How to survive winter in Finland 2025

 

 Finland is one of the northernmost areas in the world with a permanent population.  Winter in Finland varies in duration from about three to seven months, depending on the part of the country, but regardless of location, it’s cold, dark and snowy.  However, they do not interfere with daily life. No matter how cold it is or how much snow has fallen, Finns will still make it to work or school in the morning. 

They know how to make the most of the winter months.  The following Winter Top 8 will give you a glimpse of what keeps Finns going during the coldest months of the year.

 Coffee

 A woman with two hands holding a large cup of cappuccino. A cinnamon-sprinkled cappuccino beats the cold of winter. Photo credit: Juha Tuomi/Rodeo.fi In the dark, cold mornings of winter, coffee gets you moving. It provides strength to last the day, and some people even say it helps them get to sleep, believe it or not.  In 2009, Finland's per capita coffee consumption was 11.92 kilograms, or approximately 3.8 cups per day (compared to 4.09 kilograms in the United States and 7.35 kilograms in Sweden). The brew that most Finns drink is light-roasted and slightly bitterer than that coffee on the Continent.

 Serving coffee is an important Finnish custom.  A table set with pretty coffee cups and pastries is commonplace at family gatherings, workplace celebrations, sports personalities' receptions, and friends' visits. However, Finns will use any excuse to get their hands on a cup of coffee and drink it anywhere. American-style coffee chains are relatively new to the urban scene, but they have quickly gained a large following. In the winter, Finns also enjoy tea, cocoa, hot blackcurrant juice, and "glögi," which is a Nordic version of mulled wine. 

Sauna

 A widely smiling man dipping in a hole in the ice. Nothing makes you feel more alive or refreshed than a dip in icy waters after roasting in the sauna!

 Board of Tourism of Finland Sauna (or the sauna) is an icon of Finnishness, and no wonder.  This country has approximately 5.4 million people and 2.6 million homes with at least two million saunas. The number is rising as most new apartments have an electric sauna adjacent to the bathroom.

 Finns have a sauna to round off an evening, after sports, after sweaty work, in the name of friendship and togetherness, to mark the end of negotiations or just because it’s sauna day, if nothing else.  The sauna is a natural part of big days such as Christmas and Midsummer.  Contrary to foreign belief, people don’t compete about who can stand the heat of the sauna best, or who can stay in the hot room the longest.  They believe that a temperature of around 80 degrees Celsius is reasonable. In winter, the sauna is a great place for warming up frozen fingers and toes.  It is a place for relaxation, tranquillity and deep thought.  The experience of going to the sauna involves getting away from the stresses of everyday life and into a different reality, toward calm and contentment. Some say that having a dip in a hole in the ice of a lake or the sea is one of the joys of a waterside sauna in winter.  It will certainly improve your circulation, and at the very least, make you feel refreshingly alive!

 Cosy housing

 A thermometer outside a window showing a temperature below -20 degrees Celsius.Triple-glazed windows ensure that temperatures inside remain warm even when temperatures outside plummet.

  A warm house makes all the difference when it is -20 degrees outside.  The development of building technology that saves energy and makes use of renewable natural resources has been emphasised in Finland.  The most recent technology enables window panes to function as solar panels, and building regulations mandate that windows in new buildings be triple-glazed. The exterior walls of houses include insulation with a minimum thickness of ten centimeters and draughtproofing. Various heating options are available, but district heating is an effective, economical and environmentally friendly way to heat a large number of properties.  It saves about 30 percent of energy compared with separate production of heat and electricity.  Power stations that combine heat and electricity produce this kind of heating. This heat is transferred to water, which then flows through a network of pipes to radiators in homes before returning to the power plant for recycling and reheating. 

Driving in winter

Finns drive in winter almost as much as they do in summer, but special accessories are required when driving in low temperatures and on icy roads.

 All automobile owners in Finland are required by law to install studded or all-weather winter tires on their vehicles. As soon as the weather turns cold, drivers must be alert. Visibility deteriorates, roads are slippery, braking distances are longer and driving in deep snow gives drivers less control over their vehicle.

