If the apps have gone colder than a Helsinki February, Finland has an alternative. The world’s happiest country is flying 16 singles over for free, feeding them for four days, then sitting them down at a dinner table with a handful of strangers and a couple of single locals.
It’s called the Finnish Dinner Date, and it’s the work of national tourism board Visit Finland. The trips are fully hosted, with two groups of eight heading to either Helsinki or Tampere in Finland’s Lakeland region between February 9 and 19, 2027.
The catch is you don’t get to pick. You won’t find out which city you’re going to until your place is confirmed.
Visit Finland covers return flights from an international airport near your home to Helsinki, your own room, food, and a four-day program of nature trips, sauna, local food and sightseeing, ending in the dinner date. Each table of eight international guests is joined by two local Finnish singles.
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The cooking isn’t an afterthought either. In Helsinki the menu comes from Adele Kinnunen, head chef at Café Savoy and a MasterChef Professionals alumna, while in Tampere it’s Henry Tikkanen of restaurant Gösta, who has represented Finland at the Bocuse d’Or. Which beats splitting a bowl of chips at the local by some distance.
The whole thing grew out of a very Finnish piece of dating etiquette. The viral Sinkkukori trend sees single shoppers pick up pink baskets in the supermarket to signal they’re open to meeting someone. “Food brings Finns together,” said Heli Jimenez of Business Finland, adding that visitors might fall for each other, for Finnish food or for the destination itself.
Applying takes about ten minutes, plus however long you spend deciding what to wear on camera. You answer one question in a short English video, what would you serve on a dinner date and why, then post it on Instagram tagging @ourfinland, TikTok tagging @visitfinland.com or YouTube tagging @VisitFinland, using #FinnishDinnerDate.
On Instagram or TikTok your account has to be public and the post has to stay up until 1 December, though YouTube Unlisted is fine if you’d rather keep it quiet. Then you fill in the application form on Visit Finland’s website and paste in your video link. You can only apply once.
Anyone 18 or older who is single and isn’t a Finnish citizen or resident can apply, with no upper age limit, and you must apply solo. The terms also ask you to confirm you have no criminal conviction, and the trip runs in English.
As for getting picked, a jury judges each video on effort, creativity and how personal your answer is, and wants a mix of ages, backgrounds and countries. Leave the AI tools alone. The terms ban AI-made material, so use real footage with your own voice. In other words, talk about your nonna’s ragu and mean it.
Now the bit that matters for Australians. Applications close at 11:59am Finnish time on November 10, which is 8:59pm Tuesday night in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart, 8:29pm in Adelaide, 7:59pm in Brisbane and 5:59pm in Perth.
Winners are announced on 1 December on Visit Finland’s Instagram and TikTok, and have to reply within 48 hours or the place goes to someone else.
It isn’t entirely free. You’ll need your own travel insurance covering travel, luggage, accident, health and liability, with the certificate sent at least 30 days out, any visa is your responsibility, and any tax charged on the value of the trip is yours to pay. By applying you also hand Visit Finland lasting, unpaid rights to use your video and image, and winners are filmed during the trip.
So yes, you’ll probably end up in a tourism ad. For a free trip, a sauna and a Bocuse d’Or chef cooking your blind date, that seems a fair trade.
Finland has form here too. Rent a Finn in 2019 offered three summer days with local hosts, and this year’s Chill Like a Finn saw six pairs win a week in the Lakeland. Miss this one and there’ll almost certainly be another. But this is the only one with a date at the end of it.
