Trying To WALK Across the Border to SWEDEN 

Next video: Trying to walk across the border to Russia

Within the EU, in particular the Schengen area, there are no passport checks. However Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark had a pact way before Schengen that allowed their citizens to move freely between the countries so it's been this way for a long time.

I grew up in Haparanda. Crossing the border was never that big of a deal to me, and it wasn't until i moved away, that i started to realize that it actually was unusual to be able to do it so easily. When i was 18 -19 years old we would go over to Finland to buy beer, as we could get stronger beer there, ( you need to be 20 to buy anything over 3.5% in Sweden) and the ngo back over to Sweden to "pregame" on that beer, then go back over to Finland again, as all the good bars where in Tornio, and finally go back over to Sweden again, to go home. We did this pretty much every weekend. Many finns live on the swedish side of the border, and most Swedes in Haparanda also speak finnish. The main reason i decided to move away, was that i was in the minority in Haparanda that didn't speak Finnish, and that always made me feel abit handicaped living in that town.

Finland built a huge lighthouse on an island, shared by Sweden and Finland. Oops, they built it on the Swedish side! War? Nah, we just redrew the border on that island. Easy as that! Looks weird on the map if you're not from around here. :-)

Finland and Sweden are kind of like siblings. They like to tease each other yet they love each other. (this coming from a Finn living in Sweden)

Crossing borders is quite informal throughout the EU. There are ski centers in the Alps, where you can cross the border on skis without even realizing it many times a day.

I'm Swedish but haven't been to this border myself so it was nice to see. Regarding the currency: The basic unit is called 1 krona (plural: kronor). However, when speaking English we often do what the cashier did and call it "crowns" instead (which is really just a literal translation).

Fun fact: For a sizeable portion of Norway, the Happaranda Ikea is the closest one. It's not unusual to drive all the way from Troms and Finnmark to stock up on ikea stuff and furniture.

The border is just 20 meters outside the shopping center. The square there is called Victoriatorget after the swedish crown princess Victoria. It's a square common with both Finland and Sweden. If you look at 3:21 you see a thin square arch to the right of the shopping center, thats the border that runs alongside the shopping center. At new years eve you can celebrate the first new years eve in Finland, then walk a few meters to celebrate it again in Sweden as Finland has one hour later timezone than Sweden.

You can go to Norway just like that.

Haha, when I found this video I thought "Trying to walk.. Trying? It's no need to try, you just walk! No problem!" 😁 If I'm ever moving from Sweden, I'm going for Finland. Maybe just not as far north 😅 (I lived in a town called Boden in Sweden before, and the Ikea closest there is Haparanda, so I've been shopping there. Now I live in Stockholm and really prefer a bit more daylight during the winters)

3:09 the border is literally seen in the ground man.... Finnish side the square has ground heating and Swedish side is covered with snow. 3:16 that sign located already in Sweden...

"Trying to WALK", the street sign in the thumbnail is indicating the walk/bike lane across the boarder. There is no need to try, just go :)

'I don't know anything about ABBA' and then proceeds to sing two of their songs with correct tune and lyrics 👍

The boarder is known as "the most peacefull boarder in the world", which is true.

That's actually hilarious, the first thing you see after crossing the border is an Ikea lol

The sun just barely peeking above the horizon: "Awww hell naaa!"

It's so easy to cross all of the nordic countries because they are all sibling countries. They were all more or less part of each other at one point. Scandinavia was ofc all Vikings splitting up at the end, forming their own countries. Finland was part of Sweden for a long time and eventually became their own. But Sweden and Finland probably has THE biggest brother/sister relationship of any country in the world. It's hard to describe for non Swedes/finns, but any Swede or Finn would understand that relationship. We jab at each other all the time, but you can't separate us at the end.

It's been that easy since 1952. Citizen in the Nordic countries are Nordic citizens so we have been crossing the Nordic borders without any passport and almost no border controls since 1952. And it was the same before WW1.

In the Nordic countries this has been normal for ages. Back in 1979, I was coming on a train from Denmark to Sweden and as usual, the border controls came and asked for passports, I didn't care to dig out my passport so I just said to them "Finländare" (Finnish in Swedish language), nothing else. They didn't bother me after that, they just asked the other people for their passports.

