Planning a Trip to Southern Finland

Jarvenpaa is "widely" known as the city of Sibelius and a few other artists who have been important in the history of Finland. It is a good city to visit if you want to experience some peaceful life in Finland at day time. There are various possibilities for sports as well. Recently renovated swimming hall and various running tracks (which serve as skiing tracks at winter) are also available.

At night time at weekends things become quite oposite. There are many bars in Jarvenpaa. The best one for young visitors is probably Yano whereas more mature visitors might want to visit McArthurs or Korona.

Teenagers of Jarvenpaa like to hang around at the "Rantapuisto" (literaly Beachpark) which is quite near to the central. Avoiding the area at weekends is advised.

Helsinki is one of my favorite cities in the world. The first time I was there was on early December, and I stayed there for 3 or 4 days as a brief stop on my way to St. Petersburg. As there was a Finnair strike going on those days, I had to stay in Helsinky a bit longer so I was "forced" to get to know the city a bit more than I was expecting.
The first thing you'll notice is how quiet the city is. Nobody speaks any louder than they need to, and they seem to do things on a whole different pace. If your working, you're concentrated in what your doing, not talking also on the phone or with your nearest work colleague. Helsinki is a small city for the south/central europe standards, so you'll get to know the best part of it in 2 or 3 days. Finns are one of the most welcoming people I ever had the please to make acquaintance. Everywhere you go you're welcomed with a warm smile and "doi". Even though their language (suomi) looks something that came out of Narnia (really, not like anything I've ever seen) most of the people you interact with will speak English to an almost native level, so communicating with the locals it's pretty easy.
Going around the city is easy also, everything well signaled and fairly near, so knowing the city is possible to do on foot, even in wintertime where temperatures reach minus a whole lot of degrees Celsius. If you are going in wintertime as I did, expect temperatures in the order of -20 on daytime, so be prepared. Standard cold weather dressing applies - dress in layers, buy inner pants even if you're a guy (you'll praise that choice later), bring a really warm coat and warm gloves. The sunrise comes pretty late (after 9 AM) and the sunset begins around 2PM, so you don't get much daylight in the wintertime. Despite this, the snow that covers all of the city gives it a really nice blue-ish white.
And if you're travelling to Russia, be sure to "breathe" a lot of civilization before you enter the plane. You'll thank me later.

The locks (toilets...) turn the other way!!!

Beautiful and peaceful beach for active people and also for the family with the children. Yliskylä, Helsinki.. Here is one photo from there.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11693558

If you're on the area, visit Nurmijarvi. A pretty famous finnish author Aleksis Kivi lived here and you can see the house he used to live in (I'm not sure if you can go in, though). In the summer there's a fest here called Kivijuhlat. If
you want to learn about finnish customs and culture, that's the place to go. You can even see the Prime Minister of Finland there, who is from Nurmijarvi!
Also if you want to visit Helsinki but think the hotels are too expensive, you can probably find a cheaper one here even with a short notice. Nurmijarvi is about 50km southwest from Helsinki, which is about an hour of driving. Easiest way to come here is to take a bus from Helsinki.

One of the best things if you visit this place is to take a boat trip along the Saimaa canal.You can also(I recomand it)cruise across the border into Russsia to Vyborg and if you return the same day with the same cruise no visa is needed.Do take your passport !Check for details a week in advance.

If you visit Helsinki, you can easily visit Tallinn in Estonia for the day. It's only a few hours by ferry and sometimes you don't need a visa (I'm an Aussie and I didn't need one). The town itself is beautiful!

You have to visit Suomenlinna!!

Liquor and Cigarettes, along with countless other things, are Tax free in neighboring Tallinn, Estonia. This leads people from Helsinki to make day trips here to stock up 'supplies'. The ferry ride is a comfortable 2 1/2 hours between Helsinki and Tallinn, and it gets you those cool stamps in your passport. How many of you're friends can say, "Oh, and this is the stamp from when we went to Estonia". So if your in either Tallinn or Helsinki, there absolutely NO excuse to not visit the other.

Gather mushrooms while you are stickwalking in the hilly forrests around town. Once the snow has arrived, go to the pubs with some locals and discover Finnish madness at night

Ladies! When on the streets at night, please be with a group. There are no real dangers, but lots of drunken men, so keep a watchful eye out for them!

If you're looking for a decent and not-too-expensive hostel, I can recommend the Stadium Hostel, which is located in the Olympic Stadium (across the road where the Opera House is located). It's not too expensive, the rooms are nice and clean and security is good.