Getting to Finland: By car

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As mentioned above, one of the easiest ways to get by car from Sweden to Finland is a car ferry. The European Route E12 (Finnish national highway 3) includes a ferry line between Umeå and Vaasa. Another route that includes a car ferry is E18, from Stockholm to Turku.

There are also land border crossings up in Lapland at Tornio, Ylitornio, Pello, Kolari, Muonio and Kaaresuvanto.

European Routes E8 and E75 connect Finland and Norway. There are border crossings at Kilpisjärvi, Kivilompolo, Karigasniemi, Utsjoki, Nuorgam and Näätämö.

European route E18, as Russian route M10, goes from St. Petersburg via Vyborg to Vaalimaa/Torfyanovka border station near Hamina. From there, E18 continues as Finnish national highway 7 to Helsinki, and from there, along the coast as highway 1 to Turku. In Vaalimaa, trucks will have to wait in a persistent truck queue. This queue does not directly affect other vehicles. There are border control and customs checks in Vaalimaa and passports and Schengen visas if applicable will be needed.

From south to north, other border crossings can be found at Nuijamaa/Brusnichnoye (Lappeenranta), Niirala (Tohmajärvi), Vartius (Kuhmo) Kelloselkä (Salla) and Raja-Jooseppi (Sodankylä). All except the first are very remote.

As mentioned above, there is a car ferry between Tallinn and Helsinki. It forms a part of European route E67 Via Baltica that runs from the Estonian capital Tallinn, crosses Riga in Latvia and Kaunas in Lithuania to the Polish capital Warsaw. The distance from Tallinn to Warsaw is about 670 kilometers, not including any detours.