On 21 December 2021, as it was leading up to the Christmas and New Year holidays, I was contemplating where to travel. With all the COVID-19 restrictions throughout the year, I could not make any solid plans. But after a long year of work and with the recent ease of travel restrictions, I was ready to make plans to travel even to the other side of the world. So after doing a bit of research, I decided to travel to Finland! This was mainly due to the desire to spend Christmas and New Year in winter, and Finland was one of the few countries in the northern hemisphere that I could travel to from Australia with minimal COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Two days later, I came up with an itinerary and booked flights for 30 December 2021! I used expedia.com to find a relatively cheaper flight and some of my other itinerary items. At this point, to say I was excited about this trip is an understatement. Mainly because at this point, I hadn’t travelled overseas from Australia on my own before, and the destination was a perfect winter wonderland for Christmas. I spent a few days in Melbourne with friends watching the Boxing Day Test and relaxing by the beach before boarding the first of many flights from Melbourne Airport on 30 December 2021.

Given the COVID-19 travel restrictions were still in place and having spent time in large crowds in Melbourne, I was somewhat concerned about the COVID-19 test that I had to take just before the flight (a negative test result was mandatory to board the flight). After nervously waiting for two hours, I finally got a negative test result and was cleared to board the flight! ✈️

As my first layover was in Singapore and the second layover was in Germany, the flight was a Lufthansa 9775 flight operated by Singapore Airlines. Once I boarded the flight at 4:40 pm Melbourne time, I was ready to relax and soak in the fact that I was off on my first spontaneous overseas travel experience. I was pretty happy with the in-flight experience, and after 7 hours and 40 minutes, I landed in Singapore for my first layover. As it was nighttime and given the Singapore Changi airport was quite big as well, I went straight to the connecting flight’s gate, even though I had 2 hours and 30mins layover time. I boarded the Lufthansa LH 779 flight from Singapore to Frankfurt, Germany. To my surprise, the Premium Economy service from Lufthansa was incredible (almost as good as a business class). Given this second flight was 13 hours and 50mins long, I appreciated the premium service. The flight crew was really friendly, and the food was excellent.

After a long but pleasant flight, I landed in Frankfurt, Germany, at 6:45 am on 31 December 2021, my last layover before Finland. I spent some time at the Frankfurt airport’s duty-free shopping centre, which was an experience itself with heaps of things to choose from, especially chocolates! Before I arrived in Germany, I was under the impression that Australians could not visit Germany without quarantining due to the COVID-19 travel restrictions. However, given I had 6 hours and 45mins in transit to spend in Germany, I thought I should double-check the most up-to-date travel restrictions - albeit 2 hours and 30mins into my transit period. So I checked the official websites and asked the border control officers at the Frankfurt airport as well. Again to my surprise, the restrictions had been lifted for the Australians at the time, and I was able to leave the airport and visit Frankfurt! I was told that given the next flight was only about 3 hours away, it might not be wise to leave the airport, but I did some research and realised that it was doable, especially since Frankfurt city was only a 20min train ride from the airport. So I took the plunge, took a train to Frankfurt city, and spent a couple of hours sightseeing. It was brief but a great experience for someone who has not visited Europe.

I then returned in time to board my connecting Lufthansa LH 850 flight to Helsinki, Finland, at 1:30 pm from Frankfurt. It was a relatively short flight with only 2 hours and 25mins flight time. So after a total of 33hours and 15mins, I finally arrived in Finland on 31st December at 5:00 pm! I can tell you all that travel time was well worth it. I took a train straight from the Helsinki airport to Helsinki city, where I had my hostel, Hostel Diana Park, which I booked through booking.com. The staff members warmly welcomed me at the hostel, and I found that the room facilities and the location were excellent for the price. Walking to the city centre and the central train station was a luxury!

