Finland is known for being one of the most expensive countries in Europe. That’s why most budget travellers won’t ever choose to visit it. However, there is a free and beautiful way to travel through Finland.The only thing you will probably need some money for is food.

Finland is full of forests which means it is full of free camping places, and it is even legal to do wild camping there. I am still getting over the fact that we have only spent 3 nights there. However, I still managed to see that their forests and lakes really are something special. Also, there is a big misconception about people picking up hitchhikers in Finland. We didn’t have any problem with getting a ride even though Finns are supposed to have more of a closed and rude personality. I really do not agree with such arguments at all.

Some of you may say that this is obvious but I still wanted to write this post, just to possibly inspire somebody who doesn’t own a fortune, wants to travel and does not believe that it is possible.

We spent our first night in an amazing forest next to lake Bodominjärvi. It was full of blueberries (again), moss, birches and pines. And the blueberries are really exceptional. They are huge but still have an abundance of taste and this is something that doesn’t exist here in Slovenia. I slept like a baby and we woke up into a beautiful sunny morning. What’s more beautiful than trees full of green sunlit leafs? I picked berries, we ate, walked around for some time, packed and went to the lake. The beach was peaceful and full of barnacle goose. We went for a swim and it was so cold I could barely breath. However, it was perfect to freshen up and the sun was shining so it was not a problem to warm up. After relaxing for a while, we continued our way to Lohja and got a ride in less than a minute. We visited another lake and there was a party for the first day of school held there. It was fun to observe all the people and listen to some Finnish metal.

Big blueberries Beautiful camping spot in Finnish forest. Photo: Asja Masnoglav

We then walked through the city and to our next hitchhiking spot. It started raining and the spot was not good. Luckily, a very kind guy stopped for us and drove us to a better place. He took us to a big rest station called abc that basically saved us from getting soaked again. We just decided to go there, wait for the rain to stop and go find a camping spot. This stations are perfect. They have food shop, restaurants, comfortable tables and benches, toilets, wi-fi and they are open 24h. We relaxed again and when it was time to find a camping spot we went and found it just about 10 minutes away from abc. It was very convenient as we could go there in the morning to get ready for the day.

And for our last day, we spent our day in Turku. Turku is charming city and it is also the oldest city in Finland. We spent our day walking around the city, we went to buy ferry tickets, sat next to the river and just enjoyed the city as much as we could. In the end of the day we found the closest forest, which was again amazing, and slowly went to sleep. There was also a lot of wildlife like foxes, deer and squirrels. It was really cute. We slept very well again and in the early morning we had to return to the port and leave for Stockholm.