Hey, great thread for those of us who traveled or are traveling for the first time! I was lucky to contact rebossfan before I made plans for my trip, and she gave me some really great info!

DSOL also came to my rescue a few times, as well as the wonderful Katja, who was awesome enough to drive me back to my hotel in Turku, after the Kaarina gig. There aren't a bunch of taxis or buses waiting after gigs that are a ways off from hotels.


If you travel from the US, all the way by plane, to Helsinki, there is a bus, run by Finnair (no, you don't have to travel Finnair to use it), or a city bus, which run often, to take you to the main train station and other landmarks in Helsinki. The price when I went was 6 Euros for the Finnair bus, and that one is much quicker, less stops.

There are many hotels, all can be found online, and the best places for hotels online are: booking.com (usually they have pretty good rates that let you cancel about 72 hours ahead of time) and Priceline. If you can avoid it, don't use Cheap Tickets! I ended up paying a fee, undisclosed one, for my plane ticket, and was given a flight with a huge layover in New York (yuck, trust me).

But do watch for those you can't cancel, unless you make that commitment (I did and saved a lot, but that's the chance I took), and check out the airlines who fly there!!! Don't think just cause Finnair is Finnish it will be the best, check each one, check the plane layout for seats (trust me on that! Sit as far up as possible and pay a few extra bucks for some comfort if you can....long flight guys!) on seatguru.com.

Sometimes you can get a hotel room, a nice one too, if you book DIRECTLY with the hotel. I did that in Helsinki, and got an amazing room in a fab hotel for half price, but then I have a travel site (I think it's still there ), and so I did get a much better room in Helsinki, but I got an average one in Turku, which was ok.

Also, passports guys will take you about 3 months in the US. Yep, that long, and it didn't used to be like that, but it is now. I am lucky to have an up-to-date passport from previous out of the country travel, but if you can't wait the three months, do the express service (you will pay dearly for that!). You can then get one pretty quick.

Sorry, long post, but I found I had lots to learn about travel in Finland, and if I were to go again, and take the transportation again, I have lots I would change!





If anyone from the US or anywhere else wants more detailed info you can pm me or write me at misssnowcullen@gmail.com. I don't mind giving out all my info, especially since things happened with the trains and buses when I was there.

Good info Snow.

One addition about the busses from the airport:
- The Finnair one costs 6,20 now
- the regular city bus 615 costs 4 € and the ticket is valid for 90 minutes so you can use it to travel inside Helsinki too. The journey is 10 minutes longer than with the Finnair bus so unless you are in a hurry, I'd recommend that one.

And in general:
- If you are planning to continue your journey by train to anywhere north of Helsinki you should not go into Helsinki, but take the bus number 61 to Tikkurila train station. Take a train from there.
- also there are busses going to many cities directly from the airport.

I think if I add all this (Snows post and mine) to the first post it will be too much information there. I'll think about how to handle this.

If I may: that Finnair bus (costs, bus stops, schedule, map) in handy pdf here if one don't feel like searching it from the Finnair website.

^^ of course you may. This is not my thread alone and I'm happy about any help I get here.

Over the past week and today, I have added info about accomodation. I also added age limits that I just found out and more info about the cruises.

Edit: added a few general words about visa in russia.

For April 26th 2012 Silja Europa boat cruise gig (Turku-Stockholm-Turku): If you book your cruise between Jan 13th and Feb 29th you get a discount in cabin prices, for example B-cabin for two persons normally 62 €, reduced price 39 €.
The thing is, you have to book using the Finnish languge booking site, because it seems to be the only one that offers this discount. If you're unsure about going, you can cancel up to 2 weeks before departure and get a 100% refund. If you cancel up to 48 hours before departure, you get 80% refund. Cancelling later than that, no refund.
The same is true for the May 3rd MS Baltic Princess boat cruise trip, but the prices for the cabins a a little more expensive. Regular price for a B Cabin is 92 €, reduced is 47.

Special thanks to Dark Side of Light for finding out about the cancellation policy and the FB post that I stole and modified a bit.

New gig added: 13.04.2012 Kuusamo

A little correction: the city bus ticket price is now 4,50 €. Not that it makes much of a difference to anyone's budget I suppose, but just in case if you happen to have the money ready in your hand when getting into the bus...

Oh thanks for the info. I'd have found out in March.

Tickets for Kuusamo are available now, tickets for Vantaa will be sold from March 1st .

I added the gigs in Tallinn and Riga, but didn't have time to find any information yet.
Help from the locals would be much appreciated.

Added more information on the Tallinn and Riga gigs, but it is very sparse.
I'd appreciate it if anyone from Estonia or anyone from Latvia could help me out. I need to find where to get tickets and it would be nice to have (more) information on how to get to the venues.

Added a new gig: April 5th, Hämeenlinna

Got it from Live Nation's newsletter, hope it was OK to add it here even though it's not listed in the official tourdates yet. More info will follow when I have it.

Tickets to Rock Cafe, Tallinn, Estonia will be available here from 20.02.

Thank you and thank you for finding the info about Pressa. I have checked the site several times, the link must be new.

You're welcome, I'm glad to be helpful

Does anyone have recommendations for which company to use for a roundtrip ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn and back?

So far I've found https://varaamatka.eckeroline.fi/ which seems to only have 2 ferries per day and sometimes at very odd hours (like the one from Tallinn back to Helsinki leaves at 1 AM) for 39 € roundtrip - is this a good price/company or are there better options out there?

Check out Tallink Silja http://www.tallinksilja.com/en/schedules/helTal/ as well as Viking Line http://www.vikingline.fi/timetables/timetables/timetables/hel_tal_ros.asp

I didn't check the prices but 39 euros per round trip sounds very reasonable to me.

Yep, TallinkSilja is a good option (if maybe not the cheapest one, but that I haven't researched). Plus, if you book the right ship (MS Baltic Princess) on the right date (May 3rd) you can catch the POTF gig on the ship as well.

Updated because the Latvia gig is cancelled. I really hope the one in Tallinn stays.

OMG a POTF gig on a boat! How cool is that! Wants to attend! ^^

Anyway, I think I'm going to travel to Finland during summer, hoping I can grab a few POTF gigs! I could use some help planning the whole thing though but I'll scream in time

Not sure if this belongs here or not...I guess it does. Tavastia is almost Sold Out. So if there's someone out there who's been planning to come, but doesn't have tickets yet...hurry up!

^^sure this belongs here!

Tavastia is sold out!
I updated the thread and moved the gigs in Russia / Ukraine to the "done" list

There were a couple of posts in FB already, people trying to sell their POTF Tavastia tickets. So there's a small chance there. I hope no one has to (or will agree to) buy rip-off price tickets that way, though...

Oh that's great information. Thanks. I hope everyone who is still looking for a tickets gets one this way and does not have to pay more than the original price.

First Festival gig in 2012!!! (Confirmation at Live Nation)
18.8.2012 @ Weekend Festival in Espoo Luukki.
Tickets: www.tiketti.fi and www.lippu.fi
Website on progress www.wknd.fi
It's new festival, but tickets has sold a lot so I recommend making plans reasonably soon.

Hope to see you there!

^^ Oh great, thanks - I'll add that to the gig list

New gig added for late June (via Live Nation)

Wondering when summer tour dates will be announced...not that I'm impatient or anything but....