Finland guide

There’s no place like Finland. To call the Nordic country quirky is to euphemise: bonkers is more like it. Admittedly, Finns can seem as cool as their weather on the face of things, but it’s a front. Spend any length of time in this land and you’ll feel like you’ve popped some of the magic mushrooms that grow abundantly in its forests. This is, after all, the home of Moomins, flying reindeer and (the real) Santa; a place where roasting in a sauna before whipping yourself with birch branches and diving into an ice hole is considered perfectly normal — healthy, in fact.
Look at the country’s festivals and you’ll get an inkling of the mad ideas that occur during the long, snowbound, ever-so-dark northern winters. Finland has hosted championships for sauna-going, farting, boot-throwing, wife-carrying, air guitar playing, mosquito-swatting and swamp soccer. Finland has made “wacky” its thing and it works. Take the love-it-or-hate-it specialities designed to test the newcomer, for instance: salty liquorice (salmiakki), pine-tar liqueur (terwa) and squeaky cheese (leipajuusto) that you dunk in coffee. Even the lilting, Elvish language, which, incidentally, inspired Tolkien, is vastly different from those of neighbouring countries, sharing its Uralic root with Hungarian and Estonian.
Bar the odd coastal city, the country is one enormous forest, spattered with 188,000 lakes. It’s nature gone wild, with 40 national parks reaching from Baltic islands to the snowy fells of Lapland, where summer suns never set and northern lights rave through winter. All this space is just as well, as Finns need silence and time to think. The defining national characteristic is sisu, often translated as having hardy, resilient and determined qualities, but better summed up by actions such as competitive sauna-going, foraging for berries while being eaten alive by mosquitoes, and ice swimming for the hell of it.
If you want to endear yourself to Finns, sing the praises of their marvellously idiosyncratic land as you join them for a post-sauna beer, a quiet walk in the woods, or a hard night drinking Finlandia vodka, winding up, perhaps, at a backstreet bar cheerfully pumping out Finnish death metal. It’s the secret to happiness, or so says the UN, which has named the country the world’s happiest for four years running.
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Devote at least a couple of days to Helsinki. The country’s quietly charismatic capital packs in some compelling sights, such as the neoclassical Senaatintori square and its pearl-white cathedral, historic treasures in the National Museum, Finnish art in the handsome Ateneum and contemporary exhibits in the Steven Holl-designed Kiasma gallery. However, it’s the city’s staggering location on the Baltic that enthrals most. Take a ferry from the market square to Unesco world heritage island fortress Suomenlinna, strip off for a sauna and a gaspingly cold plunge in the sea at Uunisaari sauna, and hang out in artsy Kallio neighbourhood’s old-school market hall, vintage boutiques, design shops and brunch cafés for a true flavour of the city’s soul.
Beyond Helsinki, Finland’s towns and cities are a leap into the unknown for most. Edging west brings you to pleasingly upbeat Turku, the oldest of all Finland’s cities, with a medieval castle and basilica, a Nordic art museum, and cobbled streets wending photogenically down to the café-lined banks of the Aura River. The city is the gateway to an archipelago of 20,000 islands and skerries — perfect for kayaking, hiking or cycling, and for island-hopping with a combo of bikes and free public ferries on the 200km Archipelago Trail. The biggest draw for children (who are we kidding — for everyone) is Moomin World, set on its own little island (Kailo) just west of town.
Veering north instead of west brings you to nicely chilled Tampere, with a hip and happening assortment of post-industrial cafés, hotels and museums. Here you can thrill your inner five-year-old gawping at loveable white hippos at the Moomin Museum, or grab a canoe to paddle out across the surrounding lakes.
A trip in its own right, Lapland is everything you dreamt it would be as a child: snow (so much snow!), Christmas sparkle, reindeer rides and husky sledding, igloos, northern lights flashing away in night skies and, of course, Father Christmas — visit him in his village in Rovaniemi, right atop the Arctic Circle. Should you fancy some crowd-free skiing, Yllas, a couple of hours north, has some of the country’s best fells to whizz down.
Helsinki hits the style high notes on the Esplanadi, the park strutting down to the seafront. Here you’ll find the lavish five-star Hotel Kamp, which has welcomed celebs from Madonna to the Stones. The Finnish capital covers the entire spectrum accommodation-wise: from cool, independently run hostels (note the one in a former Russian school on Suomenlinna) to simple, inexpensive chains in boho Kallio. For avant-garde edge, focus your attention on the city’s Design District, home to ultra-cool Klaus K and Lilla Roberts, bringing art deco flair to a former power plant.
Slickly designed, easy-on-the-wallet chains like Scandic rule in many Finnish cities; they’re often brilliantly located, with simple, crisp, modern rooms. Beyond the chains, Turku turns on charm with sleeps ranging from a ship hostel anchored on the banks of the Aura to a boutique hotel in a revamped prison. Tampere delivers Nordic design hostels, architecturally striking tower hotels with broad city views and post-industrial digs (including a spa hotel in a former cotton mill).
