Alex Robertson Textor

Finland: Design, Forest, Steam

My week in Finland in July with Mike was eye-opening. I'd visited Åland previously, but mainland Finland was completely new to me. We spent six nights between Helsinki, Turku, and Kuopio.

I left with a thousand thoughts about what happens when Scandinavian and Slavic spheres intersect. Helsinki, quite variable by neighborhood, reminded me of Vienna (another city, in an understatement, thoroughly structured by varied cultural impulses from east and west alike), Stockholm, and St. Petersburg. Yet the overall impression was of a city completely unto itself, one that bears comparisons to these other three cities only uneasily.

Turku is a neat and prim city, quite small and very well ordered. Our time there was filtered through my friend Staffan, co-proprietor of Porcupine and part-time Turku resident, who lives in a beautiful apartment.  Staffan played the part of tour guide ably, and fielded scores of questions on subjects as wide-ranging as immigration policy and the history of xylitol.

In Helsinki and Turku, I think it's fair to say, the strong imprint of modern Finnish design is omnipresent, and very seductive. As in Sweden and Denmark, it's impossible not to be impressed by the use of light and scale in modern architecture and the crisp feel of furniture, industrial design, and homewares. In Finland, to my mind, there is a stronger dimension of earthiness than in the Swedish and Danish design models, something particularly noticeable in Finnish furniture design. The earthy modern pieces that attracted me most were by Solid Furniture.

Turku's Main Library extension, which opened in 2007, gathers many of these impulses. Designed by Helsinki-based JKMM Architects, it is a breathtaking building.

Stairs from ground floor.

Ground floor infoteque.

In Turku two shops introduced me to another dimension of Finnish design, a folksier, DIY impulse that can't really be glimpsed in the modernist perfection of pieces by people like Kaj Franck and Aino Aalto. At Outolintu Arts & Crafts, the items for sale were craftsy, not streamlined, and all very interesting. The leftist café-bookshop at Vahna Suurtori (across from Outolintu) sells a range of simple DIY objects that depart smartly from the Finnish design template. A number of change purses caught my eye. I snapped two up as presents for hosts. Unfortunately their labels contain no contact information beyond the name "Christina."

Kuopio presented an entirely different aesthetic setting. In Kuopio I experienced a smoke sauna, swam in a frigid lake, hiked with rain and mosquitoes through a forest, and felt as if I were in a regional Eastern Bloc capital as opposed to a city in a country as rich and modern as Finland. If anything, the impression left by Kuopio was deeper and more enthralling than the modern design in Turku and Helsinki, which, after all, I had some familiarity with and expected to encounter.

Aforementioned frigid lake.

Perfectly executed modern design and the vastness of nature make for a distinctive and very appealing national profile—or, in today's word, brand, while a few measures of Santa/lumberjack kitsch provide an entertaining and amusing sense of play. When it comes to Finland, there are lots of interesting things to ponder, though design and nature are unavoidably central to any visit.

Nordic Airline Bonanza

I wrote a post for EuroCheapo on Tuesday documenting my airline adventures across the Nordics. Read why I graded Finnair higher than Atlantic Airways. (Spoiler: my heart is accessed through my stomach.)

Return from the North

A few housekeeping matters on deck.

I found out late last week that Tripbase awarded Spendthrift Shoestring eighth place in the Budget Travel Blog category of their 2009 Travel Blog Awards. I'm psyched. Thanks Tripbase! Check out the competition here. The upper echelon of the Budget Travel Blog rankings include the EuroCheapo blog—a blog I previously had the honor of editing—in second place and the superb Less Than a Shoestring in sixth place. My one question for Tripbase: why no links to the winning blogs in your award listings? 

Also check out the Helsinki budget tips post I wrote for EuroCheapo, published last Thursday.

Finland

Finland has been interesting, inspiring, and mystifying. The past week's tour of Helsinki, Turku, and Kuopio has been fab and on occasion dizzying. I've experienced my first smoke sauna, fought off mosquitoes in a rainy spruce forest, wondered at the many Swedish and Russian influences, and found myself confounded time and time again by the Finnish language. More to follow. For now, three images of Finland from the past six days.

Newspaper weather map.

Illuminated apartment address marker, Turku.

Finnish Railways train car signage.

Hej Hej Sommartider

I did so much traveling in March and April that I began to crave time in New York. How's that for a reversal of sensibility? Yet I wanted so badly to be at home for a while. Not only did I find myself losing tons of momentum on some big projects, but the pace of my journeys left me little time to organize assignments and all sorts of other things properly.

Over the last few weeks I've begun to plan out, slowly and carefully, my big July adventure. The first step was finding that insanely cheap $521 round-trip ticket to Stockholm. Traveling companions, schedules, and other logistical matters have slowly settled into place, and I'm ready to Name My Itinerary.

I'll spend a few nights in Stockholm and then move on to Finland, where I'll spend six nights with Mike between Helsinki, Turku, and Karelia. From there I'll fly to Copenhagen and then on to the Faroes with Marisa, then back to Copenhagen for a few nights, and from there return to Stockholm.

I'll visit some favorite stand-bys and a see bunch of new territory, too. I really can't wait!

