August 2024

The world's happiest country.

The sound of silence is surrounding us.

We're deep in the Lapland wilderness with only our backpacks and our packrafts. The nearest road, or human, is miles away. The landscape is speckled lakes with boreal forest for endless miles. There's not the slightest breeze on this warm August day. There are no vehicles, no cities, no people, no sounds. The water on the lake is still as glass, and there's not a single cloud in the sky. Lapland is a land without sound today. I inflate my packraft and cross our third lake of the day before setting up camp.

*****

Finland may not have the dramatic peaks or stunning coast of so many other European countries. But it does have one of Europe's most vast wildernesses in its north, and also regularly tops most lists for the planet's happiest country, alongside nearby Sweden and Norway.

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We came here in summer on a long roadtrip through Norway and Sweden, spending about two weeks in-country with our packrafts, exploring some paradise wilderness and seeing the cute towns and Helsinki before a ferry to the Åland Islands. We entered from the northern border with Norway, and slowly meandered south, sleeping in our rental car and camping in the backcountry while paddling some remote lakes and rivers, occasionally seeing reindeer in the taiga. Mosquitos can be a HUGE problem in mid-summer, but by mid-August they were gone and we had no issues.

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What was especially neat about Finland for me, as someone with a gluten allergy, was the incredible range of gluten-free products in every supermarket. Pizzas, garlic bread, cinnamon buns, cereals, and on and on. Even the tiniest market in the most rural towns was well-stocked. It's possibly the world's best nation for anyone with food allergies.

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As well, the people are fantastic. Coming from the US, I found the Finnish to be way more polite, modest, educated, sophisticated, conversational, and reasonable. We had nothing but great interactions throughout Finland.

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The only downsides, to me, is the extremely cold climate, and the relative lack of interesting geography - it's almost entirely stunning forests and lakes, but not many mountains, valleys, canyons, etc.

Still, the relaxed nature, the high quality of life, the incredible people, and the ease of travel here make Finland a special place.