The world’s most renowned travel publisher, Lonely Planet, has listed Finland as one of the 10 countries to visit in 2007 in the new Blue List: The Best in Travel 2007. The Mammut Snow Hotel in Kemi was also named the most eccentric place to stay in the world, whilst the Polar Lights were listed as the world’s most amazing natural phenomena.

Lonely Planet introduces Finland as a “cool zone of design and fashion in Helsinki, surrounded by remote wilderness areas… Finland is a breath of fresh air on a European adventure.”

The guide lists seven life-changing experiences to enjoy during a visit to Finland, ranging from picking yourself a feast of delicious Arctic cloudberries in early summer to taking a snowmobile safari through the pine and birch forests. Other highlighted experiences are: spending a few days in a lakeside cottage, with a proper wood-fired sauna; hiking one of the country’s awesome trekking routes, and coming face to face with an elk; singing a sleighing song as a team of reindeer or huskies pull you across Lapland; learning about the Sami reindeer herders of Finland’s far north; and grabbing a canoe and heading out to spot a rare freshwater seal.

The Mammut Snow Hotel in Kemi in Finland’s Arctic north, which is located within the Snow Castle, was named the world’s most eccentric place to stay. The hotel, a giant igloo, maintains a temperature of -5ºC.

The Polar Lights, aka aurora borealis, are most visible in Finland during the winter months. In the Finnish Lapland, number of auroral displays can be as high as 200 a year. The Aurora is also visible in Helsinki, the far south, in areas of low light pollution as many as 20 times a year.

According to Lonely Planet, now more people are appreciating what this complex and idiosyncratic country has to offer as ever-more people search out some of Europe’s most remote wilderness.

... of course we all knew this already :)