Health Benefits from National Parks

Trips to national parks, the top Finnish nature attractions, help you de-stress. According to Metsähallitus, Parks & Wildlife Finland reports, vitality and happiness are improved on trips to our national parks and other quality nature destinations. Especially age groups going through their busy years, women and children benefit from hikes in national parks.

A trip to a national park calms the mind, prevents melancholy feelings and stress and makes you forget everyday troubles. The health benefits experienced are greater when staying outdoors overnight as opposed to day trips, and visitors travelling to national parks from afar experience more effects on their physical well-being than those coming from nearby areas. Visitors hiking in groups increase their social well-being and strengthen their friendships. Hikers also experience physical benefits, for example, the clean air and silence are good for the body.

National parks are significant exercise environments for Finns. Usually people do trekking, cycling, kayaking or cross-country skiing when visiting national parks. An average distance travelled by one’s own power on a typical national park trip varies between 1 and 25 km, depending on the mode of travel. Information is available now from 39 national parks. In these parks alone, visitors move about 39.8 million kilometers annually, equaling 994 laps around the world.

Public Health is Improving

Outdoor recreation and wilderness hobbies are also a significant financial opportunity from the perspective of health care and public health. According to visitor surveys conducted by Metsähallitus in 2019-2023, 86% of visitors to nature and history sites experienced that the visit had a fairly or very high impact on their health and wellbeing. The average health and well-being effect of the visitors was 4.33 on a scale of 1–5, with 1 = totally disagree, …, 5 = totally agree.

Visitors estimated their health and well-being effects to around 100 euros per visit. 100 euros is the median value of the answers (the middle value).

Mental Well-Being

A trip to a national park lifts your mood effectively and revitalizes you from the effects of stress. Trips to parks seem to increase serenity and calmness, happiness, vitality and the feeling of security, and decrease feelings of melancholy particularly in 26–50 year olds.

Nature Is the Best Playground

According to Parks & Wildlife Finland´s reports, adults feel that spending time outdoors offers incentives and developing activities for children. According to the adults, the children enjoyed spending time outdoors and together and experienced the joys of exercising. They get positive experiences of self-fulfillment and learn new skills and things. Outdoor activities are also thought to have a positive effect on a child’s imagination, creativity and insightfulness.

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