Travel and Accommodations
Covid Status and Planning
UCNC 2021 will be a primarily on-site event. The conference arrangements will follow the health and safety guidelines prescribed by the Finnish authorities and Aalto University. Over the coronavirus pandemic, Finland has been the country in Europe with the least infections per capita. (You can check the most recent statistics e.g. here.) The website of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare provides a wealth of national information.
Entering Finland
At present, travellers arriving in Finland from EU and Schengen countries are not bound by travel restrictions, and also persons from other regions who have received a complete vaccination course using accepted covid-19 vaccines may enter the country. If you have a valid certificate of either a complete vaccination course or of a diagnosed coronavirus disease within the past six months, you do not need to participate in coronavirus tests when entering the country. For other cases and detailed guidelines, see the Finnish Border Guard and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare web pages. To streamline the entry process, please register on the FinEntry service before your trip.
Travel and Transit
The meeting takes place on the Aalto University campus which is located in Otaniemi, Espoo, within a 15 minutes metro ride from downtown Helsinki. Enter the metro at any station in downtown Helsinki such as Rautatientori/Railway Square or Kamppi, choose the tracks going west, and exit at the station Aalto-yliopisto/Aalto University. Tickets can be purchased from vending machines at each metro station or with an online app, and you need a basic AB zone ticket for the journey. (Single ticket 2.80 EUR, also day passes for 1-13 days availble, see pricing info.)
Travel directly from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport to the campus takes about 1 hour by public transport. (Take first the airport train to Helsinki Central Railway Station, then the metro to Aalto University. You need to purchase an ABC zone ticket for the trip, at a cost of 4.10 EUR). Travel by taxi takes about 30 minutes and costs approximately 40 EUR. (Note that because of recent deregulation of taxi services, there are a wide variety of providers. Taksi Helsinki and Lähitaksi are two of the better-established companies, although not necessarily the cheapest. They offer fixed rates that can be found on their respective websites.) For further information on getting to the campus, see the Aalto University information page and the Journey Planner website by the Helsinki Regional Transit Authority HSL.
The meeting will be held in Lecture Hall B of the architecturally significant main building of the former Helsinki University of Technology, now Aalto Undergraduate Centre, which is located across a small plaza from the Aalto University metro station (Exit A). For more information about the venue and the Otaniemi campus, see the page on Local Information.
Accommodations
If you wish to stay on campus, both the Hotel Radisson Blu Espoo and the Aalto Inn Guesthouse are located within a 13 minutes walking distance from the conference venue. Another nearby hotel is Sokos Tapiola Garden, which is located close to metro station Tapiola, one stop further west from the campus. For budget-conscious housing there is a Forenom Hostel on the campus, and Airbnb is of course also an option. (In both of these cases look for locations with keyword 'Otaniemi'.)
If you would rather stay in downtown Helsinki, there are many nice options, and the main practical considerations in addition to the price are that you might want to stay close to the metro line and also perhaps in the core downtown area. In usual times the downtown hotels tend to be on the pricey side, but at present if you book early you can get quite good offers. For instance from the TripAdvisor top listings under 120 EUR/night (as of this writing) for the week of the conference at least the following satisfy the given criteria: Hotel Scandic Grand Central, Marski, Klaus K, Helka, GLO Hotel Kluuvi, Scandic Simonkentta, Radisson Blu Royal.
Scandic Grand Central is a recently opened, rather unique hotel that has been renovated inside the historically and architecturally significant Helsinki Central Railway Station itself. Marski and Klaus K are classical somewhat upscale hotels in the core downtown area. Hotel Helka is a traditional and quite pleasant, relatively inexpensive design hotel. GLO Kluuvi is a good hotel located at the centre of the commercial district. Scandic Simonkentta and Radisson Blu Royal are business hotels in a transit and shopping hub area.
If you are willing to walk on the order of 15-20 minutes to the metro connection, there are also many good hotels in the historic Market Square/Senate Square area close to the sea: for instance the large Scandic Grand Marina, which is renovated inside an old port customs building, and several small upscale boutique hotels such as Hotel Fabian and Hotel Haven. (For a more comprehensive listing of these, see this website.)
Tourism
For touristic information about the Helsinki Capital Region, see the promotional materials by the City of Helsinki and the City of Espoo. For touristic information about Finland in general, see the Visit Finland webpages.