It is much on the news nowadays that aviation causes huge CO2 emissions. The first time I was on an aircraft was at the age of 16, when I travelled to Italy for the first time ever. From that day onwards I have been consequently seeing flying as something desirable, appreciated and the most convenient (that will say the best) way to travel around the world. All this, without thinking so much of the mechanisms behind the industry, and above all, how much emissions it causes.
I have made a promise to myself to drastically reduce flying, because I want to do something more significant from the point of view of an individual for the good of the planet. If I decide to go on exchange outside the Eurasia, I will most likely fly there (depending on where I would end up of course), but in that case I want to compensate it somehow. If you have good tips for that, comment down below.
Anyway, in this post I wanted to give you a small insight on other ways of exploring both Finland and nearby areas:
1. Carpooling/ridesharing
This is something I have fallen for during the last couple of years. Basically all the carpooling/ridesharing groups I use, are on Facebook. You either make a post to the group in question that you offer a ride or then you search for an available ride. Some people expect to share the fuel costs (I expect that always if someone travels with me), but others sometimes indicate eg. that the trip is free if you also drive (you have to have a drivers’ licence that is valid in Finland of course in order to do that). Below you will find a list of these groups in Facebook:
To pretty much everywhere:
Kimppakyyti Vaasa
https://www.facebook.com/groups/414731958590922/
Kimppakyyti
https://www.facebook.com/groups/kimppakyyti/
Kimppakyyti (yes, there are two different groups with same name)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/237913786231849/
To Helsinki/Tampere/Seinäjoki, et cetera:
Kimppakyyti Helsinki-Vaasa-Helsinki
https://www.facebook.com/groups/503393059709950/
To Turku/Rauma/Pori/Kristinestad/Närpes:
Åbo-Pampas-Åbo med bil
https://www.facebook.com/groups/193898762148/
Vasa-Åboland-Vasa kimppakyyti
https://www.facebook.com/groups/268804083150054/
To Pori & surroundings:
Kimppakyyti Pori
https://www.facebook.com/groups/702705889764350/
To Jyväskylä:
Kimppakyyti Jyvaskyla-Vaasa
https://www.facebook.com/groups/282066885313844/
To Kokkola:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/270685142970546/
To Oulu:
Kimppakyyti Oulu
https://www.facebook.com/groups/591550684241228/
Inside the Ostrobotnia region:
Samåkning i Österbotten
https://www.facebook.com/groups/535286623277943/
Kimppakyyti Pohjanmaa
https://www.facebook.com/groups/573289899429246
To national parks / natural parks in Finland:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/RetkeilijoidenKimppakyydit/
2. Train
Let’s face it, Finland is not among the best countries in the world to travel by train, but you can still access pretty much all the big cities by train at least. Buying the tickets follows the same principle as with eg. flight tickets: the more in advance you buy them, the cheaper the cost. Students receive discount on train tickets with a valid student ID (Frank/Slice). There is also a possibility of buying serial tickets, if you need to travel often between different cities. You can eg. depart from Vaasa by train and wake up in Kolari train station, which is the northernmost train station in Finland. Or how about taking the train all the way to Turku harbour and continuing the trip to Stockholm by ferry? How do these alternatives sound to you? Not forgetting the fact that you can even reach Trans-Siberian or Trans-Mongolian by taking the train from here, since the Finnish railway network shares the same track gauge with Russian railways.
The route map over long-distance trains:
https://www.vr.fi/cs/vr/fi/kaukoliikenteen-reittikartta
Live train map:
https://junatkartalla.vr.fi/?lang=en-US
By train to Russia:
https://www.vr.fi/cs/vr/en/to_russia
Some tips that I can give to you when it comes to travelling by train in Finland:
– The best way to buy the tickets is definitely by doing it by computer or by using the VR app. Nowadays especially many smaller stations don’t have ticket booths (or they have extremely limited opening hours) and sometimes not even vending machines.
– If you want to save money, bring your own food and drinks. The refreshments onboard cost A LOT (EDIT, 14.10.2019 17:10: Joining the Veturi loyalty customer programme will give you discounts on refreshments, but the prices are still expensive)
– There is a Wi-Fi connection onboard of the trains, so it’s very easy to work or study during the trip.
3. Hitchhiking:
I can’t say that I would have a lot of experience on hitchhiking, but I have hosted relatively many people who do it via Couchsurfing. However, both of my personal experiences of hitchhiking have been highly positive. The first time I did it was around seven years ago with my friend from high school. We hitchhiked from Turku to Helsinki and we didn’t have to wait longer than around 15 minutes before we got a ride. Our driver told us hitchhiking stories from Jordan, Israel and Egypt, just to mention some of the countries he had been hitching in. He even recommended us one very good restaurant in Helsinki, where we actually headed straight away after the ride.
The other time I hitchhiked was in the Åland Islands on an ESN Åbo Akademi trip. Me and my two Italian friends decided to go and visit one café in Järsö, which is around 10 km outside of Mariehamn, in Lemland. We took a taxi to go there, but as it was freakingly expensive to get there, we didn’t want to do the same on the way back to Mariehamn. Therefore we decided to save money and try hitchhiking. This time we had to wait for a bit longer time, since the traffic was pretty much nonexistent. In the end, we got a ride from a guy who was on his way to buy beer in Mariehamn.
For good tips concerning hitchhiking spots, I recommend you to check out either Hitchwiki on the internet or downloading the app My Hitchhiking Spots, which is basically the former one in app format.
In the following post I will be introducing some of my favourite places in Finland.
Trevlig resa! – Hyvää matkaa! – Buorre mátki! – Pyeri mätki! – Jååʹđ tiõrvân!
– Pekka