01 January 2022

After a well-spent 31st December night, I checked out from the hostel and went straight to the city centre to pick up my Helsinki Card, which I had pre-ordered through expedia.com. This 24-hour pass provided me with free access to 25+ attractions around Helsinki, including free public transport and various discounts. After having brunch and coffee at Espresso House City centre, I started the day by visiting Amos Rex, a fantastic art museum. Museums are a must-visit in Helsinki as there are many museums to choose from, and there is bound to be a museum that’ll grab your interest. Examples include the National Museum of Finland, the Finnish Museum of Photography and the Design Museum.

I then visited the market square, a famous market located next to a harbour bordering the Baltic sea. It had a great variety of souvenirs and spectacular views. After a bit of wandering around, I visited Senate Square in Helsinki! By the time I left, it was freezing with the heavy wind around this area, and despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I then visited the Suomenlinna, a must-visit UNESCO world heritage 18th-century sea fortress. It is spread across six islands off Helsinki and can be accessible by a ferry service from Market Square. It was a unique experience visiting a sea fortress in winter via a Ferry at night. After catching the Ferry back to Market Square, I had dinner at a nearby restaurant. I then visited the famous Frazer Café in Helsinki City, one of the world’s best chocolate and sweet heavens. At this point, my phone’s battery had died due to the freezing weather (which was a common occurrence throughout my trip), but the staff at the Frazer Café was kind enough to find a charger for my Android phone (despite most of them having Apple phones). While the phone was charging, I indulged myself with various chocolates. The chocolate was so good that I brought some of it back to Australia. I ended the day by visiting Sibelius Monument, which was quite interesting given it was at nighttime. I felt extremely safe walking to all of these places, although I was in a foreign country under extreme weather at night by myself.

02 January 2022

Having spent a whole day walking around Helsinki, it was time for me to head to Finnish Lapland! Exploring Finland is an unforgettable experience, but visiting the Finnish Lapland makes it even more magical. There were few ways to travel from Helsinki to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. But the Santa Claus Express train was by far the best option. The Santa Express double-decker train is a perfect travel option for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in a real-life fairy tale. I had a whole sleeper cabin on the train to myself with two spacious and clean beds and a private bathroom. After about 8 hours and 22mins travel through snow-covered Lapland, I arrived at Rovaniemi around 4:30 pm. After taking a minute to soak in the excitement of arriving at the official home of Santa Claus, despite the freezing weather, I walked towards the Rovaniemi train station to pick up the car I had booked for two days. It was pretty surreal to wander around a train station filled with snow.

The process of picking up the car was relatively smooth, and I was ready to explore this fantastic city. Despite my love for driving, having never driven in these extreme weather conditions, I was nervous about driving, especially in a foreign country with unfamiliar routes and road rules. But I was soon acclimated to the weather and driving conditions. I drove straight to my hostel, Hostel & Café Koti, a friendly and cozy hostel right in Rovaniemi city. It was such a great option considering the price, facilities and location. After checking into the hostel, given my excitement to explore the Santa Claus Village, I drove to the village soon after, despite being late in the day. Briefly exploring the magical town and wandering around Rovaniemi city for the rest of the night was an excellent way for me to spend the rest of the night.

03 & 04 January 2022

During my time at the Hostel & Café Koti, the friendly staff treated me to some excellent breakfast options, which were already included in my booking. After enjoying breakfast on both days, I spent most of the two days exploring and doing various activities at the Santa Claus Village. Of the several activities, taking a husky ride and a reindeer sleigh ride were the highlights. With the husky sledge ride, I was in the same sledge with another family, and there was a sledge driver. Huskies were all busting with excitement to start riding the sled, and it was such a fast-paced and enthralling experience. The reindeer sleigh ride was no different; it was just as enthralling but at a slower pace. Both were unique and unforgettable experiences I booked on booking.com through the Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park tour operator.

