Finland – the land of lakes and snow, home for Santa Claus and its reindeers, a place where you can enjoy the famous Finnish sauna, admire unforgettable Northern Lights, discover charming villages and modern cities. It is a truly great country to visit and spend your vacation in, but not necessarily the cheapest one. Finland, and especially its capital Helsinki, constantly ranks in the lists of the most expensive places. For example, in 2018, Helsinki was in 30th place in “The most expensive places to travel in the world” with a travel cost of 199.77 euros based on the average hotel, food, drink, taxi, and entertainment costs for one person per night. However, this does not deter Finland from making it to other lists, such as “Best quality of life” or “The happiest countries,” which only shows that Finland most definitely has to be on your personal “places to visit” list! But let’s dig into more details and find out what the price of a trip to Finland would be.

Average Travel Cost in Finland

For the average travel cost, let’s take an example of Helsinki. Although keep in mind that even if the prices and cost of living are almost the same in the whole country, in the capital of the country, it is comparatively the highest. You can expect slightly lower prices in smaller cities in Finland.

And now, let’s answer one of the most important questions when going on vacation: “how much will I spend?” On average, the price of a trip to Finland would be 121€ or 138$ a day.

Here is a more detailed list of common expenses:

• Price of a simple meal: ~11€/12.5$
• Price of dinner: ~30€/34$
• Price of a city sightseeing Hop on – Hop off bus tour: 30€/34$
• Price of a city tour: usually from ~20€/23$ for a classic tour in the city center to ~80€/90$ for a longer day tour with a boat.
• Price of a daily transportation card in Helsinki: 9€/10$
• Price of TOP 10 Helsinki attractions: €194/220$
• Price of a 3-day Helsinki Card: €71/80$
• Price of accommodation: hostels from 25€/30$ a night, mid-range hotels from 80€/91$ a night, top-end hotels from 150€/171$ a night
• Price of car hire: €40–50/45.5-57$ per day
• Price of a taxi across town: €20–30/23-34$

Budget Trip Cost to Finland

The cheapest hostel in Helsinki would cost around 16€/18$ for a night. This price is for one bed in a shared bedroom with shared bathrooms. The cheapest options for a private room with a private bathroom would cost around 40€/45.5$ for one night.

The good news is that we are living in very hospitable times! There are several pages that would help budget travelers a lot:

• www.homeexchange.com – signing up here is free and allows you to stay everywhere in the world for 133€/$150 a year or 13€/$15 a night. With home exchange, you will have the chance to share a more authentic experience while discovering the culture of your hosts.
• www.couchsurfing.com – there are 243 very active users that are accepting guests in Helsinki all the time and over 17,000 hosts in this city in total. This means 17,000 possibilities to meet a real local and of course, stay for free. The numbers are huge which only shows how friendly, open-minded, and hospitable the country is!

If you are planning a budget trip to Finland, you are probably extremely interested in free things to do there.

First of all, all the natural parks, gardens lakes, and other nature sites are free because of jokamiehen oikeudet (every man’s rights), which means that every person has the right to travel in nature regardless of who owns the land. You can go to Aland – with 6700 named islands and 20000 smaller islands, this archipelago turns into one of the most spectacular places in Finland. Also, you can visit Lapland, enjoy lots of snow, breathtaking nature and most importantly – Northern Lights. It is one of the most popular and worth seeing things in Finland and it’s completely free to do: you don’t need any special tours, just head outside, somewhere a little away from big light sources.

If you are more interested in culture than in nature, Helsinki always has some museums and other interesting places with free entrance to offer: Helsinki city museum, Finnish museums of Natural History (free every first Friday of the month), Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (free every first Friday of the month), National Museum of Finland (free every first Friday of the month), the famous Suomenlinna sea fortress, Seurasaari open-air museum, Tram museum.

To sum up, if you are planning a luxury vacation in Finland, you might spend a little more than in other European countries, especially for accommodation, food, and drinks. But on the other hand, Finland is full of beautiful nature, free museums, and budget-friendly tours and activities, which would not make the cost of travel very frightening. Note: Information provided is based on 2019 data; future readers, be aware of potential changes.