Nine days. That is roughly how much time hopeful romantics have left to enter a contest that could land them on an all-expenses-paid trip to northern Europe with the goal of meeting someone special. Finland’s national tourism board, Visit Finland, is looking for 16 single travelers from around the world to spend a few winter days eating, exploring and, if luck cooperates, falling for somebody. For Americans, the contest is open, the entry requires nothing more than a short video, and the deadline arrives in the middle of next week.
The Entry Deadline Comes First
Applications close at 9:59 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time on Tuesday, November 10, 2026. Because daylight saving time in the United States ended this past weekend, that moment lands at 4:59 a.m. on the East Coast and 1:59 a.m. on the West Coast. Anyone planning to enter from an American time zone is better off finishing well before bedtime on November 9 than counting on a late-night upload.
Winners will be announced on December 1 through Visit Finland’s Instagram and TikTok accounts. That leaves applicants with a wait of about three weeks, short enough that anyone selected would still have most of the holiday season to arrange time off work, check a passport and shop for a very warm coat.
What an Application Looks Like
There is no essay, résumé or dating profile involved. Visit Finland asks applicants to record a video answering a single question: what they would serve on a dinner date, and why. The question is a nod to the centerpiece of the trip, a blind dinner date held at the end of each group’s stay.
Once the video is finished, it has to be posted publicly on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube with the hashtag #FinnishDinnerDate, and Visit Finland’s account must be tagged. After that, applicants fill out a form on the FinnishDinnerDate.com website and include a link to the posted video. The contest does not appear to require any previous cooking skill, and the video can be about the thought behind the meal as much as the meal itself.
Because the entry is public, anyone who applies should expect that their video can be viewed by anyone on the platform, not just by the organizers. People who prefer to keep their dating lives private may want to think about that before they hit upload.
How a Supermarket Basket Inspired a Trip
The idea behind the contest traces back to an unusual bit of retail marketing. In July, Prisma, one of the largest supermarket chains in Finland, began setting out baby pink shopping baskets in its stores for shoppers who were single. The baskets are called sinkkukori in Finnish, which translates to single basket. The thinking was straightforward. A shopper carrying one signals that they are unattached, which lets other single people strike up a conversation in the produce aisle without worrying that they are interrupting someone’s date or marriage.
The baskets caught on beyond the stores themselves and turned into a viral trend across Finnish social media. Some residents described the concept as the ideal setting for a chance encounter, and others called it a clever idea. Visit Finland says that wave of attention inspired the singles trip, which takes the same notion of making it easier for unattached people to meet and scales it up to an international level.
The tourism board also pointed out that roughly 2.7 million single people live in Finland, a country of about 5.6 million. That figure was offered with a bit of humor, as in the person you are looking for could be among them. It is a promotional line rather than a statistic about the odds, but it explains the spirit of the campaign.
Two Groups, Two Cities, Four Possible Matches
Sixteen participants will be chosen in all, and they will be split into two groups of eight. The trips take place during a window running from February 9 to February 19, and each group will spend four days in Finland. One group will head to Helsinki, the capital on the Gulf of Finland. The other will go to Tampere, an inland city in the south of the country.
Participants will not get to pick their destination. Applicants will find out whether they are going to Helsinki or Tampere only once the organizers confirm their spot, which means anyone who enters has to be willing to go to either place.
The program is described as a full tourist experience. Participants can expect outdoor activities, sightseeing tours and food-focused outings, all covered by the tourism board. The details of the schedule have not been published, so travelers should not assume that any specific excursion is guaranteed.
The trip ends with a blind dinner date. At that meal, each group of eight international guests will be joined by two Finnish singles, bringing the table to ten people. Between the two cities, that adds up to four local singles in total, and the organizers have framed the format as giving each traveler multiple chances to hit it off with someone. How the pairing will work, whether guests will sit at assigned seats or mingle freely, has not been spelled out.
Helsinki: Coffee, Domes and Baltic Sunsets
For the group that lands in Helsinki, the city offers a mix of harbor scenery and relaxed urban life. The capital sits right on the Baltic Sea, and that setting gives it long waterfront views. A frequently recommended place to watch the sun go down is Helsinki Cathedral, a white neoclassical landmark whose green dome rises about 80 meters above sea level. In February, sunsets come early, which can be convenient for visitors who want to see the golden hour without waiting late into the evening.
The city is also known for its coffee culture. Finns are among the heaviest coffee drinkers in the world, and Helsinki shares a reputation for cozy cafés with its Scandinavian neighbors Copenhagen and Oslo. Hopping from one coffee shop to the next, often with a cinnamon bun in hand, is a standard way to spend an afternoon.
The final blind dinner in Helsinki will be led by Adele Kinnunen, the head chef at Café Savoy, who has appeared on MasterChef Professionals. Putting a chef with television credentials in charge of the meal suggests that the organizers want the food to be a main attraction rather than an afterthought.
Tampere: The City of Saunas
The group sent to Tampere will land in a very different setting. The city sits between two lakes and is often described as the sauna capital of the world. It has about 70 public saunas, and the tradition of going to them is a regular part of local life rather than a tourist gimmick. The saunas operate year-round, though February is a particularly popular month, because the cold air adds to the appeal of heating up and then cooling down.
For visitors who want the full experience, that can mean a stint in the steam followed by a dip in icy water. It is a common ritual in Finland, though it is not required, and many first-timers choose to ease into it. Anyone with health concerns involving heart conditions, blood pressure or cold exposure is generally advised to talk with a doctor before trying ice swimming.
The closing dinner in Tampere will be designed by Henry Tikkanen, a chef at the restaurant Gösta. Tikkanen has represented Finland at the Bocuse d’Or, the international culinary contest that is often described as the Olympics of gastronomy. Like the Helsinki meal, the Tampere dinner is expected to be a showpiece.
What Americans Should Know Before Applying
The contest is open to singles from around the world, and the tourism board has not announced a nationality limit, so Americans are eligible to enter. The organizers have also not published every condition of the prize, which is worth keeping in mind. The trip is described as all expenses paid, but the information released so far does not break down exactly what that covers, including whether transatlantic flights from the United States are part of the package. Applicants will want to read the full terms on the official website before entering.
Getting to Finland from the United States is usually straightforward. The national carrier, Finnair, flies to Helsinki from several American cities, including New York, and connecting itineraries through other European hubs are widely available. A flight from the East Coast takes about eight to nine hours. Participants who live elsewhere would need to account for additional travel time and a significant time difference, since Finland is seven hours ahead of New York and ten hours ahead of Los Angeles.
On the paperwork side, American citizens can generally visit Finland and the rest of the Schengen Area for up to 90 days within a 180-day period without a visa, provided their passport is valid for the required length of time. Anyone planning to go should check the current entry rules on the official U.S. State Department and Finnish government websites, since requirements for visitors to Europe have been changing in recent years.
Then there is the weather. Mid-February in southern Finland is the heart of winter. Daytime temperatures in Helsinki often hover around or just below freezing, and Tampere, farther inland, tends to be colder. Daylight is limited, with the sun rising late and setting in the late afternoon. Finns have a reputation for dressing in layers, wearing insulated boots and treating cold weather as routine, and visitors are usually advised to do the same.
Why Finland Is Making the Offer
Tourism boards around the world have been looking for creative ways to stand out online, and social media contests have become a popular tool. Visit Finland has run campaigns in the past that play on the country’s reputation for quiet, nature and saunas, and the singles trip fits the pattern of building a travel promotion around a cultural quirk.
Finland also tends to rank at or near the top of international surveys of national happiness, a distinction the country’s tourism marketing has leaned on in recent years. A trip aimed at helping people meet each other, built around food and relaxation, matches that image.
For the tourism board, the contest also creates a stream of publicly posted content. Every application video posted with the campaign hashtag works as a small advertisement for the country, whether or not that applicant is chosen. That is one reason such contests often ask for entries to be shared openly on social platforms.
Putting It Together
Sixteen singles will be chosen from entries around the globe, then split into two groups of eight. One group will go to Helsinki, the other to Tampere. Each will spend four days between February 9 and 19 on a program of sightseeing, outdoor activities and local food, and each will end the stay with a blind dinner alongside two Finnish singles, prepared under a chef with national and international credentials.
To have a chance, an applicant needs to post a video about a dinner date menu, use the hashtag #FinnishDinnerDate, tag Visit Finland and submit the form at FinnishDinnerDate.com before 9:59 a.m. GMT on November 10. The winners will be revealed on December 1.
Whether the trip leads to romance is, of course, up to the people at the table. What the tourism board has promised is the meals, the scenery and the sauna, and a roomful of strangers who showed up for the same reason.
