A Finnish Summer Guide: 12 Ways to Enjoy Nature, Lake and Long Days

Ask a Finn what summer means and you’ll often get a one-word answer: mökki. The cottage. It isn’t really about the building — it’s about slowing down, swimming when you feel like it, eating outside, and letting the day run on sunlight instead of a schedule.

We run Hawkhill out in the forests and lakes of Nuuksio, about 45 minutes from Helsinki Airport, so most of what follows is simply how we like to spend a summer here. You can do nearly all of it anywhere in Finnish nature — and especially easily from a lakeside cottage. Here are twelve of our favourites.

1. Walk up to watch the sunrise

If you can get up early enough, climb somewhere with a view over the lake for us that’s Haukkamäki and just watch the morning arrive. It’s quiet in a way the rest of the day never is, with birdsong and the occasional wind in the treetops, and not much else.

2. Heat the sauna, then swim

This is non-negotiable. Warm the sauna slowly, sit until you’ve had enough, then walk straight into the lake. Repeat as many times as the evening allows.

3. Swim in the lake more than once

Finns swim through the whole summer, often several times a day. A cold morning dip, a lazy afternoon float and a still evening swim are three completely different things. Try all three.

4. Go rowing and watch the water birds

A rowing boat and a calm lake is one of the better ways to spend an hour. Keep a respectful distance from neighbouring shores and saunas, and keep voices down water carries sound a surprising way. At the south end of Kaitlampi, right where the river meets the lake, there’s a small sand beach the water shaped on its own. Worth rowing out to.

5. Pick wild blueberries, lingonberries and mushrooms

In summer the forest floor fills up with berries. Picking them is the simplest way to experience jokamiehenoikeudet Everyman’s Rights which let anyone roam and forage in nature as long as they treat it with care. The berries, for what it’s worth, taste better eaten on a rock with the lake in view, and better still baked into a pie that evening.

6. Gather around a campfire

An evening fire tends to become the centre of the day. Grill sausages, char a few marshmallows, tell stories while the light goes. The smell of woodsmoke is one of those things that stays with kids long after the fancier stuff is forgotten. Use a designated fire pit and check the fire-warning before you light anything.

7. Take a forest picnic

A Finnish picnic doesn’t need a destination. Pack something simple, walk into the woods, and eat wherever feels right a flat rock, a fallen trunk, a quiet stretch of shore. Honestly, that snack break is usually the best part of the whole outing.

8. Build pinecone animals and let the kids loose

The forest is the playground. Make little farms out of pinecone cows, play hide-and-seek among the trees (agree on the boundaries first so nobody wanders off looking), invent games on the spot. Finnish children mostly learn the outdoors by playing in it, and they need surprisingly little help getting started.

9. Play the classic outdoor games

Mölkky, pétanque and darts are summer-cottage staples for a reason easy to pick up, impossible to age out of, and good for keeping a mixed-age group together in the yard.

10. Follow a forest trail

Walking is still the best way to actually see Finnish nature. The trails around Nuuksio are quiet and unhurried, and an hour on one of them does more for you than it has any right to.

11. Try worm fishing off the shore

A simple worm rod and a patient half-hour by the water is a classic, and it’s often the kids who get hooked first. Catch or no catch, it rarely matters.

12. Do nothing, on purpose

This might be the most Finnish item on the list. No music, no notifications, no plan. Sit by the lake and listen birds, wind, water against the shore. In Finland, slowing down isn’t wasted time; it’s most of the point.

A Finnish cottage summer isn’t a list of sights to tick off it’s nature, water and unhurried time. If you’ve turned up with a head full of plans, our best tip is to let most of them go. The forest and the lake tend to fill the days on their own, and the moments you remember afterwards are usually the ones you never scheduled.