2009 Destination Trend Report: 9 Places & One Theme

Instead of finding frustration in the travel media's year-end destination trend articles, I've decided to pen my own list of places that will be getting more tourist traffic and more media attention in the next few months, as well as one theme to look out for in 2009. This list reflects my own orientation as a traveler and travel writer, and is accordingly geared toward Europe and the Americas. 

1. Cuba. It's almost a cop-out to list Cuba, since everyone's buzzing about the country. It just seems inconceivable that President Obama would veto a bill lifting the ban on travel to Cuba, frankly, but time will tell. Cuba isn't new for Canadians, Latin Americans, and Europeans, of course; however, for the vast majority of Americans—including the well-traveled—it's unknown territory. I think it's safe to suggest that this will change in 2009 and beyond, and that the culture of tourism in Cuba will in turn shift. For those Americans eager to glimpse Cuba before the throngs arrive, this is the time to sneak in via the Cayman Islands, Mexico, or elsewhere.

2. Haiti. Lonely Planet just brought Haiti back into the fold with the publication of a joint DR-Haiti guidebook. Slowly, other guidebook series will be following suit. Everyone who reads newspapers knows that Haiti is very poor and no stranger to violence. The country is also teeming with volunteer travel opportunities, inexpensive beach hotels, and a rich art scene. All of these draws should pull in more tourists. Haiti has a kind of off-the-beaten-path caché that will linger for quite some time.

3. South America. My sister Marisa Robertson-Textor returned from a recent trip to Australia with the report that Antipodeans are headed to South America (and southern Africa) in huge numbers. Where savvy Aussies head today, others will journey tomorrow. Low regional costs will continue to convince Americans to head south this coming year, as well. Buenos Aires is well beyond discovery—the place has been the new Prague for a good half-decade—but vast parts of the continent are well-poised for their moments: the Uruguayan beach towns east of Punta del Este, the Chilean Lake District, northern Peru’s vast surfing beaches, and, of course, Colombia, the massive rediscovery of which has been underway for at least a year.

4. Newfoundland. No longer Canada’s poor far east—in 2009-2010, Newfoundland and Labrador will be a net contributor to Canada’s equalization payment system for the first time ever—the province has all the makings of a place ready to be discovered. It's a physically stunning, rugged, rustic place. And, to defer again to Claire Tansey's fab trend report in January's Canadian House and Home, it's got great restaurants like Portugal Cove's Atlantica Restaurant on hand to lure cuisine-driven tourists in.

5. The United States. The knock-on goodwill effects of Obama's win in November will be felt for quite some time. Lots of people will want to visit the US for the first time or rediscover it, and plenty of Americans living in coastal cities are going to be more interested in exploring the heartland. I can imagine lots of sixteen-page American road trip specials in European travel magazines, and I expect greater tourist traffic to Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia, the Midwest, and above all Chicago.

6. Finland. I can't recall a time when the buzz around Finland was stronger. Helsinki's restaurants are getting write-ups right and left. Finnish design and retail are receiving lots of attention as well. At play in Finland's favor is the prevalent sense of a country that knows itself and values its products appropriately. Quite simply, Finland is hot right now.

7. The former Yugoslavia. There's a lot to choose from here, from Slovenia's well-developed tourist circuit to Macedonia's Lake Ohrid. The biggest surprise is that tourists haven't already headed to the region in greater numbers. Croatia's glorious Adriatic coast is old hat to trend watchers at this point. Slovenia will benefit over in the next few years from tourists seeking Alpine magic on a budget. Macedonia will see increased cultural tourism, as will, at long last, Sarajevo. The curious will trickle to Pristina, beach-hunters will continue to check out the Albanian and Montenegrin coasts, and less-trafficked Croatian islands like Mljet will also see more tourists.

8. Damascus. Beit Al Mamlouka is the Syrian capital's first boutique hotel, and it won't be its last. The city will continue to lure greater numbers of tourists, especially in the event of a deal on the Golan Heights. The European travel press has been excited about Syria for a while; Rahul Jacob's Syria piece in the FT weekend before last sums up the country's varied appeals.

9. Northern Cyprus. A settlement appears to be coming, and the north of Cyprus will soon be seeing tourism in far greater numbers. Those after a clandestine vibe and vast stretches of undeveloped beachfront had better visit in a hurry.

And the theme...

Scaled-Back Local Value. The two most significant turns fueling this shift are the financial downturn and environmental concerns. The financial situation will be driving more tourists—including high-end travelers—to simplify their travel plans. Luxury as a principle organizing travel is conceptually exhausted. It's not dead, but it's at least temporarily down for the count. A green-minded interest in eco-friendly travel also continues to surge, prompting travelers to offset their carbon emissions and choose locally-run hotels and other venues over big chain hotels.

Simultaneously, an interest in the local versus homogenization is also emerging in increased sophistication around locally sourced food and tourist objets. The tricky idea of "authenticity" is behind much of this, with the editorial lines of a number of travel magazines explicitly moving toward an embrace of authenticity over luxury.

The travel trend of 2009 will thus be toward scaled-back journeys on more modest budgets, driven by local culture more than by the appeal of the cookie-cutter resort boilerplate. Home exchange, Servas, and couchsurfing will surge. Smaller guesthouses and resorts with a tie to local life will become increasingly favored. Larger chains will regroup with room rate bargains, carbon-neutral operating practices, and pledges to staff their facilities with local workers.

To all my readers: Happy 2009!