forests turn gold and red before the first snow, and the darker nights bring back a chance at the Northern Lights. You get a bit of everything: color for your photos, easy roads, and evenings that don’t have to end once the last piece is flashed.

So the real question is what you want to come home with: photos most players will never have, or the highest score you can manage. Both are great reasons to come, and they lead to quite different trips.

Flashing Respectfully in Lapland

Part of what makes this invasion so interesting is where it happened. Lapland’s towns are small, life here is closely tied to nature, and the region is home to reindeer herding and Sámi communities whose culture is deeply rooted in this land. A little care goes a long way.

In both Sweden and Finland, everyman’s right lets you move freely through forests and open nature, even on privately owned land. That freedom comes with an unwritten rule everyone here lives by: don’t disturb, and don’t leave a trace. It also stops at people’s homes, so if a piece sits on a house or close to one, take your photo from the street rather than stepping into someone’s yard. On main roads, only stop where it’s safe to pull over, and keep an eye out for reindeer, which often wander onto the roads.

The same goes for the mosaics themselves. Never touch, remove, or try to take a piece, and don’t add your own. The tiles break easily, and a damaged piece is gone for every player who comes after you.

To be clear on where we stand: Lapland Private has no connection with the artist, and we don’t encourage placing artwork on anyone’s property without permission. What interests us is helping fans enjoy the pieces already here, respectfully, in a setting few invasions can match.

How Lapland Private Makes the Trip Easier

Putting this trip together on your own is a fair amount of work. There’s a rental car to sort out, possibly across a border, hotels to find in several small towns where the good options go quickly, and a route to work out that doesn’t have you driving back and forth. It’s all doable, but every hour spent on logistics is an hour you’re not spending on the hunt.

We take care of all of that. The trip is built as a self-drive route across the region, with the car, the hotels, and the planned activities booked and paid in one place. You arrive with everything already lined up, from where you pick up the car to where you sleep each night.

Where you land shapes the route. Luleå is the most direct starting point, right next to the largest cluster, so the hunt can start the day you arrive. Rovaniemi works well if you’d also like some time in Finnish Lapland. The drive west crosses into Sweden through the Torne Valley, so a few pieces can be collected on the way. Whichever you choose, the cross-border details are ours to handle.

Free time stays at the heart of it. The hunt is yours to play at your own pace, and the route is built around the clusters with room in each day to go after the pieces you want. Around that, we add a few experiences that make it a real Lapland trip too, like time with Sámi culture in Jokkmokk, a husky or reindeer outing, time to enjoy sauna, or even a Northern Lights evening in winter. That also makes the trip work for anyone traveling with you who has never flashed an Invader in their life.

And with someone on our team who has been playing for more than ten years, we understand how much one more piece at the end of a long drive can mean.

All photos in this article were shared by Invader on his official channels and remain the property of the artist. © Invader