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Coverage / Finland

Finland

Northern Europe

Where Finland earns a visit: 11 activities across 12 curated destinations.

11 activities · 12 pairings · 18 verified providers

What you can do in Finland

Culinary / Cooking

Helsinkiyear-roundHelsinki is the easiest place to get hands-on with Finnish and Nordic cooking, and it does it in small, sociable classes rather than restaurant demos. The new Nordic pantry is the draw: wild berries and mushrooms foraged from the forests, Baltic fish, rye and dark breads, game and dairy, and preserving traditions born of a long winter. In a half-day class you might cure and smoke fish, bake Karelian pies or korvapuusti cinnamon buns, and cook a seasonal menu you then sit down to eat. The city's cooking schools run regular open classes as well as private sessions, most in English, led by working chefs, and several sit within walking distance of the market halls, the Old Market Hall and Hakaniemi, where you can shop the same ingredients afterwards. It is a low-effort, high-reward way to take a real skill home from a short northern city break.

Film Festivals

Midnight Sun Film FestivalSodankylaJunThe Midnight Sun Film Festival is the most singular film festival in the world, and Sodankyla, a small Lapland village well north of the Arctic Circle, is the whole point. Founded in 1986 by the directors Aki and Mika Kaurismaki with the film historian Peter von Bagh, it screens films non-stop, around the clock, through five June days when the sun never sets, in tents and halls a short walk apart. The programme is a deliberately eclectic mix of silent classics with live music, world cinema, new Finnish films and retrospectives chosen by the guest directors, who appear in famously relaxed morning discussions. There are no red carpets and no market, just films and film-makers in a friendly northern village where the light never fails and the mood is closer to a summer gathering than an industry event. The 41st edition runs 10 to 14 June 2026. For anyone who loves cinema, watching a restored classic at three in the morning in full daylight is unforgettable.

Museums & Galleries

Helsinkiyear-roundHelsinki lets you take in the whole span of Finnish art within a few hundred metres of the central station. At the Ateneum, the grand nineteenth-century home of the national collection, you meet the Golden Age painters who shaped how Finland sees itself: Gallen-Kallela's dark Kalevala myths, Schjerfbeck's spare portraits, Edelfelt's light. A short walk across the square, Kiasma picks up the thread in Steven Holl's swooping white building and carries it to the present, with Finnish and international contemporary art, media and performance. Between the two you get the entire arc, from national romanticism to now, in a pair of walkable, uncrowded museums that rarely have the queues of the big Western capitals. Both run English-language tours and sit in the design-rich heart of a city that also gave the world Alvar Aalto and Marimekko.

Music & Culture Festivals

Photography Expeditions

RovaniemiJan Feb Mar Sep Oct Nov DecRovaniemi sits right on the Arctic Circle, which makes it the most reliable and reachable base in Finland for photographing the aurora borealis. From roughly September to March the nights are long and dark, and on clear evenings the northern lights arc over the forests and frozen rivers around the town. The trick is escaping the city glow to a dark spot with clear sky, and that is what the local aurora-hunting operators do: they read the cloud and geomagnetic forecasts, then drive small groups to whichever location has the best chance that night, often covering long distances to find a hole in the cloud. A good guide also sets up your camera, so you come home with sharp, well-exposed frames of the lights over snow rather than a blurry phone photo. Rovaniemi pairs this with easy flights, Santa Claus Village and a full menu of winter activities by day.

Sailing

Turku ArchipelagoJun Jul AugThe Archipelago Sea off Turku is one of the largest island groups on earth, an intricate maze of tens of thousands of islands, skerries and sounds scattered between the Finnish mainland and the Aland Islands. For sailors it is a rare cruising ground: sheltered water with almost no tide, endless natural harbours and guest jetties, and in high summer nights that barely darken, so you can carry on under a pale midnight sky. It is also a demanding piece of pilotage, a puzzle of rocks and narrow channels that rewards careful chart work, which makes it satisfying rather than a simple point-and-go. From Turku or the archipelago bases you can island-hop for a week, tie up at a fishing village or an empty rock, swim, sauna and sail on. Local charter operators offer boats bareboat for the experienced or skippered if you would rather learn the water from someone who knows it.

