Goodbye to Helsinki and Bon Voyage

Time to say moi moi (bye bye) and kiitos (thank you) to Helsinki and move on. We left at 5 pm on the MS Gabriella for an overnight trip to Stockholm. This ship is a "cruiseferry" as it also carries vehicles. You can see the trucks in the photo to the right getting ready to drive onboard. Today it was gray and around sixty degrees.

The cruise turned out to be fine, nothing fancy but the food was good. Our room was small but very adequate and we had a porthole. We saw different views on the way out (the fortress walls of Suomenlinna at the left). It was only an 18-hour cruise with one middle of the night stop in Mariehanm.

We've really enjoyed our stay in Helsinki. We were here for five nights, and the weather was great until today. The city was very welcoming. For six years in a row, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world. This is in large part due to their social network which limits poverty and keeps income inequity low, provides free healthcare and schooling until university, and keeps crime low. The Finnish people believe and trust in their government, which is astounding.

I also want to say something about travelling today compared to years ago. To me, it is much simpler now. Everything is done digitally so if you're going to travel to Europe, make sure you have a good cell phone, an unlimited international data plan and the travel apps you need. We never interacted with anyone or showed any paperwork for our three SAS flights, our ferry to Estonia or the cruise to Sweden. The apps kept us informed, assigned our ferry cabin numbers, and provided digital room keys.

You can pay for anything here just by tapping your card so having cash is almost unnecessary. We had heard you needed a PIN on your credit card for Scandinavia but that turned out not to be true. I had one added just in case, but I never used it.

We only went through passport control when we landed in Stockholm on our flight from the US. All the countries we visited are Schengen Area countries where they have eliminated most border controls. It's almost like travelling domestically in the US.