This page is only available in English and Finnish. For Finnish, see https://ifusco.siulary.fi/fi/about-helsinki.
Getting to Helsinki
When traveling to Helsinki by plane, you will arrive at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Local trains I and P operate between Helsinki Airport and the city centre on the Ring Rail Line every 10–20 minutes. The journey takes 30 minutes. Bus 600 runs between the airport and the Central Railway Station and takes around 40 minutes. Bus 415N operates at night. A regional ABC ticket is required and can be purchased from the HSL app or by contactless payment at a ticket reader, or from a ticket machine if you happen to find one.
Helsinki can be reached by direct ferry from Estonia (Tallinn), Sweden (Stockholm and Kapellskär), and Germany (Travemünde). There are also cheap bus connections (FlixBus) from Warsaw, Poland to Helsinki, including the ferry trip across the Gulf of Finland. Warsaw is easily accessible by bus and train from both Budapest and Vienna.
Getting around
Most of the Helsinki city center is quite accessible on foot and distances between key locations around university are very short. Longer trips can be made by bus, metro, tram and train. Tickets for public transport can be purchased from by contactless payment at every ticket reader (blue device on every public transport vehicle and at metro entrances) or from the HSL App available for free in all mobile app stores. There are also ticket machines which sell single tickets, but they are increasingly uncommon. A single ticket is valid for 90 minutes and costs 3,30 € (AB) to 4,50 € (ABC).
If you make several trips every day during the conference, the cheapest option is to buy a daily ticket from HSL App for several days. For example, a 5-day regional AB ticket, that will get you to most places in and around the city center, costs 31,80 €. Note that this ticket is not valid when travelling from airport to city center, as you also need zone C for your ticket. More information about tickets and prices can be found at https://www.hsl.fi/en/tickets-and-fares.
Restaurants, food and shops
There are several student restaurants (Unicafe) in different university buildings, which offer relatively cheap lunch. You can check all available restaurants and their opening hours and daily menus from https://menu.unicafe.fi/. The page is available in English by choosing the language from the settings menu. The closest Unicafe to IFUSCO venue is Unicafe Metsätalo. There is also one Sodexo operated student restaurant situated in the university main building. For more information about that see https://www.sodexo.fi/en/restaurants/helsinki-university-main-building.
For Finnish university students the price of lunch at any student restaurant is 3,10 € while the normal price is from 9,80 € to 10,85 €. Some special dishes might cost slightly more. Otherwise, restaurants in Helsinki tend to be quite expensive. You may find some relatively cheap lunch restaurants in the city center, but in general, it’s best to stick to student restaurants if you want to save some money.
Grocery stores near university and city center:
- K-Supermarket Kaisaniemi (Kaisaniemenkatu 5)
- Lidl Citycenter (Kaivokatu 8)
- K-Market Kotikontu (Asematunneli)
- S-Market Sokos Helsinki (Mannerheimintie 9)
- K-Supermarket Postitalo (Elielinaukio 2F)
The currency used in Finland is euro (€). Card payment is generally possible everywhere, while cash is not necessarily accepted everywhere. For example many of the student restaurants do not accept cash at all.
Accommodation
The price level of hotels and other accommodation in Helsinki is quite high. Here some are relatively inexpensive options you might want to consider:
IFUSCO organising committee is also looking into arranging a shared accommodation through CheapSleep with subsidised prices. If you are interested, please let us know by checking the box in the registration form. If you have already registered and changed your mind about shared accommodation, please contact ifusco@siulary.fi.