Affiliate disclosure

What is and is not an affiliate link

Every link to GetYourGuide on this site carries a partner identifier, and so does every booking panel and every clickable photograph in the homepage gallery. Links from one page here to another page here earn nothing. There are no other outbound links on this site at all, so there is nothing else that could be paid for.

Most of what I write about is not something I can be paid for

This is the part worth reading twice, because it covers most of what people actually do with food in Helsinki. Both market halls are free to walk into and neither of them is a tour. Vanha Kauppahalli opened on the Market Square waterfront in 1889 and Hakaniemen Kauppahalli opened in 1914 across the Pitkäsilta bridge, and you can spend an afternoon in either one without buying anything from anybody. I earn nothing from that and I say so on the Old Market Hall page and the Hakaniemi page.

The same applies more widely. Tap water is excellent everywhere in Finland and served free, and bottled water is a waste. Tipping is not expected, and I would rather tell you that than let you over-pay out of politeness. A good deal of this city costs nothing, and the cheap end of eating here mostly involves places nobody pays me to mention.

What the commission does not buy

• No operator sees a page here before it is published
• No page has been commissioned, paid for or edited by anybody selling anything
• Nothing is ordered by commission rate, which I do not look at
• The reviews hub ranks the six tours by how much evidence sits behind the rating, which puts two five-star listings at the bottom
• Four of the six reviews open by saying the review count is too small to lean on
• One review says plainly that the listing does not publish its route and that I will not invent one
• Two listings exclude certain diets outright, and the dietary page states both rather than softening them

Why I use affiliate links at all

Because the alternatives are worse. Advertising would fill these pages with things I have not chosen. A paywall on a visitor guide would be absurd. Sponsorship would put somebody with an interest in the room while I write about their own tour. A commission on a booking you were going to make anyway, from a company I otherwise have no dealings with, is the least compromising arrangement I have found. If it stops being that, I will say so on this page.

Bookings, payments and problems

I sell nothing and hold nothing. Your contract is with GetYourGuide and the operator, your confirmation comes from them, and changes, cancellations and refunds go through them. If something goes wrong, their support is the only place that can act on it. Do tell me as well, through the contact page, because it belongs in the review.

No figures, anywhere

There are no amounts on this site for what anything costs, in any language, and that is deliberate rather than coy. Prices move every season, this guide is translated into four other languages, and a stale number is worse than none. What I can describe is the structure: how many hours, how many stops, how many tastings, what is inside the ticket and what is not. That is what a food tour is worth and is Helsinki expensive, and both are written that way on purpose.

Frequently asked questions