Having dinner at Santa’s Salmon Place Restaurant was one of the highlights of these two days at the Santa Claus Village. The restaurant is located inside a traditional Lappish teepee with an open fire, and despite the long queue to get in and the cold weather, safe to say, it was the best Salmon I have ever had! While at the Santa Claus Village, I visited Santa Claus’ Main Post Office. Every year, the post office (hence the Santa) receives about half a million letters with good wishes from 200 countries worldwide. It was fascinating to see several letters from Australia too. It’s the only place you can get an Arctic Circle postmark stamp! Before I said goodbye to Santa’s village, I made sure to go and say hi to the real Santa himself! Overall, it was a wholesome experience to be surrounded by tourists, families, kids, people from different countries and cultures, and staff members in this one winter wonderland full of joy, excitement and happiness!

Check out more photos from the Santa Claus Village on my Instagram!
While I was sad to leave the village, I knew that perhaps the trip’s highlight was yet to come. Before that, I did a quick visit to Arktikum, which is a beautiful science museum in Rovaniemi. It was the perfect way to learn about the people, northern nature, culture and history of the Rovaniemi area, and the architecture of the building was fascinating!

As it was now getting late in the day, it was time for me to try to see the northern lights, the trip's highlight! I pre-booked a northern lights tour through Nordic Odyssey as they had excellent reviews, and their office was right next to my hostel! That’s one thing you realise in Rovaniemi city; everything is so close. They picked me up from my hostel and started driving up north of Finland. It was quite a long drive as it was hard to find a good spot to see the northern lights, and we even had to stop a few times to find a suitable place. But it was still an exciting experience going through the Finnish Lapland, and the group in our van also had such a great chat amongst ourselves. We drove all the way close to the Finland-Sweden border, which was somewhat exciting but also nerve-racking as the COVID-19 border restrictions wouldn’t have allowed us to cross the border and that would have meant I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to see the northern lights. Since I had plans for the rest of my trip, this was my only chance! But thankfully, after a longer-than-expected drive, we finally found a good place. The northern lights were far from perfect, but still, as you can see by the photo below, I was fascinated by the experience!

05 January 2022

After the high of experiencing the northern lights for the first time, I woke up the next day to get ready for yet another unique activity, this time an Icebreaker Sampo Cruise! I had a full-day trip ahead of me to the frozen sea in the town of Kemi. After having my last breakfast at Hostel & Café Koti, at around 8:30 am, I went to the pickup location for the cruise, which was only a short walk from the hostel. The shuttle bus arrived on time, and I was so ready to go. After just over a two-hour ride, we arrived at the venue at around 10:45 am, and before onboarding the cruise, I also got the chance to visit the Kemi Snow Castle, which was incredible. This was topped up with a fantastic lunch at the Snow Castle Resort, all of which were included in the cruise ticket booked through Experience 365. Now it was time for the cruise!

The sea in the town of Kemi stays frozen for more than six months every year, enabling such an incredible winter adventure. The Sampo is an actual icebreaker ship that operated in severe arctic conditions from the 1960s to the late 1980s until it was converted into a tourist attraction. I was so fascinated throughout my time on the ship. I spent it wandering around and soaking in a real-life icebreaking experience, the sound of the ice-breaker, learning about the history and, at times, relaxing inside the ship with a cup of coffee. Before returning to the harbour, we all had an incredible opportunity to swim in the frozen sea wearing survival suits! Initially, the ship took its time to create a hole in the ice, and we all got our turns swimming in the frozen sea wearing our survival suits, which I never thought I would be doing. We then returned to the harbour, and I was dropped off in Rovaniemi at about 7:00 pm to return to my hostel. After having dinner at a nearby restaurant, I prepped for my flight back to Helsinki early morning the next day. Safe to say, at this point, I was ready for a long sleep. This whole Icebreaker experience was one of the most memorable, exciting and one-of-a-kind experiences!