Let’s face it: you don’t come to Finland to hole up in your room. Big wilderness beckons. Wild camping is legal thanks to Finland’s “everyman’s rights” — right to roam — which is perfect if you’re planning a lengthy hike in a national park or a self-guided canoe tour in the Lakeland. In the remote north and east, there are also free wilderness huts, designed for one-night stays. If the idea of hibernating in a log cabin or lakefront cottage in the back of beyond appeals, Go Finland offers an enticing array of holiday rentals.
Lapland has a blizzard of highly original, atmospheric places to stay, among them eco-conscious lodges with impeccable design credentials, architect-designed treehouse hotels, snow hotels and glass-roofed igloo hotels where you can gaze at the northern lights from a toast-warm bed. Atop the Arctic Circle, Rovaniemi is Santa’s HQ, but for fewer tourists and to feel the pulse of the indigenous Sami (Finland’s indigenous reindeer herders), head north to Lake Inari or Utsjoki. Here, rustic lodges and cabins are family-run affairs, with many offering activities from aurora snowshoeing, reindeer sleighrides, dogsledding, snowmobiling and ice fishing (in winter), to hiking, kayaking and fishing under the midnight sun (in summer).
​​The more remote you venture, the more Finland casts its spell. Fringing Russia in the east and reaching over to touch Norway and Sweden in the Arctic north, much of the country sprawls in glorious monotony, with green forests, stained-glass blue lakes and ruler-straight roads on repeat. With time to spare, you could devise a wonderful south-to-north road trip, but realistically you might need to pick and choose when you travel in Finland.
If you’re prepared to go the extra mile (or 200) north of Helsinki, Kuopio is in many ways Finland in a nutshell. On the shores of an ink-blue lake hemmed by forest, it’s home to Jatkankamppa, the world’s biggest smoke sauna, where you can sweat in the crypt-like gloom before skinnydipping in the freezing lake if you dare. Heading through the lake country that unravels southeast brings you to Linnansaari National Park, where you can hike and kayak among islands in quiet exhilaration. Keep an eye out for ospreys and Saimaa ringed seals, which are among the world’s rarest and most endangered.
More wildlife, you say? Top billing goes to the off-the-radar Wild Brown Bear Centre in the densely forested wilderness near Lentiira in the country’s east, where Finland slips unobserved over into Russia. European brown bears love the deep, dark corners of this nature reserve, as do wolverine, wolves, lynx and elk. And there is no better place to observe them in safety than in the hides here, where sightings are near-guaranteed during the season from April to October (come in May to see yearling cubs).
Around three hours — and a lot of lonely forest and fleeting glimpses of reindeer — north of here, you hit Ranua, Finland’s “cloudberry capital”. The Finns are crazy about the amber-hued, creamy-sweet Arctic berries they call hilla or ​​lakka, which are ready to pick for just a few weeks in late July and August. Get hold of a bucket and join them for a foraging feast in the swamps. Visit Ranua can help with cloudberry maps and apps.
When travelling to Lapland, most people never venture beyond Rovaniemi. Go beyond the Father Christmas madness, however, and it’s a silent, white world. In winter it’s pure Narnia, the only real light coming from the snow, the trees bent heavy with hoar frost and the aurora regularly dancing in night skies. Go properly off-piste hiking, cross-country skiing and sleeping in wilderness shelters in Urho Kekkonen National Park, where the remote fell of Korvatunturi rises. Forget sparkly grottoes; according to the Finns, this is Santa’s true home.
Visit Finland from December to March for Christmas sparkle, northern lights and snow fun in Lapland; June to September for island-hopping, relaxing at lakefront cabins, or swimming, kayaking and sauna going on the Baltic. June, when the midnight sun burns brightest, brings midsummer parties and picnics around campfires. For cloudberry foraging, hit the Arctic in late July/early August. You can experience Sami culture year-round.
How many days do I need in Finland?That depends. If you want a taster, try a long weekend in Helsinki. But frankly, the longer the better. Anything less than a week in Lapland and you’re sticking in Rovaniemi and only scratching the surface. For a deeper exploration of the country (a long-distance hike or a self-guided kayak tour, say), the best travel advice is to stretch to a couple of weeks.
Is it expensive?Yes. But good news: it’s not quite as eye-wateringly expensive as neighbouring Norway. You can cut costs by staying in hostels (many have private rooms), wild camping, grazing markets for picnic fixings and filling up at the cheap lunch buffets offered in many cafés. Lapland is a dream holiday for many, with a price tag to match, but choose smaller, family-run guest houses away from big resorts like Rovaniemi and you’ll generally get a better deal.
Inspired to visit Finland but yet to book your trip? Here are the best packages from British Airways and Expedia.
• Discover holiday packages to Helsinki• Discover holiday packages to Lapland• Discover holiday packages to Rovaniemi• Discover holiday packages to Tampere• Discover tours in Finland
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