I live in Espoo, Finland ( Near Helsinki, capital area ). Daily 8-16 work in IT-field(mostly working remotely). Family of four ; wife, two young kids(11,15), hobbies etc, so I/we can host/show around places mainly on weekends.

I love travelling and I 've travelled quite much in history, sometimes solo, sometimes with family/friends to more regular holiday destinations ('regular' from our perspective, e.g. Spain/Greece/Italy etc).

At the beginning of 2020 I already had few trips booked, which was of course cancelled because of covid. Now when world is open again, I'll try to arrange more time to travel again, with both family and solo/friends.

Got big bucket list of things to-do around the world :)

Currently studying Russian/Spanish language and spending quite much free time for it. If you want to learn Finnish, or English and know either Russian or Spanish language well, just let me know!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

From my earlier experience on similar platforms, I've got lifelong friends around the world. I've learned how much more you learn from local stuffs when you hang around with locals, so I decided to start helping also other travellers in my hometown. This is great place to meet like-minded people with same interests!

If you need guidance in Helsinki, just send a message and I'll happily show you around places here on my spare time :)

Interests

• culture
• books
• outdoor activities
• history
• psychology
• solo travel
• food
• travelling
• crypto
• it stuffs

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Years ago, didn't know what to do on weekend, so I booked flights to Kazakstan on next morning without knowing anything from the destination and went there solo. I ended up travelling one week with a local and whole trip was just amazing! Now I've done already multiple similar solo trips, and love it!

10/2022: I attended to the Speedball World Championship Tournament in Egypt against 25 other countries as a manager and player with my friend. Before flying to Egypt, we didn't even have a change to try to game how it works as we don't have that sport in Finland. We had three days time to practice the game and we learned the rules before the tournament in time. We didn't really success in the tournament, but the whole trip was so unique experience and we had a great fun!

11/2022 Trip in Syria. In some places we was first tourists who had seen the place in 12 years after the war started and not even locals could go there, so it was really an unique experience.

04/2023 & 04/2024 Afrikaburn(similar to Burningman, but in South Africa). Staying 10 days in South African desert, creating camp and building sauna in the middle of nowhere together with people who I didn't know before. Endless deep conversations, deep connections while having time of your life in harsh conditions, sand storms etc. I can highly recommend this to everyone, amazing trip!

Teach, Learn, Share

Everything I know! Finnish / English language, IT stuffs, crypto's and of course endless discussions about travelling :)

What I Can Share with Hosts

Friendship, travel stories, local food, sauna, tips from where to go and what to do here.

Some tips for trip here:

Couple good blogs about Finnish culture ;
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20181016-how-the-finnish-survive-without-small-talk
https://herfinland.com/facts-on-finland/

For getting around ; Download app called 'HSL - liput ja reittiopas' from e.g. Android/apple store. With that you can navigate and travel quite easily around the capital area (Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa) and you'll just mark address where you're going, and it will show you where you need to go and what different public transportations methods there are and their schedules, and what ticket you need to buy. If you want to use taxi, download/use e.g. uber/bolt which is common here. Compared to some other European countries, taxi's are quite expensive here.

In Finland Sauna is reaaally popular and we have more than 3 million sauna's here ( population is 5.5M), so you can find those from everywhere. There's one quite popular place called 'Löyly' which is in the center of the city. On public places(e.g. löyly, swimming halls) there are always different sauna for mens and womens.
If you want to experience it more like a local and unique / hippie style, you can also go to place called 'Sompasauna' which is few kilometers away from the center. You can find details from the website ( https://www.sompasauna.fi/ ).
Shortly ; There isn't any employee's or showers and it's upkeeped by the community. It's free, always open, next to the sea and during the winter they usually keep the hole open in ice, so you can try the ice-cold water and swim there, if you want.
If the sauna isn't heated up, then you need to heat it up by yourself. In the sauna you can use swimming suit or be naked, how you feel comfortable. If we go to sauna e.g. in home/friends places/cottage's, it's quite often mixed sauna naked from both genders, and there's nothing sexual on it.

For local food there are many options around the center / marker hall square, but to name a few ;
- ruisleipä(rye bread) is something what you cannot find from anywhere else.
- Reindeer meat is common here(more common in lapland),
- pea soup & pancake,
- macaroni casserole.
- Licorice & salty liquorice candy's are also common here which you cannot find from anywhere else. Most of the foreigners hate it, but I've meet few who actually loved those and the taste isn't for everyone as it's kinda strong, but I recommend to at least try it.

Some other popular places and which are quite nearby to each others:
- Town hall market & market square
- Design museum
- Museum of contemporary art Kiasma
- Helsinki Cathedral
- Temppelinaukion church/kirkko
- Helsinki Central Library Oodi
- There's also multiple different museo's from different topics in center, and also some more further away from center
- Fortress of Suomenlinna ; You need to get there by ferry which leaves from market square/town hall market area
- Heureka / Science center(a bit further away from center )

For getting one cocktail, I could recommend 'Chihuahua julep'. It's 'hidden bar' and phone is banned inside. You won't see from the outside it's a bar, but there's a small sign outside with the name of the place. Just knock on the door, and they'll come to open door. If you use your phone, they'll kick you out, so don't it :)

Some details about Finland(from year 2023). Found one list with quite interesting statistics and I'll raise just a few. (some of those are from different years, not from this year )
https://www.stat.fi/tup/satavuotias-suomi/suomi-maailman-karjessa_en.html

Finland is the freest country in the world together with Sweden and Norway.
Finland is the most literate country in the world.
Finland is the best country in the world in a comparison of human wellbeing.
Finland has the strongest digital knowledge capital in Europe.
Finland is the third most gender equal country in the world.
Finland is the second best country to be a girl in the world.
Finnish children have the fifth most secure childhood in the world.
Finns aged 15 are among OECD countries the second best in literacy and the third best in science.
Helsinki is the third best city to live in. (65 cities in the comparison).
Finland has the third most space per person in Europe.
Finns drink most coffee per person in the world.
Finland has the most Summer Olympics medals per capita.
Finnish adults' English skills are the sixth best in a comparison of 80 countries.
The Finnish passport has the third most influence in the world.
(2024) For seven consecutive years, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world, followed closely by its Nordic neighbours Denmark and Iceland.
Finland has the most heavy metal bands per inhabitant in the world. Rock on!
Finland is also called as a land of thousand lakes, but actually we have more than 180,000 lakes(highest number of lakes in relation to country size).
Finland has the cleanest air in the world and it's also Europe's most forested country.
We have more than three million sauna's ; one sauna for every 1.59 people(guinness world record, 2013)

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cayman Islands, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, England, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United States, Uzbekistan, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Finland, Sweden