Finland

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Feien

Ploppers
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Any of you guys been there or live there. I'm going on a 4 week road trip in mid-September to do some photography and video work so I was wondering if anyone who has been there had any suggestions. I'm mostly interested in outdoors stuff rather than cities.
 

Springbok

Karen
<Gold Donor>
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Lived in Helsinki six months (Vantaa actually), and didn't have the best of times. Found the people pretty shy/timid and the winter was brutal. Lapland was neat though - saunas everywhere and the women drink a lot and actually like American men. Viking boat to Stockholm is fun as hell! For pics I think the further north you go the more drastic the scenery will be.
 

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<WoW Guild Officer>
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Lived in Helsinki six months (Vantaa actually), and didn't have the best of times. Found the people pretty shy/timid and the winter was brutal. Lapland was neat though - saunas everywhere and the women drink a lot and actually like American men. Viking boat to Stockholm is fun as hell! For pics I think the further north you go the more drastic the scenery will be.
My wife was in Finland and Stockholm for two weeks with her side of the family. They loved Lapland and the Viking boat. Santa's village in Lapland was pretty great, but they were in there June so it was eternal sun.
 

Ossoi

Tranny Chaser
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If Stockholm is as close as Springbog suggests then I would spend as much time there as possible. The women are insanely beautiful and Stureplan is a fun night out
 

Koivu

Molten Core Raider
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21
Native Finn here. Fire away with any questions you might have, will do my best answering them. Which part of the country are you most interested in visiting?
 

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<WoW Guild Officer>
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Native Finn here. Fire away with any questions you might have, will do my best answering them. Which part of the country are you most interested in visiting?
Is your first name Mikku?
 

Feien

Ploppers
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377
Is your first name Mikku?

Thanks Koivu. I'm going to try to visit as much of the country as possible, so from Helsinki I will follow the west cost to vaasa, hitting places like old Rauma, then head north to Rovaniemi, then hitting a few national parks like Pallas-Yllästunturi and maybe all the way north to Kevo Nature Preserve near Utsjoki, and then go al the way down to Kolovesi, and well, many places in between which I'm trying to narrow down at the moment.

If there is a particular place you've you know or heard is a "must see" I would love to hear about it. I'm very excited about the concept of "Everyman’s Right" but since i've never experienced that I can't help being a bit paranoid about it, so if you have any comments about that, that would be helpful since I plan to camp throughout my whole trip.
 

Koivu

Molten Core Raider
19
21
Is your first name Mikku?

Negative. It would be spelled Mikko, and besides, Saku is the superior brother.

As regards to things to see/do/avoid while in Finland.

Helsinki is the capital, and has any number of museums and sights you can see. Visit Helsinki : City of Helsinki’s official website for tourism and travel information will get you started on those. If you are hankering for a proper sauna experience, Helsinki still has a few public saunas that do the thing properly, including cupping if you so choose. Not recommended if you are planning on heavy physical activity for the days to come. My recomendation is to visit the Old Market Hall at least, and nibble the local specialites: pickled herring, pickled herring and pickled herring. Unfortunately you'll arrive a bit late to ride the SpåraKoff, the tour of the city while riding an tram transformed into a bar on rails. They'll close their summer season the 10th of September.

From Helsinki the next natural stop point is Turku, the old capital of Finland and my home town. The Turku Castle is always worth a trip, especially if things medieval are of interest. Next to the castle is Forum Marinum, a maritime museum with restored old vessels open to the public at the pier. If September is warm and lovely, the river boat bars are still in business and always worth a beer stop or three. Just don't fall into the river, there's enough E.coli in those brown waters to give anyone a raging case of diarrhea. If you see a bunch of young people in colourful overalls, they are the barely legal 18-yo just starting at one of the city's three universities. If they are acting completly retarded, just ignore and carry on. They are most likely engaging in some student activity or another. Btw, if you're a WWII buff, be on the lookout for gouges in the outer facades of the older buildings. A lot of the purely superficial damage from the Soviet bombings was not repaired after the wars, the people choosing to leave the scars of war visible.

If you're thinking of a detour, I would make a round trip around the islands. The coastal waters of Turku are absolutely peppered with small islands that are mostly used for summer residences. There's something called "Archipelago Ring Road", a 250+ km round trip that starts and ends in Turku and goes (also available for those with bicycles) through all the major islands nearby by road and small ferries. Very scenic. Saariston Rengastie

North of Turku you'll hit Rauma, where you can see some of the best conserved old style architechture. Most of the major cities were bombed/burned during the wars, but Rauma avoided such fate. The town is famous for its laceworking, if you're looking to nab some quality doilies for elderly female relatives.

