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Finland was an unusual destination for us—we replaced our usual tropical weather with snow and beaches with frozen lakes. After five years of avoiding winter we weren’t sure how we’d get on—even Finland’s May temperatures are far colder than we’re used to—but we loved visiting somewhere completely different. Finland is often overshadowed by its neighbours Sweden and Norway; it wasn’t a country we knew much about and only came on our radar recently because of bloggers like Hecktic Travels and Bridges and Balloons. We discovered a wild and beautiful country with a fascinating culture.
Here are some Finland facts and random observations from our nine days in Lapland and Helsinki.
1) Finland is not in Scandinavia. Finns describe it as a Nordic country.
2) Finland has only been independent since 1917—it belonged to Russia from 1809 and before that to Sweden.
3) Since independence Finland has become one of the most prosperous countries in the world—in 2014 it ranked number 8 on the Legatum Prosperity Index which takes into account both wealth and wellbeing.
4) It is very safe. In fact, Helsinki was found to be the world’s most honest city in a study by Reader’s Digest which counted how many deliberately placed wallets containing money were handed in. In Helsinki 11 of 12 wallets were returned.
5) It’s the only country we’ve been where there are no gates at metro stations. Tickets are rarely checked but almost everyone travels with one anyway.
6) Finland feels wild and empty, especially Lapland. It’s bigger than the UK (about the same size as New Mexico) but only has a population of 5.4 million vs 64 million in the UK.
7) It’s known as the land of a thousand lakes but there are actually over 187,000. The winters are so cold they freeze over and are used as roads—completely normal to Finns, amazing to us Brits.
7) Over 70% of the country is covered by forests.
9) The “Everyman’s Right” in Finland means you can walk and camp anywhere in nature without permission and forage for berries and mushrooms (a popular pastime). The government even provides cabins in National Parks where you can stay for free.
10) Finns love to be outdoors, even when temperatures drop to -40ºC in winter. Grilling sausages over an open fire is a quintessential experience—tasty and warming—as we discovered on our hike in Oulanka National Park.
11) Finns do crazy things like swim in icy lakes in the middle of winter. Nude, of course.
12) Then warm up with a sauna. There are over 3 million saunas in Finland for 5.4 million people—most people have one in their home. Even our small studio apartment in Ruka had one.
13) Sauna is the only Finnish word that has made it into everyday English.
14) In the far north the sun doesn’t rise for around a month in winter, and in summer you can experience the midnight sun where the sun doesn’t set. Even in early May we had 18.5 hours of daylight in Ruka.
15) There is so much snow that there are over 40 Finnish words for it.
16) Santa Claus lives in Rovaniemi, Lapland. Sadly we didn’t get to meet him.
17) There are as many reindeer as people in Lapland and you often see them by the side of roads. They are semi-domesticated, roaming free in the summer and rounded up to live in farms in the winter. They also appear on restaurant menus.
18) Never ask a reindeer herder how many reindeer he owns—it’s like asking someone’s bank balance.
19) There was only one thing in Finland that annoyed us: double beds are made up with two separate twin sized duvets—no good for snuggling.
20) Finns drink the most coffee per capita in the world, consuming 12 kg of coffee per person per year. Our food tour guide confirmed that drinking 6 or 7 cups a day is normal. Unsurprisingly there’s an vibrant cafe culture—we’ll write more about the excellent coffee shops we discovered in Helsinki.
21) The Finns invented Restaurant Day where anyone can set up a restaurant for the day—in their home, garden, or on the street. It has now spread around the world. We enjoyed peanut tofu noodles, tomato and tarragon soup, and chocolate cupcakes, all from different stalls in one of Helsinki’s parks.
22) The chocolate is delicious—from Fazer milk chocolate that’s found everywhere to speciality chocolate shops in Helsinki.
23) Finland was surprisingly good for vegetarians. Many Finns are vegetarian, all restaurants have at least one meat-free option, and there are lots of vegetarian restaurants in Helsinki (which we’ll be writing about soon).
24) Finland’s speeding fines are linked to income so high earners pay more—recently a millionaire was fined €54,000.
25) Finns are experts at comfortable silences. Silence is considered part of communication and they don’t feel the need to fill it with small talk. We found it both refreshing and a little difficult to get used to.
Many thanks to Visit Finland who sponsored our trip to Finland.
Hello, thanks for your very good and interesting article on our country. I work as a guide and would like to comment on whether or not Finland is part of Scandinavia. In fact, both arguments are right, depending on how you define it. Based on language, Finland is not part of Scandinavia. But: geographically speaking Finland is on the Fenno-Scandinavian territory. So- both versiona are correct, based on either argument.
very interesting post. I’ve fallen in love with Finland through Hecktic Travel’s posts and you have enforced that thought. I would not want to use frozen rivers as roads. Sounds scary.
We definitely recommend a visit. We thought driving on lakes was crazy but it’s so normal to the Finns. Apparently you “just know” when the ice is thick enough!
It’s good to know the most honest country in the world. Regrading; mine country is in first five of the list of most corruption occurring country. :(
A small correction on Finland belonging to Russia after 1809 (and until independence in 1917). Actually Finland (as a Grand Duchy) belonged to the Tsar of Russia and not to Russia as such. He in turn was represented by a Governer General (one if whom decided Russification was a good idea which as most Finns didn’t agree led to his assasination). Not belonging to Russia also meant that Finns were not conscripted into the Russian Army (although they were allowed – as did Mannerheim – to serve in the Russian Army).
