MLu
Adventurer
I wanted to document this for two reasons: one; by writing it down you remember it better and two; Finland is woefully under-documented on ExPo. You'll specifically note that one of the reasons for writing this is not that this was an epic overland journey to unknown parts of the world. If you are in the neighborhood, I can absolutely recommend going there, even for a day or two. There's nothing quite like it anywhere.
We clocked in about 700km from Helsinki to Åland (as it's known in Swedish, which is what they speak there; or Ahvenanmaa, as it's known in Finnish), including all exploring we did. Åland is a demilitarized, self-governing part of Finland, consisting of about a million (slight exaggeration) islands and a bigger mainland. Me and and my wife have been there before, but not for many, many years so we decided to conduct a vehicle-supported expedition (read: two-day tourist trip) to look at some old castles and stuff and eat good food and drink their local cider. We left after work on Friday, car-camped on the island of Kumlinge, then explored the main island on Saturday, stayed at a nice BnB, did some more driving around on Sunday, had some nice food and left on a cruise ship leaving at five minutes to midnight on Sunday for Helsinki, where we went straight to work from the harbor in the morning.
To get there by car from the Finnish mainland, you need to take one or several ferries. Either one of the very large passenger cruise ships that ferry drunkards between Finland and Sweden and for taxation-related reasons stop briefly in Åland, or the small ferries that make up the main form of transportation for the people living on the smaller islands. For reasons beyond anyone's comprehension, taking the small ferries over the very pretty route through the archipelago without making an overnight stop is prohibitively expensive (several hundreds of euros) compared to making an overnight stop at some local BnB or camping ground, in which case the price for a slightly taller vehicle is 61 euros total - for three ferries (return included). 21 euros if you drive a normal car. The cruise ships are fairly cheap floating hotel resorts, so you'll lose your money in other ways instead.
Plenty of islands
First you need to get to the ferry, and severely under-estimating the Helsinki rush-hour traffic congestion a sunny Friday afternoon leads to realizing that your Land Rover under favorable conditions (downhill, good wind etc) can do 160 km/h. The ferry itself is no-nonsense.
The first night we stopped at a Bed & Breakfast / Camping site on Kumlinge island in the company of a moose, some horses, a donkey and the two Germans in the camper trailer above. We are not necessarily the keenest of campers, but the Disco does make for a pretty comfortable, if not quite queen-sized, bed. Still, we decided to try sleeping in the car, and it did work fairly well. The sleeping bit is not the problem, but if we do this again there needs to be some better storage options, some way of getting just a little bit more length and and less head-over-*** way of getting into and out of bed, as well as some curtains.
The Åland mainland is like Finland or Sweden - forests and fields, except the roads are red due to the soil they use to make the asphalt. The outer parts, connected by ferries and bridges is absolutely gorgeous. On Saturday we visited the castle of Kastelholm, and looked at a lot of scenery and had some nice lunch.
The second night we stayed at another BnB, the recently opened Brobacka. Then we went as far west, north, east and south as we could get without ending up on someone's backyard. After that we had dinner at what should be the best restaurant on Åland, Smakbyn.
The north part is a bit more rugged. This is around a place called Havsvidden, which has a fancy hotel where we were led to believe there would be a cake buffet. There was none. This was quite disappointing.
We clocked in about 700km from Helsinki to Åland (as it's known in Swedish, which is what they speak there; or Ahvenanmaa, as it's known in Finnish), including all exploring we did. Åland is a demilitarized, self-governing part of Finland, consisting of about a million (slight exaggeration) islands and a bigger mainland. Me and and my wife have been there before, but not for many, many years so we decided to conduct a vehicle-supported expedition (read: two-day tourist trip) to look at some old castles and stuff and eat good food and drink their local cider. We left after work on Friday, car-camped on the island of Kumlinge, then explored the main island on Saturday, stayed at a nice BnB, did some more driving around on Sunday, had some nice food and left on a cruise ship leaving at five minutes to midnight on Sunday for Helsinki, where we went straight to work from the harbor in the morning.
To get there by car from the Finnish mainland, you need to take one or several ferries. Either one of the very large passenger cruise ships that ferry drunkards between Finland and Sweden and for taxation-related reasons stop briefly in Åland, or the small ferries that make up the main form of transportation for the people living on the smaller islands. For reasons beyond anyone's comprehension, taking the small ferries over the very pretty route through the archipelago without making an overnight stop is prohibitively expensive (several hundreds of euros) compared to making an overnight stop at some local BnB or camping ground, in which case the price for a slightly taller vehicle is 61 euros total - for three ferries (return included). 21 euros if you drive a normal car. The cruise ships are fairly cheap floating hotel resorts, so you'll lose your money in other ways instead.
Plenty of islands
First you need to get to the ferry, and severely under-estimating the Helsinki rush-hour traffic congestion a sunny Friday afternoon leads to realizing that your Land Rover under favorable conditions (downhill, good wind etc) can do 160 km/h. The ferry itself is no-nonsense.
The first night we stopped at a Bed & Breakfast / Camping site on Kumlinge island in the company of a moose, some horses, a donkey and the two Germans in the camper trailer above. We are not necessarily the keenest of campers, but the Disco does make for a pretty comfortable, if not quite queen-sized, bed. Still, we decided to try sleeping in the car, and it did work fairly well. The sleeping bit is not the problem, but if we do this again there needs to be some better storage options, some way of getting just a little bit more length and and less head-over-*** way of getting into and out of bed, as well as some curtains.
The Åland mainland is like Finland or Sweden - forests and fields, except the roads are red due to the soil they use to make the asphalt. The outer parts, connected by ferries and bridges is absolutely gorgeous. On Saturday we visited the castle of Kastelholm, and looked at a lot of scenery and had some nice lunch.
The second night we stayed at another BnB, the recently opened Brobacka. Then we went as far west, north, east and south as we could get without ending up on someone's backyard. After that we had dinner at what should be the best restaurant on Åland, Smakbyn.
The north part is a bit more rugged. This is around a place called Havsvidden, which has a fancy hotel where we were led to believe there would be a cake buffet. There was none. This was quite disappointing.
Last edited:
