Academic conferences have brought me to some pretty unique places over the years, including China, Corsica, and Sicily. This past June, I had the pleasure of travelling to Europe to take part in two international conferences in two Nordic cities: Gothenburg, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland. Despite being geographically close to one another (closer than Toronto and Fredericton, for example), my experiences in both cities were quite different.
Regional Studies Association Annual Conference
As someone studying regional economic inequality in Canada, I feel at home within the Regional Studies Association. My first experience with the RSA was for their Summer College, held in Palermo, Italy in 2025 (check out my blog post about it here), where I met an incredible group of demographers and economic geographers. When I heard their next annual conference would be held in Sweden, I didn’t expect it to be possible for me to attend due to the costs involved. However, remaining optimistic, I applied for an RSA conference bursary to assist with conference fees and was awarded one of 12 bursaries to attend!
I flew into Gothenburg and expected to take public transit to get to the city centre. However, either the city buses do not stop at the airport, or the stop was incredibly hard to find. Instead, as most people were doing, I paid for a coach bus to get downtown. Needless to say, I was pretty surprised, as I had heard wonderful things about the transit systems in Sweden.
After getting acquainted with my hotel room, I walked over to the opening reception, which was held in an absolutely stunning city building. I spent the majority of my evening with a PhD Candidate and a lecturer working in the United Kingdom – the fact that we were all economic geographers or economists helped to reaffirm that I was truly where I needed to be.
For dinner that night, I decided to try the famous shrimp sandwich – featuring shrimp, obviously, and egg salad. I’m not sure I would personally call an open-faced sandwich a “sandwich”, but it was definitely very tasty.
No time to relax – the next morning, during the very first session of the conference, I was scheduled to present my research. Since I had already presented this work and it has already been published, I wasn’t too nervous about presenting. I also had the chance to connect with a scholar who is interested in regional studies of media after the session.
That evening was the conference dinner, which I was invited to attend as a bursary winner. When I arrived, I immediately noticed that the building had some industrial flair. What can I say – human geographers and planners love adaptive reuse! The second thing I noticed as I got closer was that every scholar was wearing… a flower crown. As it turns out, Midsummer celebrations would take place in Sweden that Friday, so the conference organizing committee decided it would be appropriate to celebrate together at our dinner. We even got to witness a little song and dance…
The rest of the conference went incredibly well. The sessions and lectures were very interesting, as you will get to read about when my conference report is published in the Regions magazine. While I always make an attempt to make new connections at conferences, I feel as though nothing compares to the number of connections I made at this conference with people with research interests similar to mine.
Surprisingly, however, I didn’t particularly like Gothenburg. All the locations of interest for tourists seemed quite dispersed throughout the city. Ironically, being a pedestrian also felt like a bigger challenge due to the width of the streets to accommodate bike lanes, cars and trams, as well as the construction. It felt hard to get to the water (despite a river running through the city and it being located on the coast), and the majority of the architecture wasn’t particularly interesting to me. It’s a shame, as I had pretty high hopes for Gothenburg.
World Planning Schools Congress
My supervisor, Maxwell Hartt, put this conference on my radar about a year ago. He informed me that this conference, which only runs once every five years, brings together members of 11 planning school associations across the globe: the Asian Planning Schools Association (APSA), Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), Australia and New Zealand Association of Planning Schools (ANZAPS), Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS), Association of Canadian University Planning Programmes (ACUPP), Latin-American Association of Schools of Urbanism and Planning (ALEUP), National Association of Urban and Regional Post-graduate and Research Programs (ANPUR, Brazil), Association for the Development of Planning Education and Research (APERAU, francophone), Association of Schools of Planning of Indonesia (ASPI), and Turkish Association of Planning Schools (TUPOB). It would therefore be a fantastic place to make international connections as I begin to think of post-PhD opportunities.
As soon as I got off the train that brought me from the airport to the city centre (which was much more convenient and comfortable than the coach bus situation in Gothenburg), I knew Helsinki would be a completely different experience. An incredible diversity of old and new architecture. A city centre mostly dedicated to pedestrians. Easy access to the water. I really looked forward to exploring the city.
I took the tram to my hotel in Jätkäsaari, which I had booked months before solely because of its cheaper price point. And yet, it was one of the coolest hotels I have ever stayed at. The outside of the building had a huge axolotl-type statue hanging out of it. The reception area had an even bigger axolotl statue hanging out of the ceiling. When I got to my hotel room, there was a picture of a guitar on the door. I certainly didn’t expect one of the walls and two decorative pillows to have the same picture of a guitar on them! A sign on the wall informed me that the photo was taken from a music video that was filmed in Helsinki.
Hungry from my travels, I decided to venture out to find food, only to find that most restaurants were closed, or closing, as of 8:30pm. I later found out that people tend to eat around 6pm in Finland, and the less prominent drinking culture means that most establishments close after dinner service. I therefore opted for a döner kebab that evening – I can’t complain though, as it was incredibly good. I then took a walk in my neighbourhood, which was so beautiful and peaceful.
The next day, I headed to Aalto University to complete my first presentation of the week. I had the pleasure of presenting during a special session that Maxx and some of our other shrinking cities colleagues (Beatriz Fernandez and Manuel Wolff) organized. The presentations were incredibly interesting and reflected demographic change in countries across the world.
Later, Maxx and I went for dinner with other members of a research project we are beginning to work on. I have so much respect for each of them and their work, as they have published a substantial amount of literature that I have cited in my own work. At the same time, the dinner reminded me that we are all human. It was a pleasure to get to know them better and to discuss and laugh together.
The next day, I decided to take a self-guided tour of Helsinki. I took a tram over to Katajanokka, where Helsinki’s Ferris wheel is located. Instead of riding the Ferris wheel, however, I opted for a rooftop terrace nearby. It had the most amazing view of many Helsinki landmarks, as well as of some nearby islands.
I then walked in the direction of some of the landmarks I had seen and ended up at one of Helsinki’s market squares. This one in particular had a lot of food options – I decided I would come back on an empty stomach.
The one thing I appreciated the most about Helsinki was how quiet it was. Whether I was near the water, walking in a park or even walking through the city centre, everything felt incredibly peaceful. I think I may have heard two ambulances during the six days I was there.
Later in the week, I attended a reception at Helsinki’s City Hall. This building was once a hotel catering to the upper-class of the region. Our reception was held in what used to be a ballroom.
On the final day of the conference, during the very last session slot, I presented my second paper. In my experience, presenting at the end of the conference usually means a smaller turnout, as scholars may leave the conference early to catch a flight. To my surprise, the room was at capacity. About 40 people listened to me talk about the relationships between left-behind places and non-profit organizations in Canada. Afterwards, at least five people asked me questions on my research or hypothesized about the factors that lead to the results I observed. What started off as “ticking a box” quickly became a really enriching experience.
Finland isn’t exactly known for their culinary experiences, so a lot of the food I had while in Helsinki was international (I had some great Thai and Vietnamese food in my neighbourhood). But before flying out of Helsinki, I went back to the market to try some moose meatballs and reindeer hot dogs, smothered in lingonberry jam. What a treat.
I was surprised by my first impressions of Gothenburg and Helsinki. Gothenburg felt underwhelming, while Helsinki quickly became one of my favourite destinations. I would definitely return to Helsinki as a tourist and would love to visit other cities in Finland as well to compare. As for Gothenburg, while I cannot see myself returning, I would like to visit Stockholm at some point to see if I prefer it. Regardless of the destination, both conferences I attended were enlightening and inspiring. What an incredible source of motivation as the end of my PhD program looms near.
*This is an old slogan from my hometown, North Bay, Ontario!