Thanks for the clarification!
Two things remind me of Germany: the metro stations without barriers and the two duvet setup – which I am also not a fan of!!
Very interesting observations of Finland. Thanks for sharing!
Love the picture with the reinders, and great advice as we are looking into a finland holiday.
It’s such a unique and friendly place – well worth a visit!
i will love to be here soon
Thanks your fine pictures. It is fun you have been in Finland and written this article. I live in Helsinki and love Lapland.
We have a beautiful country and four wonderful seasons.
Finland is one of the most livable countries of the world. The capital being in Helsinki, the city has witnessed maximum changes in recent times. Btw, any exclusive tour deals to Lapland?
40 Finnish words? I had no idea! ;)
Very interesting facts about Finland and how much over speeding could cost rich people haha! that is justice right there. :D
Thanks for the article… I was born in Finland, and have lived in Canada since 1967… but now going to Finland for a vacation with my wife and 2 children. Somewhat looking forward to the 2 bed system… although I think my wife will complain about that! We’re going to Lapland for a few days, will be interesting to see if we get any sleep!
Greatly written article, Erin. #5. Metro and tickets not being checked very often. I don’t know. Maybe they have increased the frequency of ticket inspections. Every time I ride Helsinki metro without a ticket, I get caught, and penalized with a 80 euro fine…. ;-)
Oh dear! We rode it a lot in our 5 days there and never saw tickets being checked. Of course, we always had a ticket anyway :)
More and more reindeer farmers are keeping their reindeer penned in during the long and dark winters to avoid having them run over by cars. This is appreciated by many car drivers as it is no fun to suddenly see a reindeer appear out of nowhere when doing 100km on a dark overland road.
Hi!
I’m from Finland and currently living in Denmark. It’s nice to notice that people are finding Finland for their holidays. I’m so glad that you have written this article.
One thing about reindeers…They are walking free all year round. In lapland reindeer herders gather the reindeers twice a year, once in the autumn time to seperate reindeers to slaughterhouse and in to the wild, in summer time to see how many little raindeer there is and mark them.
Thanks for letting me know about the reindeer. Maybe I misunderstood, or just some of the reindeer in the tourist industry are in farms in the winter.
As a Finn I can ensure that Finland is a nordic country, not a Scandinavian one, and that fact doesn’t change with the language you speak. I belong to the Swedish speaking minority myself and nobody I know considers himself/herself Scandinavian. Just because we speak Swedish also doesn’t make us like Sweden, we are proud Finns and nordic people :)
That’s good to know, thank you.
#13 Sauna–Smoke saunas are the best but there are few of them. And if you pronounce “sauna” correctly (as it is pronounced in Finland) to an English speaking person they will invariably correct your pronunciation.
#22 Fazer is the best!
We didn’t get to try a smoke sauna unfortunately. Staying in a Finnish cabin by a lake with a smoke sauna is on our bucket list!
awesome!
I am a transplant to swedish speaking finland… I have never thought of it but it wonder if this area of finland is considered Scandinavia because it shares both the finnish and swedish cultures. I are am with you on the duvets! I have insisted on having a single duvet and now I think my husband has come to appreciate the snuggling aspect ;)
I have heard that some Finns consider themselves part of the Scandinavia, which would make sense if they are Swedish speaking.
Finland is part of Fennoscandia. Scandinavia, Finland and part of Rusiia belongs to it. It is geographical thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennoscandia
The distinction is geographical rather than cultural as the term Scandinavia comes from the Scandinavian mountains (Scandes ) located between Sweden and Norway (reaching to some extent also to Denmark, but not Finland) so the Swedish speaking regions of Finland would not necessarily be considered any more Scandinavian than the rest of Finland.
very interesting and informative post!
I’ve never been to Finland, but it is a country that fascinated me. Yes, as a linguistics nerd, it always annoys me when people refer to it as Scandinavia: Scandinavia is a group of countries sharing a common cultural-linguistic origins (Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark) which has nothing to do with Finland, whose origins lay further east. That said, I didn’t actually know that sauna was the only Finnish word borrowed to English, that’s cool!
There are actually many countries in Europe where there are no barriers at metro stations, most of central Europe in fact and it is the norm in all of the German-speaking countries. Same deal here too; (mostly) everyone pays anyway. The same with the beds, actually, and I’ve heard Austrians say that they don’t think they would’ve stayed married to their spouse if they had to share a duvet with them!
Yes, Finnish is only related to Estonian and Hungarian apparently. It was pretty incomprehensible to us!
That’s interesting. We haven’t travelled much in Central Europe so hadn’t noticed that about the metros.
Wrong. Scandinavia does not include Iceland (it’s only Sweden, Norway, Denmark). Iceland is a Nordic country just like Finland.
Actually these days very often Finland does seem to be included in Scandinavia even though that is strictly (geographically) incorrect.
Thanks for a very interesting post – so many things I didn’t know about Finland! Now I want to go there! Is it an expensive country (compared to say Scandinavia or UK)
We were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t actually too expensive—it’s no more expensive than the UK. We usually paid 20 euros for us both for a meal in Helsinki (at more casual restaurants). Coffees were 3 or 4 euros in fancy coffee shops.
Finland is the most expensive country in Europe.
I just have to say that your opinion is wrong about the double-comforter system. IT IS AWESOME.
Ha! I realise it’s a controversial opinion as so many people seem to love it.