Free-of-cost hobby‑, leisure- and cul­ture activ­i­ties in Oulu

Are you won­der­ing about what to do in Oulu in your free time? Don’t fret – with­in this arti­cle you will find all free leisure‑, culture‑, and hob­by activ­i­ties that can be found in Oulu.

Some of the links are in Finnish due to web­site lan­guage avail­abil­i­ty, uti­lize web brows­er trans­la­tion with Finnish links!

Leisure

Exer­cise and out­door activ­i­ties

Liikun­tavä­linelainaamo

• Do you want to try a new sport, but don’t have your own equip­ment? You can bor­row the exer­cise equip­ment you want for free all year round, for 1–3 weeks at a time. You can find more infor­ma­tion about the loan and avail­able tools here.

Beach­es

• There are more than 20 pub­lic beach­es in Oulu. The most pop­u­lar of all are Nal­likari beach, Tuira beach and Kuiv­asjärvi beach. Go swim­ming! The list of all swim­ming beach­es can be found here.

Cycling

• Oulu has an exten­sive net­work of bike paths that you can use to explore many places in Oulu. The cycling route map can be obtained from the Oulu10 point, tourist infor­ma­tion or online.

Parks, nature and camp­ing

• You can hike along Oulu’s nature trails, along which there are also places to rest and make camp­fires, as well as bird tow­ers and bird plat­forms. You can find all nature trails, infor­ma­tion about them and their maps at the Oulu10-point and online.
• There are also many oth­er nature attrac­tions in Oulu, such as the Botan­i­cal Gar­den, the Turkansaari Out­door Muse­um, the Limin­gan­lahti Nature Cen­ter and many oth­er inter­est­ing places! You can find all of Oulu’s nature des­ti­na­tions here.

Disc golf

• Around Oulu, you can find a vari­ety of disc golf places. Rent your­self a disc golf equip­ment from Liikun­tavä­linelainaamo, and go play! You can find the tracks here.

Var­i­ous fields for dif­fer­ent games and sports, like skat­ing and out­door games

• Do you have sports equip­ment you’d like to test out some­where? Check out all the var­i­ous play­ing fields around Oulu for dif­fer­ent sports here.

Cross-coun­try ski­ing and down­hill ski­ing

• Oulu has a vari­ety of cross-coun­try-ski­ing slopes in win­ter. Take your own skis or bor­row a pair from Liikun­tavä­linelainaamo, and go ski­ing! You can find the ski slopes here.
• If you have your own or bor­rowed down­hill ski­ing equip­ment, you can down­hill ski on the Rusko ski­ing slope or at the Köykkyri ski cen­ter. Please note that there is a charge for the lift tick­et.

Play­grounds

• Oulu has 163 dif­fer­ent play­grounds around the city, the most promi­nent of which are the cen­tral play­grounds, which have more play­ground equip­ment. You can find all the play­grounds here.

Fish­ing

• There are many water bod­ies in Oulu where you can fish. If you fish with a fish­ing rod or an ice fish­ing rod you do not need a fish­ing per­mit and fish­ing is free of charge.
• If you use oth­er fish­ing meth­ods, check the per­mits for Oulu’s water­ways and their prices here.

Sights

There are many free attrac­tions worth vis­it­ing in Oulu, such as the obser­va­tion tow­er of the Nal­likari light­house, Tähti­torni obser­va­tion tow­er, the base­ment of Oulu Cas­tle and much more. You can check out all the sights in Oulu from here.

Oth­er free of charge free time ser­vices

Library

• In addi­tion to books and mag­a­zines, you can also bor­row music, musi­cal instru­ments, con­sole games, board games, game- and sports equip­ment and much more from the library. See here what you can bor­row from Oulu’s libraries.
• The libraries also orga­nize a lot of events and free exhi­bi­tions, all of which you can view here.
• Digiver­stas is a tech space locat­ed in the library, where you can 3D-print and do oth­er var­i­ous projects using the tech­ni­cal tools there. More infor­ma­tion on how to start is here.

Fablab

• In Fablab, you can learn, use and uti­lize mod­ern and dig­i­tal man­u­fac­tur­ing meth­ods like 3D print­ing. Read more and make an appoint­ment here.

Com­mu­ni­ty facil­i­ties in Oulu

• Oulu has a vari­ety of com­mu­ni­ty spaces, where e.g. liv­ing room activ­i­ties are held. You can meet new acquain­tances and par­tic­i­pate in activ­i­ties. Con­tact infor­ma­tion for all com­mu­ni­ty spaces can be found here.

Guid­ed hob­by and leisure activ­i­ty

Oulu’s exer­cise ser­vices

• The city of Oulu offers guid­ed exer­cise for many dif­fer­ent groups. Cours­es are offered on-site and remote­ly, some free of charge and some for a fee. Free exer­cise coun­sel­ing is also offered to young peo­ple. You can find all the cours­es on this site.

Vil­la Vic­tor

• Vil­la Vic­tor orga­nizes var­i­ous free of cost, open for all clubs and events. Check out all of their cur­rent events and activ­i­ties!

