How to get to | Finland

This is part of a series of blog entries on how to get to countries and places. Here is a link to the index. I plan to eventually cover every country and some other places. If you have a request for a particular country or place please use the contact me link at top right, or leave a comment.

Finland

source: Matti K Sinisalo

There are lots of Baltic Sea ferries plying between Sweden, Estonia, Russia and Finland. In the middle of winter the ferries operate depending on ice conditions. Roads and trains connect with St Petersburg. There are also road crossings further north to Norway, Sweden and Russia. However, the main way to get to Finland is by air via Helsinki Vantaa airport. Airlines flying to Finland include:

• Star Alliance - Blue1 (based in Finland), Austrian, LOT, Lufthansa, SAS, TAP, Turkish
• Oneworld - Finnair (unsuprisingly based in Finland), British Airways, Malev
• Sky Team - Aeroflot (from Moscow but not St Petersburg), Czech, KLM

TIP Helsinki is a convenient place to start from (or connect at) for travel to most of the westernmost former USSR republics (ie Baltic countries plus Ukraine, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania) and also Russia at St Petersburg.

TIP awards between Europe and Asian hubs (Bangkok, Hong Kong and Tokyo) seem to be easier to get on Finnair than on the other Oneworld airlines.