Vantaa travel guide

Vantaa, Finland

By the Travel Wiki editorial team

Vantaa

Introduction

Vantaa is a city in Finland, situated to the north of the capital, Helsinki, in southern Uusimaa. It forms part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, so you can treat it as a northern extension of the capital region rather than a separate destination.

Because it belongs to this larger urban area, Vantaa shares in the metropolitan character of the region around Helsinki. Your time here is best understood as part of exploring the wider Helsinki area.

Before you go

Vantaa is effectively an extension of Helsinki rather than a city with a single, traditional centre, so plan your trip around its districts instead of looking for one downtown. Tikkurila is the administrative centre, while Myyrmäki in the west, Kivistö in the north-west and Korso in the north-east serve as local hubs. The city is best known as the home of Helsinki Airport, which occupies a large part of northern Vantaa and splits the rest of the city into a western Myyrmäki-Martinlaakso area and an eastern Tikkurila area. The Ring Rail line links these areas with each other and with neighbouring Helsinki, so you can move between them by train.

Beyond the airport, Vantaa offers parks and farms you can visit, the medieval Church of St. Lawrence, and several museums, most notably the science centre Heureka. If shopping and entertainment appeal to you, the Jumbo mall complex together with the Flamingo hotel and entertainment centre can easily fill a few hours. Keep in mind that evenings along the railway suburbs and on the trains can see unrest, so stay aware of your surroundings when travelling at night.

Getting there

Vantaa is easy to reach by air: Finland's main airport, Helsinki Airport (HEL), sits within the city. From the airport you can take buses to different parts of Vantaa, or ride the commuter train to the public transport hubs of Tikkurila, for eastern Vantaa, or Myyrmäki, for western Vantaa.

Getting around

Vantaa's districts are spread out, so getting around takes more planning than in central Helsinki. Public transport is planned, organised and ticketed by HSL, the Helsinki Region Transport authority, and a single HSL ticket and route planner covers buses, commuter trains and trams across the region, including travel between Vantaa, Helsinki and the airport. Use the HSL Journey Planner to work out which service to take from one address to another rather than trying to memorise routes.

Trains are the backbone of the network. The main railway north out of Helsinki runs through eastern Vantaa, with Tikkurila Railway Station as the key hub, also served by long-distance services to the north and east. The Ring Rail Line (Kehärata) connects the main rail line with western Vantaa by way of the airport, and the local "I" line links Myyrmäki, Kivistö and the airport. Combined with bus transfers, this is often the fastest way to get around. Buses fill in the gaps the rails do not cover, and there is a maze of bus lines across the area, with services from the airport to different parts of Vantaa and from Helsinki and Espoo. Because distances are longer than in the more central parts of Helsinki, driving is sometimes an option, but traffic on the ring roads can get quite congested in the rush hours, and winter snow or an accident can block them completely. Cycling is practical on the flat terrain, and on a sunny summer's day the cycleways and footpaths criss-crossing Vantaa and suburban Helsinki are a pleasant way to get around — bring or get a good map. City bikes run from April to October, though Vantaa's bike-sharing system is separate from Helsinki's and Espoo's, and the app is available only in Finnish. Tier and Bird rent electric kick scooters in Tikkurila, Martinlaakso, Myyrmäki, Vapaala and Varisto, kept available in winter where conditions permit, though they are not ideal on snow or ice; Tier also offers electric bicycles. Taxis and app-based rides are widely available for trips that do not line up with the rail and bus network or for late-night travel, with operators including Lähitaksi, Helsinki Limo, Uber, Yango, Menevä Vantaa, iTaksi, Fixutaxi, Valopilkku and 02 Taksi. Pricing structures differ, and some quote fixed prices while others meter the trip, so check the fare basis in the app before you book.

Where to stay

Most of the accommodation in this part of the capital region clusters near the airport, since that is where most air travellers arriving in or leaving Finland pass through. If you want to sleep within steps of your departure gate, the Comfort Hotel Xpress Helsinki Airport Terminal sits immediately outside baggage claim and also offers day rooms depending on booking availability, while the Hilton Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is a full-service hotel next to the airport with soundproof windows, a bar, a restaurant and a sauna. A short ride away, the Airport Hotel Bonus Inn is a friendly family-owned option with basic but very clean and comfortable rooms, a restaurant, an evening sauna and a free shuttle service to the airport, and the Cumulus Airport Hotel, part of a Finnish chain, is about ten minutes from the airport by free shuttle bus. In Aviapolis, roughly two kilometres south of the terminals, the Clarion Hotel Aviapolis has a restaurant and a relaxation area with a gym and saunas.

If you would rather base yourself in Tikkurila, the Sokos Hotel Vantaa belongs to the national Sokos Hotels chain, and Hotel Tikkurila offers comfortable rooms for one to eight people along with a café-restaurant and good opportunities to practise various sports; it is about 1.3 km from Tikkurila railway station. For a budget stay, 20Rooms in Hiekkaharju provides comfortable rooms at budget rates. Further out, the Sokos Hotel Flamingo is another option in the area.

Food & drink

Vantaa's eating scene is spread across its suburbs rather than concentrated in one centre, so where you eat often depends on which district you're in. Tikkurila has the densest cluster: pizzerias and kebab restaurants, a Chinese restaurant, a Nepalese restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a Greek restaurant and a Thai restaurant all sit within a few streets of each other, alongside a cocktail restaurant and a handful of pubs and bars. Myyrmäki is another hub, with a small Italian restaurant serving pizza and pasta, a Japanese-style buffet restaurant whose speciality is teppanyaki, a stylish and spacious restaurant that does an affordable weekday lunch buffet as well as à la carte, and an American-style sports bar and diner with hamburgers and hot wings. Martinlaakso, Kivistö, Koivuhaka and Kuninkaala each have their own local options, from Italian and Nepalese places to lunch restaurants.

