Island hopping from Helsinki

Suomenlinna — the one that runs all year

Fifteen minutes from the eastern side of Market Square, in front of the Presidential Palace, on the HSL ferry, with an ordinary AB city ticket. Every day of the year. A sea fortress across eight islands, six of them fortified, UNESCO World Heritage since 1991, with the submarine Vesikko and several museums. It is the only island on this page you can reach in February. The ferry explained.

Vallisaari — the overgrown one

A former military island, reached by JT-Line from Market Square, about a 15-minute crossing. The 2026 season runs 20 May to 12 September. Overgrown fortress works, moss over everything, cliffs, and summer cafés. It is the closest thing to wildness you can reach in a quarter of an hour from the middle of a capital city. Stay on the paths — it was a military island, and it is now a nature site. More on Vallisaari and Lonna.

Lonna — the seven-minute one

About seven minutes by boat from Market Square, summer only. A café, a restaurant and a public sauna, on a small island, and that is the whole of it. Seven minutes is short enough that Lonna works as an evening rather than a day — which is exactly how people here use it.

Pihlajasaari — the beach one

Beaches and a 2 km nature trail, about a 10-minute crossing, with boats from Merisatama and Ruoholahti rather than Market Square. The 2026 season runs 16 May to 30 August, which ends earlier than the others — check the date before you plan a September beach day that cannot happen.

Harakka — the small green one

A summer ferry from Kaivopuisto park, a nature centre, artists’ studios and a 1 km trail. It is a short crossing to a small island and it takes an afternoon rather than a day. In a cold winter the sea here can freeze hard enough that people walk out to it across the ice. I mention that because it happens, not as a plan — the sea around Helsinki freezes less reliably than further north, and this is not something to attempt on a visit.

Isosaari — the far one

About 40 minutes out from Market Square, which makes it the longest crossing on this page and the one that commits your whole day. It is a bigger island, with beaches, forest, a sauna and cabins. If you want to feel that you have actually left the city, this is the one.

Korkeasaari — the zoo

The zoo island. You can reach it by bridge and bus all year, and by JT-Line boat in summer. Take the boat if it is running: arriving at a zoo island by water is better than arriving by bus, and children agree. More on Seurasaari and Korkeasaari.

Seurasaari — no boat needed

You walk there. A wooden bridge from Meilahti takes you onto an open-air museum of historic wooden buildings from around Finland, with famously tame squirrels and ducks. No timetable, no season, no pier. It is the island to send anybody who has arrived in Helsinki out of season and wants an island anyway.

Also out there: Vartiosaari, Mustasaari, Kaunissaari and Lammassaari have summer boats or walkways too. I am not going to pretend to detailed knowledge of each; ask at the quay.

And if you would rather not land at all

Then you want a sightseeing loop, which goes out through the channels between these same islands and comes back without stopping. That is a perfectly good way to see the archipelago in ninety minutes: the archipelago loop. The one bookable trip that both sails and lands is the RIB tour, which puts you on an island for lunch and a sauna. All six are on the boats page.

Those dates don’t work?

Browse the other boats leaving Helsinki — the short archipelago loops, the evening cruises and the crossings to Tallinn — and pick a day that suits you, with instant confirmation.

Frequently asked questions