 An engine-block electric heater makes cars easier to start and reduces fuel consumption, and is a great boon for winter drivers who do not have a garage and leave their cars outside overnight.  It is a common sight to see drivers plugging their cars into electric sockets in the parking areas outside their homes when they come home from work.  Built-in seat heaters are a feature that drivers in the Nordic countries really appreciate and are a standard feature in cars. Snow: 

How to get rid of it

  The northern parts of Finland are, on average, covered with snow as early as the end of October, while the southern parts are covered starting sometime between December and January.  The snow usually doesn’t melt until well into March in the south, and in the northernmost parts of Lapland it can still be lying around in June.  Finland knows how to cope with snowstorms and low temperatures.

 Road maintenance is regulated by law in Finland.  Individual landowners and local authorities share responsibility for the upkeep of roads.  Local authorities make sure that snowploughs are at the ready when roads need to be cleared and when salt and grit spreaders have to be called out to tackle slippery roads.

 Rural Finland is sparsely populated and there are long stretches of road maintained by private individuals who own the adjoining land, or by cooperatives that are responsible for sections of the road.  Reflector poles serve as markers that indicate to snowplough drivers and other road users where the edge of the road is even in the heaviest of snowstorms.

 

How to enjoy the snow 

  What a fantastic feeling to wake up one morning in the late autumn and look out of the window to see that the first snow has fallen!  Children waste no time rushing outside to make their first snowmen and find the nearest sledging hill, while adults dig out their winter sports equipment.

 Cross-country skiing is a national pastime and nearly all municipalities maintain ski tracks that are lit at night.  The yearly Finlandia skiing marathon attracts more than 5,000 participants for its 60-kilometre course.  Also, schools close for a one-week ski holiday in February or March and many parents take time off then so that families can enjoy outdoor winter pursuits together.

 Other key sports are the various branches of alpine skiing, snowboarding and freestyle skiing.  The latter are relatively new sports but they have rapidly become big favourites among the young and daring.  Ice skating is another national pastime, like cross-country skiing.  Local authorities maintain outdoor skating rinks on school sports fields and other suitably large, flat areas.  Indoor ice rinks all over the country serve individual skaters and clubs, but also hockey teams – ice hockey is the biggest spectator sport.

 Proper attire

 The secret to spending time outdoors in the winter is to make sure you are dressed properly.  First of all, you must have a comfortable under-layer that draws perspiration away from the skin.  Sports stores and department stores sell materials that keep the warmth in while also keeping the skin dry and transferring moisture to the outer layers of clothing. Put another layer of warm clothing on top of this: fleece, cotton or wool is good material for this.  The third or outer layer should be a garment that is windproof and waterproof but breathable, and, depending on the degree of cold, padded or quilted.

 Special attention must be paid to protecting the feet, hands and head from the cold.  First, don wool socks that do not chafe and draw moisture away from the skin. Then, put on comfortable, well-insulated winter shoes with non-slip soles. Nothing will ruin the fun of outdoor activities faster than frozen feet.  Gloves ought to have a warm lining and be roomy. A silk balaclava is excellent for protecting the face in extremely cold weather, and proper headgear should protect the ears. Remember the Finnish saying: “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”

 

Joys of winter evenings

 Contrary to what foreigners may imagine about dark winter evenings, there is an array of activity options when the work day is over.  The extensive library network supports the national reading habit for avid learners. There are also 250 publicly owned community colleges and adult  education centers all over the country that offer a wide range of courses at affordable prices, including languages, crafts, social studies, art, sports, and anything else that is popular or important and piques people's interests. These non-profit educational institutions have a long history and annually welcome approximately 800,000 students.

Finns join associations that improve the quality of life in their home district and in the world in numerous ways: through sporting activities, learning about other cultures, dealing with local issues, carrying out international development projects, bringing the interests of children, the elderly and the disabled to the fore and, most importantly, mixing with like-minded people.  There are about 123,000 registered associations and statistically every Finn is a member of more than one of them.

 Sports and cultural activities draw a large following. Every self-respecting town has a theatre and a significant number also have their own orchestra, and waiting lists for the most popular performances are often months long.  There are many different kinds of indoor sports, but ice hockey draws the most people on winter evenings. So whether it is staying home with a good book, learning Portuguese or supporting their favourite hockey team, Finns have plenty of ways to enjoy the winter season.