Six Reasons to Love Finland

This quirky country is definitely worth the trip — but only if you enjoy silence and buffets

I recently visited Finland for the first time. It was my first trip to any Nordic country, and it was also my 30th birthday gift to myself. I (rather spontaneously) booked the trip in early May, shortly after being inaugurated into my 30’s, and quickly delved into my newfound affinity for the land of 1,000 lakes. I started listening to more and more Finnish music, followed some Finland-based content creators, and tried my darndest to learn as much of the language as possible in just a few months.

I was also able to rope two of my closest friends — who both live in different countries — to join me for the first half of my trip. So, the first half would be a ten-year friendiversary and city holiday, while the second half would entail solo travel.

I felt like I prepared fairly well for this trip, mainly because I was so excited about it. So here are a few things I noticed as a newcomer to Finland; some were complete surprises, others confirmations of stereotypes I’d heard about but took with a grain of salt.

I’ll also say, this is coming from the perspective of someone who’s lived in the US and Scotland, and who is well-traveled in Western Europe, but has never been to a Nordic country.

1. It’s quiet here… too quiet?

I’ve never been to such a quiet country before. I’m a fairly introverted person, so this isn’t something I particularly minded, but it was clearly noticeable. Yes, wandering around small towns and in nature is deafening with silence, but even walking through the capital city was oddly muted. When my friends and I — from Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the US — would sit in bars or restaurants in Helsinki, we often caught ourselves as the loudest table in the room. The other patrons spoke in hushed, monotone voices, or seemed content to sit in silent company.

And rarely did any space feel crowded. Maybe so on a couple of train rides, and in a couple of bars on the weekends, but otherwise people were able to spread out as much as their introversion desired.

I don’t know how the explain the quietness of this country. Sure, it’s less densely populated than other places I’ve been to, but I’m not sure about the cultural implications. How can an entire country be so introverted? I spoke with Finnish people for transactional purposes, and most of them were genuinely pleasant. But on my ten day trip, I only had one true conversation with a Finn, and he was a bartender. A captive audience! I had conversations with Brits, Greeks, and a Slovakian, but only one Finn. Maybe it has something to do with the values the Finnish culture prioritizes, or how people here are socialized from a young age, but I couldn’t tell you why Finnish people are so quiet — I never got the chance to ask.

2. Public transportation made me feel like the luckiest girl alive

Save a couple of days where I traveled solely by foot, I used the public transportation regularly. All of it was clean, timely, and fairly user friendly. Traveling outside of the Helsinki area was a bit different (still easy, though), but if you’re within a certain radius of the city (including the airport), you can buy a day pass, which includes all trains, buses and trams within the HSL service, all for about €10. Being an American, it doesn’t take much to impress me in regards to public transportation, but I also lived in Scotland, a country that I always thought ran a very good service. Finland’s system makes ScotRail look like Amtrak, and Amtrak look like… well, something much worse, anyway.

I never had to wait more than five minutes for a suitable bus or train to arrive in Finland. At first, I thought I was incredibly lucky. But can you be lucky for ten days straight? Seems unlikely.

3. It’s almost annoying how well everything works

Beyond public transportation, I kept being impressed by the efficiency and quality of things in this country. For instance, most sizeable train stations are conjoined with shopping malls. And these malls always have a grocery store in them. So you get back from a trip or your daily commute, and want to pick up a few things on your way home? It’s all right there. So logical. Even their basic shampoo is incredible; I used it in both my airbnb’s, and it left my hair feeling so salon-soft, that I went to the grocery store (yes, in the train station) and bought a bottle for my mom and I each.

I understand that Finland in a remarkably smaller country than the US, and therefore it’s nearly impossible to hold up each country’s infrastructures next to the other. But still, being in a foreign country for the first time and navigating it, and everything just feeling so easy and reliable was quite the sensation.

4. The Finns will change your tune on lunch buffets

One of the things that surprised me the most was the abundance of buffet lunch deals in Finland. In the US, buffets are often looked down upon, seen as sub-standard food that could be sitting under a heat lamp for hours on end. But on our first full day, starving, windswept, and bracing ourselves for those infamously steep Nordic prices, my friends and I stumbled into a lunch buffet restaurant. We were skeptical, but that lunch ended up being my favorite meal of the whole trip.

When I think of buffet food, I think of fried food, claggy food, food that can hide its age well. In Finland, though, buffets are hearty soups, wide arrays of fresh salads, and sometimes something more substantial, too. All of this, and as much of it as you want, for €11–15. That to me is good value for money. Plus the fact, you can really fill up on a satisfying and nutritious lunch for not a lot of money, and then opt for a smaller, lighter, and therefore cheaper dinner.

5. The sticker shock wasn’t too shocking

While I’m on the subject of value, I have to say that I way pleasantly surprised by the cost of a lot of things in Finland. Based on blogs I’d read and advice from people we’d pooled together, my friends and I were all prepared to get quite a lot of sticker shock. However, I thought that most things I bought were fairly reasonable (that magic shampoo? €2 for a 300ml bottle). And so did my friends. We each live in different cities — Detroit, London, and Glasgow — and we all felt that our meals and cocktails and train fares were reasonable considering what we’re used to paying and what we expected in a Nordic country.

My only theory here is that we all live in places that have been hit hard by the past few years’ economic turmoil, and overall inflation has increased dramatically. Perhaps Finland has done a good job of not allowing inflation to run away at a rate incomparable to people’s wages. Either that, or we got lucky with where we chose to spend our money. But again, I don’t think luck can be sustained that long.

6. If you can’t enjoy a sauna, what are you even doing here?

This was something I knew going into this trip, but it was still fun to experience. We went to a public sauna in the city center where we were able to plunge in a sea pool. The sea pool was, of course, shocking to our untrained bodies, but the cleansed feeling my friends and I had after a few rounds of this was the perfect way to start a day. I could certainly get used to such a refreshing routine.

I even had a small sauna in my second airbnb that I gladly used to take the chill off after some cold, damp days. The saunas made my skin feel brighter, my limbs looser, and my energy more relaxed. Surely this is the Finnish key to surviving their brutal winters.

Kiitos, Suomi

At the end of my trip, I was incredibly sad to leave this quiet, muted country. More sad than I can account for. As I made my way through the Helsinki airport, ready to depart for home, I stopped in the Moomin Shop and bought myself a small plush Moomintroll. Sure, I had already bought myself and friends other gifts. But the Moomintroll felt important. The Moomins are a fictional cast of characters created by author and illustrator Tove Jansson; originally featured in a series of childrens’ books, they have gone on to be adapted into a TV show and beyond. You see the Moomins all over Finland (on mugs, tote bags, in shop windows), as it is the birthplace of the beloved story characters, and they represent something of the odd and wild, yet also endearing quality I began to see Finland as having. The Finns love the Moomins, and after a visit to the Moomin Museum in Tampere, so did I. I wanted to bring this little piece of cultural charm with me back to the states.

I may have only spent ten days in Finland, but the impression this quirky country left on me is still lingering, and I’m so grateful for my time there. For anybody who enjoys travel that offers calm, introspective spaces, I couldn’t recommend Finland more.

Kiitos for reading! I am also a freelance writer, so if you enjoy my content and are in need of any writing services, please check out my portfolio or email me at [email protected] .