06 & 07 January 2022

After that fascinating Icebreaker cruise experience and a long sleep, I woke up at 4:00 am on the next day for my flight at 5:25 am back to Helsinki, which I had pre-booked through Kiwi.com. I said farewell to my hostel, Hostel & Café Koti, took a taxi to the Rovaniemi airport, and ended up having an interesting conversation with the driver about living in Finland and how hard it can sometimes be to make ends meet being a taxi driver. The Rovaniemi airport is probably one of the smallest airports I have seen; hence the onboarding process was relatively smooth. The flight only took just over an hour, which was great considering the long distance between Rovaniemi and Helsinki, and the train travel time is well over 8 hours. After arriving in Helsinki, I checked back into my first hostel, Hostel Diana Park. Given that I had such a good experience the first time, it made sense to book that place again for the last two days I was in Finland.

These last two days in Finland were spent mostly exploring and wandering around Helsinki and trying different cuisines and food options in various restaurants. Having had a jam-packed few days prior, this was also an opportunity for me to take a breather. But I visited several museums, including The National Museum of Finland, the Parliament of Finland and Temppeliaukio Church. Temppeliaukio Church was an exciting experience as the church is directly built inside a rock. I also visited the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden | LUOMUS, which added to my breadth of experiences in Finland. As with many places in Finland, the architecture of all these places was unique and fascinating. Despite the extreme weather, I mostly walked to these places, allowing me to explore and sightsee different locations along the way. While these last two days were less fast-paced, I certainly enjoyed them.

As it was getting closer to my return flight home, I ensured that I arrived at the Helsinki airport well before my flight at 5:55 pm on 07 January. I had also completed all the pre-flight COVID-19 requirements, such as a COVID-19 test and the Australia Travel Declaration, and I was ready to onboard. While leaving Finland at this point was sad, I was grateful to have had the opportunity to even travel overseas at a time of a global pandemic. I was grateful for the best travel experience I have ever had and to experience it all without catching COVID-19. Especially considering the number of connecting flights I had to take to get to Finland and the number of places I visited in Finland. It helped that this was the winter season in Finland, and most places (except for Santa’s Village) were sparsely populated.

I had two layovers on my way back to Australia: Germany and Japan. The flight from Helsinki to Frankfurt, Germany, was delayed quite a bit due to extreme weather, which was frustrating. Initially, I only had about 1-hour layover in Germany, but given the flight delay, I now only had less than 10mins left in my layover. This meant I had less than 10mins to offboard the plane and walk (or run) all the way through the Frankfurt airport to catch my connecting flight to Japan. The connecting flight was aware of the Helsinki-Frankfurt flight delay, but I still had to run as fast as possible to catch the connecting flight. Safe to say, I was only about a minute away from missing the flight. Thankfully I managed to onboard the flight, but unfortunately, my luggage was placed on a later flight. I did not have the bags to collect when I arrived at Sydney Airport, but they delivered them to my home in Canberra the next day. All in all, I arrived safely at my home in Canberra and honestly, sprinting through all the passengers in such a massive airport like Frankfurt to catch a flight and catching it at the very last minute was somewhat stressful but also kind of fun! 😂

While I had so much fun with all the highlight activities in Finland, all the little experiences, such as having interesting conversations with a taxi driver, the tour guide or other tourists, made this trip even more memorable. What I liked the most about Finland was all the friendly people I met, whether the café staff, restaurant staff, tour guides or a stranger I met in the street. They all had such happy and cheerful demeanours, and it’s no surprise that Finland has been ranked as the happiest country in the world for five years now. This might not be the best itinerary for a trip to Finland, and there’s certainly so much more you can do in Finland, but I hope you enjoyed reading about my experience. If you ever have a chance to visit Finland, I would 100% recommend doing it. It is an amazing country to visit and truly a winter wonderland! Sometimes the best adventures are spontaneous, and I’ll end with this quote I saw at Amos Rex museum - “To come to the knowledge you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not” - St. John of the Cross.