Finland is a beautiful country in Northern Europe, known for wild beauty, home to mountains, waterfalls, bays. Here you can find the Santa Claus and see reindeers. If you love the outdoors, this is one of the best countries in mainland Europe to explore nature or go for a hike. However, if is the first time you travel to Finland, check out the following information about things that you should know before traveling to Finland.
1. The Weather in Finland
When you visit Finland, you should know clearly about the weather here. The summer is quite nice, 20-27 degrees Celsius (68-80 Fahrenheit) or a crappy 18 degrees (64 Fahrenheit). Oh it seem very cold with me, this like the winter in my country.
You can have horrible blizzards in winter but nowadays, in the Southern part, the weather can be quite mild as well. Especially, if you intend to visit Lapland in winter, you must know that it will very cold here.
2. Beware of Seagulls in Helsinki
You can get a problem with seagulls in summer here. They are very incredibly sneaky, if you don’t act carefully, they will come and steal your food. Therefore, if you intend to eating an ice cream or something while walking in Market Square or Esplanade, beware of Seagulls. They just wait the time you look other way to steal.
3. Santa Claus lives there
In 1950s, the city of Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland quickly asserted itself as the official hometown of Santa Claus. Lapland’s cold and wintry climate, coupled with its relative abundance of conifer trees such as pines and spruces. Lapland is the top attraction in Finland, many tourist visit here to see Santa Claus and cute reindeers. The landscape in Lapland is completely different from the rest of Finland.
4. Nature in Finland
Nature is very important to Finns, they like jogging, skiing and berry picking in the forest. As the special law in Finland, anyone can visit and camp in anyone’s forest as long as they don’t cause any harm or trouble and stay away from the dwellings. If you visit Finland, take your chance to go camping in the forest. It will be very interesting experience.
5. Saunas in Finland
Sauna is a big part of Finland’s national heritage. Almost all the detached houses have a sauna and it’s a ritual in many households to have a sauna night on Saturdays. Whether it’s the sauna in your Airbnb, your hotel or a public one, when you visit Finland you have to try a Finnish sauna at least once!
6. Drinking in Finland
People in Finland drink a lot. The wine culture arrived here relatively late and people were drinking mainly beer and spirits earlier. However, you can only buy alcohol (over 5,5%) from a shop called Alko and they don’t open on Sundays.
7. Finland is Expensive!
It is true. Pretty much everything is expensive in Finland. Alcohol, food, gas, clothes, cars…In general salaries in Finland are also high so that makes up for it, but as a tourist you will find Finland an expensive destination. Therefore, if you decide to traveling to Finland, consider your travel budget.
8. Finns drink a lot of coffee
Finland consumes more coffee per capita than any other nation. People in Finland like drinking filtered coffee as its fabulous taste and its convenience. You must be amazing when know that The average Finn consumes around 26 pounds of coffee a year, but nearly all of that is in the form of a light roasted filter coffee.
9. Helsinki is convenient to other cities
You will need to spend a lot of time to travel different areas of Finland, it take about a week or more. However, if you don’t have the inclination or the time, Helsinki is fine for a couple of days, but that’s about it. From Helsinki, you can easy to visit number of other cities. You should leave to explore other, there are more interesting places.