How border crossing works in the civilized part of the world.

I'm really impressed of your pronounciation of 'sisään' 😄 That was perfect

One free advise. Don't try to walk across the border to Russia.

Haparanda is in Swedish Lapland. Lapland is not just in Finland.

It is really nothing special about the Swedish-Finnish border, it is the same everywhere in the Schengen area, which UK of course never was a part of. I have crossed the border on foot too, but some 450 km further north! (Hiking from Kilpisjärvi to the three countries SWE-FIN-NOR meeting point)

Nice video. Did you know that there is a golf course in Tornio-Haaparanta which is partly in Finland and partly in Sweden. It's about 2km north from that shopping center. By the way, Haaparanta is Finnish and means literally "Aspen shore".

Cheap for Finns to go shopping in Haparanda Sweden. For one € you get almost twelve Swedish crowns. 😊

The world should be easy to travel between borders like it used to be free and easily, countries are an idea, idea's should not dictate where people can go, every person has a right to travel this earth freely.

You should have try to show your passport to some random swede 🙂

I live in Finland and have Norwegien friend, Eilev who has been in Finland a dozen times, see while he was serving in Norwegian border guard the guys had a habit to go to a big border stone standing where the the borders of Sweden, Finland and Norway join and run circles around the stone. They were armed guards from one contry crossing from one country to another😊 no fuss no pasports no permits just fun, try doing that on the eastern border of Finland…

Summer 2022, my family and I drove from Eskilstuna (around 100km west of Stockholm) to Oulu, Finland. We stopped at the exact same Hotel (Hotelli Olof) as you! Obviously it was at summer so the weather was nice and bright. It was the first time I actually stayed awake since it's a long drive (about 1100km). I got shocked about the whole no border thing. And also got shocked that nearly every store on the Swedish side had shelves upon shelves of Snus (a Swedish type tobacco).

i live in tornio and this was joy to watch

Thanks for this, very interesting to see my (rather boring) hometown in a documentary-like video. To get the authentic border experience, you should go to Nuuskakaira and smuggle some snus to Finland side (and be afraid of the customs).

And this was already decades before the EU - the Nordic passport union, you can freely emigrate across the borders

Eh, there's Lappland on the Swedish side, too. Besides, I've been to a number of just as unassuming border crossings as this one.

They have in Ikea in Finland aswell, a lot of countries has IKEA these days.

Fun fact that's the most nordic IKEA in the world.

I like how you can take your car with you on the train!

I used to live about 400 m from that border. In true swedish fashion we mostly crossed it to have a few drinks, keeping up the bad reputation, as is our holy duty. In all seriousness, it was a very cool experience, and in true finnish fashion they used to have a kiosk right beyond the border that only took Euro, as a cheeky FU. I appreciate things like that.

Fun fact: Lappland is a region that extends across the border. So your comment “I’m going back to Finland because I have more of Lappland to explore” makes no sense! You were still in Lappland in Sweden.

Did you know.if you play golf in Tornio you Can play golf across border to sweden😮

Want to see a really cool border? Baarle Hertog/Baarle Nassau Netherlands/Belgium

It feels so strange to see my home town in a youtube video. But Tornio is indeed unique for the free crossing. Some people travel to Tornio from afar just so that they can get to Sweden and buy a ton of snus. Snus is a type of tobacco that you place under your lip, nasty stuff, but some folks are into it.

I have crossed the border walking, biking and on a bus. Sweden is where drivers are polite.

It's also because of EU. Open borders between EU countries was the original idea. Free movement of people and products. 😅

During one hiking trip me and my wife walked from Norway to Sweden, then from Sweden to Finland and finally from Finland back to Norway.

Well, pass the border by foot between Norway/Finland/Sweden is as hard as you let it get :) Walking over the border from Sweden to Denmark is a pretty long walk over a bridge so thats hard only because of that 😁 Between Norway and Denmark… well, I hope you like swimming 😉 Because taking a boat is not walking. But just as you noticed its very undramatic to pass the Nordic borders:)

Awesome Beautiful for me ❤️ I want to be there

I always lose immersion whenever I see a wide angle shot and the single person walking by, realizing they would have had to set it all up, and then come back for the camera once they've passed it.

