Finland

Best time to visit

Best time to travel

June–August for long light on lakes and islands; mid-September for Lapland’s ruska colours. Aurora season runs from late August to early April, with February–March adding snow.

Travel tips

Travel by Ildy tips

• Make use of jokamiehenoikeus, everyman’s right: you may walk, ski, pick wild berries and mushrooms and pitch a tent for a night almost anywhere in the countryside, away from homes. Open fires and cutting trees need the landowner’s permission, and national parks have their own rules.
• In the Old Market Hall, opened in 1889 on Helsinki’s South Harbour, order a Karelian pie — rye crust around rice porridge — with munavoi, the egg butter that completes it.
• Time Lapland for ruska: colours usually peak in the second week of September around Utsjoki and roughly 15–20 September near Rovaniemi, lasting about ten days.
• Finland’s sauna culture became the country’s first entry on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list in 2020; old public saunas such as Kotiharju and Arla in Helsinki keep the neighbourhood tradition alive.