Exploring the world's happiest country

Quiz master Phanindra Ivatury of the Netherlands shares the happy vibes he endured during his recent travel to Finland, a country firmly perched atop the ‘world’s happiness index’ for a decade now.

UTRECHT - Having lived and extensively travelled across Europe in the last six years, it’s bit of a surprise that my first time in a Nordic nation happened only recently.

However, the moment arrived with a bang, lit up by the halo of a country firmly perched atop the ‘world’s happiness index’ summit of states for a decade now.

Finland Ahoy! As our vacationing party landed at Helsinki’s Vantaa airport after a two plus hours flight from Amsterdam, I was agog with stirring excitement on what would be the vibe at offer in a country bestowed with such an unique title though the trappings associated with it were invisible to the naked eye.

"Happiest Country in the World”

World Population Review’s "Happiest Countries in the World 2024” report mentions that performance of countries is assessed through Gallup poll data collected with major focus on six particular categories which monitor the happiness index.

Gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population and perceptions of internal and external corruption levels determine the happiness quotient of a country.

Finland took the top honours in 2024 too, scoring 7.74 points with Netherlands, the country I originated from for the trip, not far behind at sixth place chalking up a 7.32 score. North European countries (also referred to as ‘Nordic’ nations) dominated the top ten charts signifying a robust social fabric and a quality standard of living.

The Resort

After a sumptuous lunch at a Nepalese Restaurant (which suited the taste buds of our Indian origin group), we drove away in a nine-seater SUV to a holiday club resort near the picturesque town of Lappeenranta which was about 250+ kilometres from the Finnish capital.

Our reserved resort was spread into many acres of land with luxury apartments suiting party sizes and pockets. It was also equipped with a plethora of indoor and outdoor leisure activities ranging from water parks, gaming zones and restaurants.

The property also offered some amazing panoramic views, the most stunning of them all being a vast lake passing through tiny islands. It validated the ‘did-you-know-welcome-trivia-message’ we received from our mobile service provider upon landing in Helsinki informing us of the 188,000 lakes the country possesses.

The Famous Finnish Saunas

As per a Finnish tourist website, Finland has an estimated three million saunas. ‘Sauna’ which means a small room used as a hot air and steam bath for cleaning and refreshing the body is a word that originated from Finnish.

The saunas are an integral part of Finnish living where people cleanse their bodies and minds in turn embracing a sense of inner peace.

The sauna culture of Finland has found a place in Unesco’s ‘List of Intangible Cultural Heritage’ established with the aim of better protection of such significant intangible heritages from around the world. Their write-up on the ‘Sauna Culture in Finland’ also mentions that traditionally the sauna has been considered a sacred space - ‘a church of nature’.

It came as a pleasant surprise for the holiday revellers of our group (who found the sauna culture exotic) to know that our resort apart from being equipped with a huge sauna facility with exclusive sections for both men and women, also provided a dedicated sauna in our three-bedroom pad where you can slip into whenever you had the time.

An afternoon in ‘Lappeenranta’

From the city of Lappeenranta which is often referred to as the climatic capital of Finland, starts ‘Saimaa’ the lake of pure nature and beautiful scenery. One of Europe’s greenest cities, Lappeenranta is also popular for education with the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) finding a place in the Global Top 300 as a world-class centre of educational excellence. The Finnish Army Academy (MAASK) with its army brigade, defence branch school, and registered office is also headquartered in Lappeenranta.

Our group’s holiday coincided with the "Lappeenrannan Heikkalinna 2024 Sandcastle” event that happens between June till the end of August every year at Lappeenranta where the annually changing theme of sandcastle captures the imagination of visitors. Millions of kilogrammes of sand in the castle area morph into new shapes time and time again with the same sand being reused every year for different themes. Also, it was amusing to see that we were the only snap happy hordes around the place.

Landscapes and Living

Driving around the southeastern interior of Finland offers a kaleidoscope of breathtaking landscapes interspersed with picturesque lakes engulfed by lush greenery. We also realised how close we were to the border of another foreign land as many signboards indicated road routes to the popular Russian city of Saint Petersburg.

While picking up some daily essentials and groceries through suburban supermarkets, we couldn’t help but notice that the spaces available for housing these chains in Finland had a behemoth-like feel with gigantic indoor arenas similar to what I had experienced with grocery chains in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia or Houston in the US. The usual utility shopping arcades we get to see in most European cities are more compact.

We found the cost of living in Finland to be a tad bit expensive in comparison with the Netherlands. Measuring it in simpler ways, a regular cappuccino which costs around €3.50 back home was costing one euro more.

Interactions with the natives

Though Finland has its own official languages, we learnt that many natives speak fluent English as was evident at all the places we went to. The help desk staffers at reception lobbies, gaming zones or breakfast arenas at our resort were not only kind and welcoming but were sure-footed attending to guests succinctly as we could check-in or buy tickets in no time.

These experiences lent some sampling credibility to all the reading up I did about Finnish populace being supportive, helpful and trustworthy.

Memories of Allure

The curious traveller in me also wanted to explore the feisty possibility of taking the two-hour ferry ride from Helsinki, cross the Finnish border into Tallinn, the capital city of the neighbouring Estonia for a day trip. It was not meant to be as ticking off bucket list destinations was never on our original agenda.

Our trip primarily had a ‘carpe diem’ approach to try and get away from the hustle-bustle of metropolitan cities, get as close to the countryside as possible while at the same time having a base to indulge in leisure activities.

It provided us all that and much more with Finnish ‘happy vibes’ in such touching distance. It left our tour party craving for more. - BERNAMA