Skiing & Snowsports

LeviJan Feb Mar Apr Nov DecLevi is Finland's biggest and busiest ski resort, and the only one that regularly hosts the alpine World Cup. Every November the men's and women's slalom circus comes to the Levi Black run, opening the technical season under floodlights and polar twilight. For everyone else Levi is a broad, well-groomed fell with dozens of slopes, gentle nursery areas and a long season: the front slopes can open in October and the south side runs into May, all above the Arctic Circle where snow is dependable and the midwinter light is a low blue glow. It is a forgiving place to learn or to rack up easy piste miles, with ski-in ski-out village lodging, a big cross-country trail network and reindeer and husky trips a short drive away. The resort's own ski school covers alpine, snowboard, cross-country and more for every level.

Trekking / Hiking

Oulanka National ParkJun Jul Aug SepThe Karhunkierros, or Bear's Trail, is the classic Finnish long-distance hike and the most walked wilderness route in the country. Its full 82 kilometres run from Hautajarvi to Ruka through Oulanka National Park, following the Kitkajoki and Oulankajoki rivers past gorges, rapids, suspension bridges and boreal old-growth forest, with a chain of free open wilderness huts to sleep in along the way. Most people take four to six days for the whole thing, while the southern Pieni Karhunkierros day loop from Juuma gives a taste in a few hours. The high season runs from mid-summer snowmelt to the fiery ruska colours of September, when the birch and aspen turn gold and red. Guided trips take the logistics off your hands, with hut-to-hut support that means no tent to carry, and local guides who read the terrain, the river crossings and the autumn weather.

Whitewater Kayaking / Rafting

RuunaaMay Jun Jul Aug SepRuunaa is the best whitewater in southern Finland, a run of free-flowing rapids on the Lieksanjoki where the river drops through a chain of six named rapids in a protected stretch of North Karelian forest. This is not steep alpine whitewater but classic Finnish rapids-running: wide, powerful grade one to two water shot in long traditional wooden boats or in inflatable rafts, with enough push and standing waves to soak and thrill a boatload without technical risk, which makes it a great family and first-timer adventure. The rapids sit inside the Ruunaa hiking and recreation area, laced with trails, hanging bridges, lean-to shelters and campfire spots, so a rafting trip pairs naturally with a walk, a swim and a smoke sauna on the riverbank. Local operators run guided descents through the summer and into the autumn colours, with the wooden-boat trip the traditional way to do it.

Wildlife Safaris

KuhmoMay Jun Jul AugKuhmo is the best place in Europe to sit with wild brown bears. This corner of the eastern taiga, pressed against the Russian border, holds one of the continent's densest brown bear populations, and alongside them the elusive wolverine and, on lucky nights, wolves. From late spring through summer the bears feed through the long, barely dark nights, and small operators run purpose-built photography hides where you settle in the evening and stay until morning, watching and shooting as animals cross the wetlands and forest edges in front of you. The area has drawn bear photographers since the 1990s, and much of the hide land is now protected private conservation ground where hunting is banned, so the animals are calm and predictable. Bring a long lens and warm clothing: the reward is brown bear, wolverine and the taiga soundscape at close range, with no fence in sight.

Witness / Attend

Air Guitar World ChampionshipsOuluAugThe Air Guitar World Championships turn Oulu into the world capital of playing a guitar that is not there. Held in this northern Finnish city every August since 1996, the contest is exactly what it sounds like: competitors from around the globe perform sixty-second routines to a track of their choice, judged figure-skating style on technical merit, stage presence and an ineffable quality called airness, all in deadpan seriousness that tips into joyous absurdity. Behind the silliness is a real philosophy, summed up in the slogan make air not war, the idea being that you cannot hold a weapon while playing air guitar, so world peace follows. National champions from dozens of countries qualify for the Oulu final, and the crowd is in on the joke. In 2026, with Oulu holding the title of European Capital of Culture, the final gets a stage built out over the water. It is one of the most purely fun events on the festival calendar, and unmistakably Finnish in its dry humour.

Best months at a glance

	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Culinary
Film Festivals
Museums
Music Festivals
Photography
Sailing
Skiing
Trekking
Whitewater / Rafting
Wildlife Safaris
Witness / Attend

Upcoming events in Finland