Oulu-opis­to

• Peo­ple in pos­ses­sion of Kaikuko­rt­ti are enti­tled to attend Teatterikuoppa’s per­for­mances and to attend select­ed exer­cise course. More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

Vuolle Ystävyyskeskus

• Vuolle Ystävyyskeskus (Vuolle Friend­ship Cen­tre) offers free of charge activ­i­ties through var­i­ous dif­fer­ent groups. Check out their activ­i­ties here.

Oulu’s D‑station

• Oulu’s D‑station is a place meant for peo­ple of all ages, where there are also guid­ed activ­i­ties.

Chil­dren and young

Youth ser­vices

• There are sev­er­al youth cen­tres in the city of Oulu that offer free time and oth­er activ­i­ties for young peo­ple. You can find all youth cen­tres in Oulu here.
• Are you look­ing for a spe­cif­ic ser­vice tar­get­ed at young peo­ple? The Löy­dä oma palvelusi-ser­vice helps you find exact­ly what you’re look­ing for.
• The group activ­i­ties with and with­out reg­is­tra­tion will be updat­ed on the Byström Ohjaamo web­site.
• Youth work­shops offer leisure time activ­i­ties.
• Action-exer­cise offers dif­fer­ent exer­cise activ­i­ties for 13–19-year-olds in Oulu.
• Loan your­self an art bag from Byström for mak­ing art on the go!
• Oth­er cur­rent activ­i­ties and events you can find at the Nuorten Oulu web­site.

Girls’ house

• Leisure activ­i­ties aimed at girls aged 12–29 (tak­ing gen­der diver­si­ty into account).

Boys’ house

• Leisure activ­i­ties aimed at boys aged 12–29 (tak­ing gen­der diver­si­ty into account).

Cul­ture

Kaikuko­rt­ti card

• The Kaikuko­rt­ti is a free card that can be obtained by per­sons and fam­i­lies in a weak­er finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. With this you get free cul­tur­al tick­ets, cours­es and exer­cise oppor­tu­ni­ties all over Fin­land.
• All loca­tions in Oulu you can use Kaikuko­rt­ti in, and more infor­ma­tion on obtain­ing Kaikuko­rt­ti can be found here.
• All of the loca­tions (does not include all Oulu loca­tions) you can see from this web­site.

Oulu Art Muse­um

• Peo­ple under 18 and peo­ple own­ing Kaikuko­rt­ti have free admis­sion to Oulu Art Muse­um.

Valve

• Free exhi­bi­tions and cul­tur­al events.

Oth­er muse­ums and exhi­bi­tions

Gal­le­ria 5, Hal­li­tuskatu 5

• Mod­ern art exhi­bi­tions.

Pimen­to, Hal­li­tuskatu 5

• Media art exhi­bi­tions.

ART­ti­la, Hal­li­tuskatu 5

• Exhi­bi­tions from Oulu’s art com­mu­ni­ty.

Gal­le­ria 33, Hal­li­tuskatu 33

• Month­ly exhi­bi­tions of Finnish and inter­na­tion­al art.

Neliö-Gal­le­ria, Ase­makatu 37

• Often chang­ing exhi­bi­tions from dif­fer­ent fields of art.

Gal­le­ria Mabd, Torikatu 4

• Finnish and inter­na­tion­al mod­ern art.

Gal­le­ria TASO, Pik­isaar­en­tie 15 B1

• New mul­ti-lev­eled art.

Muo­toilukeskus PROTO, Pik­isaar­en­tie 17

• Design and archi­tec­ture themed exhi­bi­tions.

You can find all of Oulu’s cur­rent events here.

Orga­ni­za­tions

Kult­tuurivoimala

• Kult­turivoimala offers var­i­ous activ­i­ties for peo­ple inter­est­ed about art.

Kump­panu­uskeskus

• Var­i­ous dif­fer­ent events open for all.

Hyvän mie­len talo

• Var­i­ous activ­i­ties open for all, and peer sup­port groups relat­ing to men­tal well­be­ing.

MLL

• MLL offers fam­i­ly evens and –meet­ings.

Hut­tukylän nuorisoseu­ra

• Meet­ing place activ­i­ties for peo­ple of dif­fer­ent ages.

Nuorten Ystävät ry

• Club­house Pönkkä is a low-tresh­old­com­mu­ni­ty meant for peo­ple over 18-years old, where you can get com­mu­nal activ­i­ties and indi­vid­ual sup­port.

Tilaa Kult­tuurille ry

• Tukiko­h­ta is an event space man­aged by Tilaa Kult­tuurille ry, where there are often free of cost events and clubs held, open for all. The clubs held in Tukiko­h­ta can be found here.

More activ­i­ties held by orga­ni­za­tions in Oulu you can find here.

Vol­un­tary work

Vuolle

• Vuolle offers ver­sa­tile vol­un­tary work on the dif­fer­ent sides of its orga­ni­za­tion.

Oulun Punainen Risti (Oulu’s Red Cross)

• Oulu’s Red Cross is look­ing for col­un­teers for exam­ple, friend­ship vol­un­teer work, food help and oth­er jobs at the orga­ni­za­tion.

Hyvän Mie­len Talo

• Hyvän Mie­len Talo offers var­i­ous vol­un­teer work in com­mu­nal and men­tal well­be­ing relat­ed tasks.

More vol­un­teer work options you can find on this web­site.