For everyday meals, lunch restaurants are a fixture, several of them serving all-you-can-eat buffets and popular with workers on their break. Grill kiosks turn up in several districts, and the pizza buffet chain RAX has three restaurants in the city. If you want a burger, you can choose between a small hamburger place among the big-box stores in Tammisto, an American-style diner in Tikkurila with vegan options and a famously spicy challenge burger, and an American restaurant in Tikkurila. The IKEA furniture mall has a restaurant and café where you can eat decently and cheaply, including breakfast. For fine dining, the advice is blunt: head to central Helsinki, since the airport hotels' restaurants don't necessarily live up to their prices. The same goes for drinking — most suburbs have a pub or two, but for something fancier locals go into central Helsinki.

What to see and do

Vantaa rewards curiosity, whether your interests run to science, aviation, agriculture or medieval stonework. At Heureka near Tikkurila railway station you can explore interactive exhibitions on technology, physics, chemistry, medicine and astronomy - a hit with children who like science. The Finnish Aviation Museum near Helsinki-Vantaa airport displays more than 70 civilian and military planes along with parts, equipment and photographs, while the Vantaa Agricultural Museum in Vantaanlaakso shows machinery, tools and local history. To understand how the place grew from a countryside parish into a city, head to the Vantaa City Museum in Tikkurila. Sweet-toothed visitors can join a guided tour at the Fazer Experience Visitor Centre, and the Finnish Heritage Agency's Collection and Conservation Center in Hakkila offers storage and conservation services for museum collections.

For fresh air, the Vantaankoski Dam is a popular vantage point over the roaring rapids of the Vantaa River, and Ankkapuisto in Korso has a long narrow pond with walking trails. Viherpaja in Koivuhaka is more than a garden store: it holds a large garden with an indoor desert for cacti and a Japanese garden. Children can meet and hug domestic animals such as sheep at the Katrineberg 4H Petting Zoo. Among the churches, the medieval stone Church of St. Lawrence is quite probably the city's oldest standing building, at the heart of a village of wooden houses that amounts to Vantaa's old town; the modern Chapel of St. Lawrence stands adjacent. Tikkurila church is a modern building, Myyrmäki church is cubist inside and out, and there are also churches in Kivistö and Korso. Elsewhere, Honkanummi Cemetery in Hakkila is one of Finland's largest, with two chapels, a crematorium and a lunch restaurant, and the Hakkila Stone Bridge of 1898 crosses the Keravanjoki.

Active travellers have plenty of options. Flamingo Entertainment Center near the airport, beside the Jumbo shopping mall, packs in a spa and waterpark with slides, pools, jacuzzis and saunas, the glow-in-the-dark Hohtogolf West Coast miniature golf course, a small casino, a 3D movie theatre, pubs, restaurants and shops. Kuusijärvi recreation ground is Vantaa's most popular outdoor area, with smoke saunas, open-air and ice swimming, skiing, a beach and nature trails; the traditional mixed-sex Kuusijärvi Smoke Sauna sits beside a lake and is easy to reach from Helsinki. Sipoonkorpi National Park is another national park quickly reachable from Helsinki, and the farmland-dominated district of Sotunki is pleasant for summer biking along unpaved roads between fields where sheep and cows graze, with paths leading to a lake, a small camping place and scenic cliff walks. You can also catch a film at Bio Grand in Tikkurila, skate at Tikkurila Arena, or play golf at Hiekkaharju, Keimola or the GoGolf Megarange Airport. The calendar brings the Winter Carnival samba show in late January, the Tikkurila festivaali with domestic music at Hiekkaharju Sports Park, and the unofficial Beer Floating down the Vantaa River in high summer.

When to go

Vantaa has a humid continental climate with four distinct seasons and fairly even precipitation across the year, so what you pack depends on when you visit. Spring is the driest season, with little rain from February through May, and temperatures climb quickly as the snow that covers the city from late December melts away by early April. Expect changeable but increasingly mild days and only occasional showers.

Three days in Vantaa

Day one: Start in Tikkurila, the administrative heart of Vantaa, where you can visit the Church of St. Lawrence. From there, take the Ring Rail Line to Myyrmäki, a neighbourhood with a lively everyday feel, and continue to Martinlaakso if you want a quieter wander. In the evening, head toward Kivistö or Korso for a sense of how Vantaa's districts each keep their own character.

Day two: Give the day to Heureka in Tikkurila, then use the Ring Rail Line to reach Helsinki Airport, known as HEL, if you want to watch the traffic and the planes. Jumbo and Flamingo are nearby for shopping and entertainment. Because Vantaa sits inside the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, you can also connect onward to Helsinki, Espoo or the wider Uusimaa region using HSL and the Journey Planner.

Day three: Take Kehä III and the highways to see how Vantaa works as a crossroads, with several routes running alongside each other toward Russia and the rest of Finland. If you have time, return to Tikkurila or Myyrmäki for a slower final look at the city's neighbourhoods. From Vantaa, the Ring Rail and public transport make it easy to end your stay in Helsinki or elsewhere in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.

About this place