By Doni Belau
2025 is an ideal year to visit Finland for those hoping to witness the mesmerising Northern Lights. Increased solar activity during 2025 offers optimal viewing conditions, making it a prime time to experience this natural wonder. With the solar maximum cycle peaking in 2025, visitors can expect opportunities to see the Northern Lights throughout the year across Finland’s vast, dark skies.Helsinki was named by the Global Destination Sustainability Movement (GDS) as the world’s most sustainable destination. GDS, an international organisation that recognises cities with a strong commitment to sustainable tourism by effectively balancing tourism growth with environmental stewardship and community well-being.
Helsinki is committed to sustainability, with all its hotel rooms and venues holding third-party certifications. The city also utilises renewable energy sources for 51 per cent of its electricity needs, and impressively recycles 49 per cent of its waste.
Finland was named happiest country in the world for the 7th year in a row this year. Every year Oxford University in partnership with the United Nations and the Gallup Poll Group puts together a global research team to determine the 10 happiest countries in the world – and the fact that Finland wins this distinction year after year caught my eye and is why I decided to collaborate with a group of innovative Finnish women on our first ever Nordic Queens Tour – an Enchanting Escape to Finland, an 8-day adventure across the country.
The aim is to uncover their secrets to happiness and determine what we can learn and bring home to incorporate into our own lives and into the lives of our communities. We’ll be meeting with Finnish women from various fields including business, the arts as well as those in government, academics and at NGO’s.
However, this will not be a dry academic project. We are headed first to Helsinki then on to Lapland ending in the art-rich town of Mänttä and we journey north. We’ll be studying the history of Finland highlighting the achievements of women. We’ll taste the culture via a multitude of food adventures including baking bread in the traditional way, luxuriating at Michelin star restaurants and indulging in Finnish donuts.
We’ll meet with important artists and entrepreneurs in the fields of fashion, the arts, gastronomy, government and the environment. We’ll enrich ourselves through unique artistic interactions, the highlight being a private evening at the Art Sauna of Serlachius in Mänttä.
Historically, the sauna is key to Finnish culture – but an art sauna is something wholly unique. In 2022 it was awarded the Travel Industry Innovation of the Year. What was once a paper mill town has been transformed into an art-forward destination. At the Serlachius Headquarters we’ll learn of the daily working life in the Finnish paper industry in the 1950’s.
We hope that all these interactions with local Fins, their culture and the way they go about their daily lives will enlighten us as women from other countries. Our goal is to observe and learn from them with an eye towards finding a deeper well of happiness for ourselves in 2025.
- Doni Belau is the Founder of Girls’ Guide to the World, a leader in highly curated, small-group tours for women