By bus
Buses are the cheapest but also the slowest and least comfortable way of traveling between Russia and Finland.
Regular scheduled buses run between St. Petersburg, Vyborg and major southern Finnish towns like Helsinki, Lappeenranta, Jyväskylä and all the way west to Turku, check Matkahuolto (http://www.matkahuolto.fi/) for schedules. Helsinki-St. Petersburg is served three times daily, costs €38 and takes 9 hours during the day, 8 hours at night.
Various direct minibuses run between St. Petersburg's Oktyabrskaya Hotel opp Moskovsky train station and Helsinki's Tennispalatsi Eteläinen Rautatiekatu 8, one block away from Kamppi. At â¬15 one-way, this is the cheapest option, but the minibuses leave only when full. Departures from Helsinki are most frequent in the morning around 10 AM, while departures from St. Petersburg usually overnight around 10 PM.
You can also use a bus from Sweden or Norway to Finland.
Haparanda in Norrbotnia area of Sweden has bus connections to Tornio, Kemi and Oulu. See more from Matkahuolto.
Eskelisen Lapinlinjat offers bus connections from northern parts of Norway, for example Tromsø. See more from Eskelisen Lapinlinjat.
By plane
Finland's main international hub is Helsinki-Vantaa Airport near Helsinki. Finnair (http://www.finnair.com/) , Blue1 (http://blue1.com/) and Flybe Nordic (http://fi-en.flybe.com/) are based there. Around 30 foreign airlines fly to Helsinki-Vantaa.
Ryanair's Finland hubs are Tampere in central Finland and Lappeenranta in the east near the Russian border, while Wizz Air is decreasing its hub at Turku in the southwest. Other airlines have limited regional services to other cities, mostly just to Sweden, and, in the winter high season, occasional direct charters especially in December and seasonal scheduled flights Dec-Mar to Lapland.
Air Baltic (http://www.airbaltic.com/...) connects many provincial Finnish towns conveniently to Europe via Riga. It may also be worth your while to get a cheap flight to Tallinn and follow the boat instructions below to get to Finland.
Starting in early 2011, Norwegian Air Shuttle (http://www.norwegian.com/en/) established Helsinki as one of its bases, and now offers both domestic and international flights.
By ship
One of the best ways to travel to and from Finland is by sea. The boats to Estonia and Sweden, in particular, are giant, multi-story floating palaces and department stores, with cheap prices subsidized by sales of tax-free booze: a return trip to Tallinn including a cabin for up to four people can go as low as €50. If travelling by Inter Rail, you can get 50% off deck fares. The best way to arrive in Helsinki is standing on the outside deck with a view ahead.
By train
VR (http://www.vr.fi) and Russian Railways jointly operate services between Saint Petersburg and Helsinki, stopping at Vyborg, Kouvola and Lahti along the way. The line was upgraded in 2010 and the slick new Allegro-branded trains glide between the two cities in three and a half hours at up to 220 km/h. Currently the route is served four times per day, returning to two daily from November 2011. This is certainly the most expensive method of getting to Helsinki from Saint Petersburg, with prices of â¬92 during summer and â¬84 rest of the year for a one-way ticket. There is also a traditional slow overnight sleeper from Moscow, which takes around 15 hours.
There are no direct trains between Sweden or Norway and Finland the rail gauge is different, but the bus over the gap from Boden/Luleå Sweden to Kemi Finland is free with an Eurail/Inter Rail pass, and you can also get a 50% discount from most ferries with these passes.