Pretty cool to see, as I've never been to myself ☺

Crossing borders within the EU is like, going from one province to the other or one state to the other. The only thing that change are some local laws, the language and the license plates :)

I got stopped by the border polis when I crossed and they asked "where are you heading, from". What does he mean... - Stockholm I answered... - Are you heading to Stockholm? (going to Torino makes no sense) - No no, to Grense, Norway.

Odd thing to make a widea about. You can cross the border by foot or riding a bike, whatever. Just like crossing a border from Netherlands to Belgium etc., just a sign saying that you have crossed the border. That is called schengen area. I cross the border routinely to buy cheaper gasoline from Sweden, whenever I happen to drive there.

Coop and Max in the background are sure signs of being on the Swedish side, Ikea not so much. Also traffic signs are slightly different.

Scandinavians trust each other so much that even their border crossing basically doesn't exist because all of them know they wouldn't harm one another. But outside of that hemisphere...

Nice! im long hauling goods from sundsvall to haparanda a few times a week. Been walking over the bridge a lot of times while on my 9 hour break

the Nordic way 🙂

The 2 countries are friendly, but the reason there are no border controls is because we are both E.U. members. The E.U. has made borders easier to cross, but you folks from the UK were never part of the Schengen area, so even when you were in the EU, the English had border controls that most EU lands did not.

this brings back good memories. I used to live in Kemi for a short while in Finland, and almost every weekend I would head up to Tornio and spend the day either there or across the border. It is good to see its still as beautiful as ever

Just happened to find this video; first thought - Reflective gear! (vest/bands on legs/etc) A lot of it! Should work in Finland as well....

I assume you got checked at the border to Finland. We trust that they are capable and don’t let in any dodgy people and we trust the Finnish people coming over. What’s the point of a border? 😊🇸🇪❤️🇫🇮

there are many "bordercrossings" into sweden/out of sweden that are unguarded or unmanned both over to finland (a other EU country) and I guess into norway (a non cgengen/no eu member). It is a HUGE border running way out in the wilderness (in the mountains and deep forest and noone really lives there) - and as other pointed out there has for VERY long before EU been a agreement of the nordic countries that we can travel there without passports and even have the RIGHT to use our naitive tounge in contact with goverment (ie speaking finnish in sweden, or on Iceland when talking to the police for example) - except for finnish (the non swedish speakers) and icelandic communication isnt impossible if both sides try to make themselves understood and speak slowly and clearly (finnish isnt the same germanic language as the rest of the nordic languages and more related to estonian and hungarian even is many people speaks a swedish dialect long the coast, and icelandic is as close as we are goning to get to the viking way of talking in the modern world)

In case you didn't know Lappland is in both sweden and finland, covering the whole northern area, it's not just in finland :)

Nice video. My grand mother used to live in Tornio.

Before WWII, there was no border controls in the north, between Norway Sweden and Finland.

As a Finn, you notice that you've crossed the border when you see the Swedes signal wrongly in the roundabout that you drive to right after the border crossing.They signal to the left until they leave the roudabout, whereas the Finns signal to the right only when they leave it. Swedes will contest this, but your way is absolutely the wrong way to do it lol.

Not as many Finnish shoppers in Haparanda on a Sunday since the most popular destination is closed on Sundays.

its really funny how the accent changed so much when u went to ikea from the finnish side

Hey Tom! Great to see this! Slightly easier compared to crossing border from Argentina into Chile I had to do few days ago 😇

You should now try walking to Norway from Sweden ;)

I have done that several times, because of traveling with animals in the car not allowed over the border (Rabies shots required Finland to Sweden). Never been any issues.

you do not translate the name of currencies that I often hear swedes speaking english do. So it is is still Kronor not crowns. :)

In one episode of "Big bang theory" Sheldon is learning Finnish and when somebody knock on the door he says "Sisään"

Yeah you could just take a side road even in the pandemic times and nobody would check those

Finland and Sweden used to be the same country for about 800 years, until the Russians conquered Sweden in 1809 and claimed the eastern half of the country. So we're definitely pretty close still.

