Tourist’s trip with no return date to ‘the happiest place in the world’

“I don’t want to return to England right now. In fact, I don’t want to return, period,” said Tim Bird, now 70 years old. For him, life in Finland is better than home in every aspect. In March 2025, Finland for the 8th consecutive time was honored as “the happiest country in the world” by the World Happiness Report, a study under the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

In the early 1980s, Tim was then in his 20s, always yearning for adventures beyond the borders. The boy born in Cambridge city has registered to become an English teacher in Finland, combining both travel and work.

“I thought I should do something interesting, so I tried living abroad for 1-2 years. This test doesn’t cost anything,” Tim said about the decision more than 40 years ago. The young man thought he would go for a few years, but ended up staying for more than four decades.

Currently, Tim works as an award-winning writer, editor and photographer. He holds dual British-Finnish citizenship and has published a book Happy Land: Finding my inner finn: Forty Years In The World’s Happiest Country (Land of Happiness: My journey to finding the “Finnishness” in me – 40 years in the happiest country in the world). In this book, he goes deep and explains the truth about Finland, why this country often tops global happiness rankings.

Tim said that Finnish people don’t always appear happy in a noticeable way like talking and laughing. Their happiness lies in quiet contentment. People in this country famous for its sauna culture, cool cities and ideal locations to see the Northern Lights understand very well what it means to “feel full”. They are content with life, always satisfied.

After 40 years of living, Tim realized that the most interesting thing in Finland is summer. Sunlight floods everywhere, everything is bright while winter brings a darker atmosphere. For Finnish people, summer is considered a “reward” for overcoming winter.

The feeling of safety also became an important factor that made Tim want to stay in this country forever. He doesn’t want to paint Finns as saints, there are always exceptions to everything. However, he appreciates the city of Helsinki for its safety and honesty.

If you leave your wallet or phone on the bus or somewhere, there is a very high possibility that someone will bring them to the police station. “Of course there’s still crime, but overall it’s safer here than many other places,” Tim commented.

This trust and honesty is also shown in service. The Finns try to do everything to the utmost perfection, without any kind of predatory business. When Tim needs to repair something, he can sleep with his pillow raised and rest assured that he will leave everything to the workers because “they always do a great job”.

A stable economic situation helps people have a better quality of life and a high standard of living. Not everything in this country is perfect, costs are still expensive, there is still a gap between rich and poor in the cities but the gap has narrowed.

Another core attraction of Finland comes from the fact that people like to immerse themselves in nature, and cities have many green spaces. Central Park, consisting of a patch of forest extending to the center of Helsinki, is about 1 km from Tim’s house. This forest includes many trees along with walking paths and bicycle paths.

Infrastructure and public transportation connecting cities in Finland are convenient. Helsinki has all the most modern facilities such as trams, buses, local trains, and ferries (because the city is located close to the sea). Southwest Finland has an archipelago that is not known to many tourists. For those who love adventure, exploring the small islands of this archipelago is a suggestion.

Family also became an important factor that made Tim stick with him for a long time. He married Eeva-Helena, a local resident. The two met when they worked for a magazine publishing company in Helsinki and got married in 1997. Before marrying Tim, Eeva had two daughters. Tim said that his wife’s two stepdaughters speak English “better than many native speakers” and attributed this to the effective effect of Finland’s world-leading education system.

For Tim, the Nordic country brings him a high standard of living and many amenities of the “most livable place in the world”. Finland “treats well in many ways” and that also became the main reason his short trip that seemed to last 1-2 years turned into a lifelong trip.