A small note regarding language: Finland is officially bilingual country and everything is labelled both in Finnish (first line) and Swedish (second line). 95% of people you'll meet are purely Finnish speaking, and most likely will speak English with an atrocius accent. The proper English intonation does not come easy to us, just youtube Kimi Räikkönen for an example. The only exception to the rule is the coastal regions around Vaasa, where the Swedish speakers have a slight majority, and the road signs can be in reversed order. They'll also speak better English.

North of Vaasa the population gets pretty damn sparse outside of the coastal regions. Once you arrive at Tornio (where Sweden and Finland meet), you'll have to start planning ahead for gas stations and food breaks. Always keep a wad of euroes with you while up north, some of the old, unmanned gas stations have only the old pumps that may or may not accept your foreign credit card. While in Vaasa, I'd make time for a trip to Hailuoto, it's a large island out on the Bothnian Gulf, and is only connected to mainland by ferries. There's still some people who live there all year around and support themselves by fishing.

If you're at all interested in WWII, I'd heartily recommend taking the time to drive east to the on your way south and visit the battle grounds for Suomussalmi and Raate Road and the related museums. The memorial for Winter War is grim as hell, in my opinion.

Everyman's Rights are basically codified "Don't be an arse" rules. As long as you're not killing animals (includes lurefishing), lighting fires, cutting down trees, leaving garbage behind and not tramping through people's fields, you're free to roam as you please, picking berries and mushrooms.

Hiking: You're free to hike where ever you want as long as it's not fenced in, a cultivated field or clearly adjacent to a house, ie. mowed lawn or garden. As a hiker, you have the right to travel on private roads without needing to ask permission from the landowner.
Camping&Swimming: you can sleep anywhere you can hike without asking a permission, provided your stay is of temporary nature. Exception to the rule is nature reservations, where they have assigned camping spots and you have to stick to those. You are not allowed to light a fire, and do not bury/burn any garbage out in the woods. If you want hot food, invest in a portable spirit stove like the Trangia Trangia » A kitchen for all . These skirt around the fire rule and will not get you into trouble. You're allowed to swim anywhere you want, so long as you're not entering the water through someone's yard.
Foraging: Any mushrooms and berries as long as they are not clearly cultivated you can pick and eat for free. Plenty of poisonous mushrooms, so get a book to help you identify the edible ones if interested in this. Berries are mostly edible, lingonberries, blueberries and cloud berries being the most available.

Depending on the temperatures, September might be cold enough that most of the mosquitoes have died, but I'd still pack mosquito repellant, the little shits are everywhere, as the land can be really, really swampy up north.

Where are you travelling from?
 
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Chris

Potato del Grande
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I just got back from Helsinki. Jesus Christ the prices were INSANE, we literally hesitated to eat and drink there since it was only one full day. I thought the UK was moderately priced and had no problems like this even visiting the very centre of London.

Everyone spoke English just fine after we timidly said "Hello". Gangs of young boys playing Pokemon Go EVERYWHERE.
 

Koivu

Molten Core Raider
19
21
I just got back from Helsinki. Jesus Christ the prices were INSANE, we literally hesitated to eat and drink there since it was only one full day. I thought the UK was moderately priced and had no problems like this even visiting the very centre of London.

Why the fuck do you think I included a paragraph on foraging? :)

But yeah, eating out, drinking at bars etc. is stupid expensive. Used to be you could get a pint for 4,5 €, but those days are mostly gone, alas. But hey, atleast waiters don't expect any tips whatsoever, prices are what they are, no need to add 15-20% on top.
 
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Chris

Potato del Grande
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Found a place with 5.50 euro beer, but most where 8 euro. Double UK prices for similar bars. Thing is we have a shitty bar chain called Weatherspoons that does cheap beer nation wide and "tradiational" (old man) pubs which have low prices too. So it's triple prices on a budget really. Maybe I just didn't have the local knowledge.

Fortunately we found a couple of places which did small meals or all you can eat lunch for 10 euro. Airport was properly insane since those always have a multiplier anyway, managed to find 35 euro burgers. What the fucking christ!?
 

Vinen

God is dead
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I just got back from Helsinki. Jesus Christ the prices were INSANE, we literally hesitated to eat and drink there since it was only one full day. I thought the UK was moderately priced and had no problems like this even visiting the very centre of London.

Everyone spoke English just fine after we timidly said "Hello". Gangs of young boys playing Pokemon Go EVERYWHERE.

Iceland is worse (Visited both). 12 euro beer was a good price.
 

Feien

Ploppers
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377
Thanks again for all the feedback, I had a great time while in Finland. Here's a few images.

2016-10-18_0001.jpg
 
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