Qualla: Moomin World

Moomin World: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kallerna, CC BY-SA 3.0. There are no roller coasters on Kailo island. No log flume, no drop tower, no queue barriers snaking back on themselves toward a ride. When Moomin World opened here on 26 June 1993, it did so on a decision that would sink almost any other theme park: it would have nothing to ride. What it has instead is a blueberry-blue house you are allowed to climb, a witch in a cottage, a theatre under a roof, and a pontoon bridge from the Naantali shore that you cross on foot - which turns out to be exactly the right way to arrive.

Read more: Moomin World on Qualla

Image: kallerna | CC BY-SA 3.0

Moomin World: A House You Are Allowed to Enter

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Dingley, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Moomin House is the centre of everything, five storeys of it, painted the deep blue-black of a bilberry. It was built in 1993 to match drawings Tove Jansson had made years before, and unlike nearly every other landmark building in a theme park, visitors may go all the way up....

Read more: Moomin World on Qualla

Image: Andy Dingley | CC BY-SA 3.0

Moomin World: The Woman Who Drew It First

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kallerna, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki on 9 August 1914 and died there on 27 June 2001, and she wrote the Moomins in Swedish, Finland's other national language. The first of the books, Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen - The Moomins and the Great Flood - appeared in 1945. Nine y...

Read more: Moomin World on Qualla

Image: kallerna | CC BY-SA 3.0

Moomin World: Paths Instead of Rides

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit kallerna, CC BY-SA 3.0. Dennis Livson designed the park, and what he laid out was essentially a set of walks. Toffle's Path leads through the Witch's Labyrinth. There is a cave belonging to the Hattifatteners, and a house belonging to the Groke, who in the books freezes the ground wherever she sits and ...

Read more: Moomin World on Qualla

Image: kallerna | CC BY-SA 3.0

Moomin World: A Very Short Summer

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Urjanhai, CC BY-SA 4.0. The park is open daily from mid-June to mid-August - roughly two months, which is about as long as a southern Finnish summer honestly lasts. As of 2013 it drew around 240,000 visitors a year, and had passed three million since opening. Then the gates come off. In winter, Kailo is...

Read more: Moomin World on Qualla

Image: Urjanhai | CC BY-SA 4.0