Impressive and i some way weird to dont see daylight so long

I’ve wanted to visit the north for years but never get around to it. I live in southern Sweden and it is almost a 24 hour drive to get to the north.

Finland and Sweden was one country for 700 years until Russia annexed Finland in the war of 1809.

Btw you are not really in Lapland yet when you are in Tornio, usually people consider Rovaniemi to be the most southern point where you can start calling it Lapland but even then you have quite the way to go north if you look at the map

What an amazing video!

There is not any need for security on that border.

I used to cross the border every morning and afternoon for over two years back when I was studying in Tornio. I drove whilst iiving in Kalix and when I later on moved to Haparanda i used to ride my bike or walk. As a student I was no stranger to parties either, and on weekends I crossed drunk on several occations. Over the years the border guards only stopped me once, while driving to school. A couple of years after exam they closed the border check all together. "The twin cities" surely live up to their name! These days I travel to Tornio once in a while to stock up on licorice and finnish sausages.

There is security believe me! I have been pulled over/put through questioning many times! Had drug dogs sniff me and etc.

Silly. Many of us crossed that border 30 years ago when nobody spoke a word of English. Now Tornio and Haparanda are full of resident ex pats 🤦🏻

It’s like that all over the Schengen-area (of the EU) in Continental Europe. One union 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺

I have crossed that border by car many times. My great grandmother lived not far from the border on the Swedish side and so my grandfather and I would drive over to Finland to buy candy and then head back.

ah ys, dear haparanda and torneå, have crossed there many times, nothing but happy memories there

4:20 I love how you said "In Gang" instead of "Ingong"

The cashier at the IKEA passed the vibe check

i have done this walk at 11pm, in the snow and rain, without a signal on my phone it was fun (maybe not)

I lived in Tornio by the border, you passed by my place, I saw it in the video!😊 It was a kind of seemless way of life between Tornio Finland and Haparanda Sweden and here comes some facts: You can pay with Euro everywhere in Haparanda On the border, the new year fireworks goes off first in Finland, then an hour later the Swedish counterfire explodes As it's legal to buy and sell sex in Finland but a crime to buy sex in Sweden then there is a 'kind of traffic' across the border In Haparanda both Swedish and Finnish goes but in Tornio they only speak Finnish Both Haparanda and Tornio is extremely family- and friendship corrupted which is good to be aware of, if coming for work or studying or moving there IKEA in Haparanda is the world's northernmost IKEA Only tourists are throwing snowballs, never locals so if you see snowballs in the air they are the tourist's In Haparanda and Tornio you can booz and get as drunk as you ever want, no eyebrows or judgment, it's totally normal I liked living there very much, the locals are one of a kind and I loved the seasons, especially the white nights in summertime when the sun never sets Hope you enjoy your stay in Finnish Lapland and feel free to ask me if you're wondering about anything!

We have Ikeas in Finland too! (Though not anywhere near there.)

Ah! Missed chance to have some meatballs!

Rip that plan😢

I live 50 km away from this place and we go there often

I´m glad that You didn't have to stroll too long in to the car traffic

as a Finnish person who lives down by the capital city this seems really ridiculous in terms of illegal immigrants, smuggling and stuff like that... though im pretty sure that 99.999% of any concern someone might have related to those are completely fabricated by their own mind... at least personally i would imagine that if there was any downsides seen in the boarder control being this lax there would actually be some kind of control placed there...

Now thats an easy border. Next try the one at east lol

It is actually stupid that it so easy to cross the border there. A lot of drugs come from Sweden to Finland, and many Finnish people are willing to take stupid risk by bringing more snuff than is allowed. It's not legal to sell snuff in Finland, but we have a lot of people who are using it. So if you live far from the border, it is tempting to bring more than is allowed, because you probably don't get caught. But if you do, you can get pretty big fine...or if you are bringing a loads of it, you can end up in jail. Some are even willing to take that bigger risk and sell it here.

"inghään" 💀