The metropolitan area's nature is surprisingly versatile. Different kinds of natural environments and local nature offer myriad experiences for all the senses. During the excursion season, we get to witness changes in the lives of fauna and flora from the spring to the fall.
The guided tours begin with admiring migratory birds in April and end with a polar-night excursion in November. In the middle of those two, there will be family excursions with snack breaks, hiking in national parks, and urban nature excursions from the seashore to the neighborhood forest. The excursions will also introduce you to nature in the night, for example, how the night singers and bats spend their early-summer nights.
The relaxed excursions exploring interesting sites will give you solid nature data on your own municipalities as well as on your neighboring municipalities. Do not hesitate to pose any questions that come up during your excursion to the capable nature guides – nature can always be surprising. The excursions are easily accessed by public modes of transport. When you become familiar with the nature sites, it will be easier for you to plan and independently implement your own excursions in the future.
Let’s take care of your shared nature
The nature-excursion calendar will also instruct you to move responsibly in nature. Many of the excursion sites are situated in nature reserves. Their regulations translate into the region’s visiting instructions.
The 2024 calendar also tells about what measures the cities involved take to ensure the preservation of nature, as well as what you can do in your own yard to increase biodiversity.
Basic facts about the nature excursions
- The excursions are free of charge.
- If an excursion includes a boat trip, the participants shall pay for it themselves.
- You can freely join the excursions with the exception of some special excursions that require advance enrollment.
- The guided tours are mainly given in Finnish, but some of the tours also provide guiding in Swedish.
- You do not have to be in top physical shape to participate in the excursions; it is enough to be in an ordinary state of health.
- Family excursions progress at the tempo set by the children.
- Some of the excursions are barrier free.
The nature-excursion calendar in paper format can be fetched from Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen, and Vantaa libraries, customer-service points, nature houses, and Haltia, at the latest, in April. The calendar has already been published in pdf format on the cities’ websites.
The metropolitan area cities—Espoo, Helsinki, Kauniainen, and Vantaa—have arranged free-of-charge, guided nature excursions for their residents already for over thirty years.