4 Great Things About Living in Helsinki

While often obscured by its larger neighbouring capitals, the likes of Copenhagen and Stockholm, this “pocket-size metropolis” has a unique and dynamic flair that is not to be overlooked. A city of contrasts, Helsinki is an interesting combination of the traditional and the contemporary, the hot and the cold, the big and the small – it’s a little bit of everything really.

Despite its status as an international capital city, Helsinki is far from intimidating. While its expansive metropolitan area encompasses Espoo, Vantaa and a number of surrounding towns, its actual urban core is really quite compact, meaning a “5 minutes’ bike” is the standard distance you can expect to travel between most places in the city. It’s also pretty unusual for a day to pass without bumping into a friend/acquaintance/distant relative when going about your daily business. As such, it manages to meet the balance between being a vibrant capital city while still having a cosy, small-town feel to it.

What Helsinki lacks in size it certainly makes up for in its big-city nightlife, boasting a host of lively bars and clubs that cater to pretty much all tastes, from trendy hangouts to kitsch Bohemian bars. The streets of Uudenmaankatu and Iso Roobertinkatu in the Punavuori district – one of the city’s main social hubs – are scattered with a plethora of cool lounge bars, all within crawling distance of each other. Head to Bar Llamas (wall murals, wooden swings and affordable Mexican beers), Karaoke Bar Restroom (an ex-public toilet turned popular karaoke bar) and We Got Beef (casual hipster spot, affectionately nicknamed Beeffi) for a sample of the city’s diverse nightlife scene. The city is also an oasis for festivals, many of which are among Europe’s most exciting, including Helsinki-päivä (Helsinki Day: the city’s birthday), Vappu (Walpurgis Night: lots of dancing and bonfires) and Flow Festival (a culmination of the summer’s colourful, musical, drunken celebrations).

Like all large cities, there are of course certain areas worth avoiding at night, but Helsinki is widely considered one of the world’s safest cities, earning it consistently high quality of life ratings. As a welfare state, Finland has an incredibly well-developed infrastructure and its healthcare and education systems are perceived among the most advanced in the world. Everything just works.

Winter can be a long and very very very cold season in Helsinki, so when the much-awaited spring finally arrives, Finns flock to the outdoor cafes and open spaces to make the most of the city in full blossom. Summer is when the city and the surrounding nature interact most spectacularly. Its eclectic mix of neoclassical, Byzantine-Russian and vernacular architecture makes for an exciting structural landscape, while the forests, lakes, coastline and sprinkling of islands ensure you never need venture far to experience Finland’s abundance of natural beauty.