A new adventure: outdoors Finland!

It’s going to be an exciting week for us! While Martijn is climbing some peaks in the Swiss Alps, Anto is staying on lower grounds, however quite a bit further up north. She’s going to Finland for the Outdoors Finland bloggers trip, hosted by Visit Finland.

What do YOU know about Finland? Some things we knew before we ever set foot in it were:
– There’s thousands of lakes. And even more trees!
– People stay in their cabins in the summer. And weekends. And winter. (Pure bliss if you ask us!)
– Everybody goes to the sauna. Or well, almost everybody.
– The northern part is called Lapland which is mostly above the Arctic Circle.
– Their language is impossible to understand with extremely long words and a lot of vowels.
– Mika Häkkinen comes from there. As does Jari Litmanen. Two sports heroes Anto followed during her teens.

And that was about it…

It’s been a while but we’ve both been to Finland a few times before. In fact, Martijn lived and studied there back in 2001, when we just met and started our journeys. He stayed in Helsinki for nearly 5 months and of course, Anto came to visit. During our 6 days together we explored Helsinki and rented a cabin on the shores of a lake, somewhere near the town of Tampere.

Then we traveled back together in 2007 for an introduction on wintertime in Finland! We flew all the way up north, above the Arctic Circle, and experienced some winter fun while dogsledding and snowmobiling. Oh, and we also got to meet Santa along the way …

And now Anto is going to enjoy Finland in the summer! The time of the year when the trees are green and the sun is out for a long, long time! She’ll be joining a bunch of other bloggers and experience the best of outdoors Finland for 4 days in the Saimaa region. Here the endangered Saimaa Ringed Seal can be found; nowadays only 300 of them are left to be found here. Spotting one of them would be awesome!

Also there’s a chance of catching our own fish and eating them at night. Not a first one, however this time it probably won’t be salmon… If Anto is patient enough to hold the rod for some time, we’ll have to learn.

And of course there will be some activities, the best way to enjoy the outdoors! Hiking at Punkaharju Ridge is on the schedule. Yay! And how about some canoeing in Linnansaari National Park? Because after all, how can you go to Finland without spending some time on one of their thousand lakes? And then, at night, run out of the sauna right into the water to cool down… Well OK, we’ll have to see about that one.

We’re very excited to be a part of this experience. Finland offers everything we enjoy in life: nature, the great outdoors and adventure.

Want to tag along on this amazing trip? Then  follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook and enjoy the Finnish landscapes and hospitality with us!

Psst: now be a real adventurer and share this with our friends!