Tell me the way to go

You didn't say where in Germany, but checking Frankfurt to Helsinki, you would spend anywhere from 35 to 44 hours on various trains. Even Hamburg to Helsinki is over 30 hours. If you want to visit Finland, go by budget airline. Depending on your age, you may qualify for a German youth rail pass. Delete the terms "Rail Europe" and "Eurorail" from your brain, unless you want to spend far more money than necessary. For a good rail tutorial, go to this website. Once you have a general idea about how the rail systems in the various countries work (and you'll see why a 3rd party rail pass is a complete waste of money), get all your information on trains in Germany directly from the sourse, the Deutsche Bahn website. I don't know the details on German youth rail passes, but you should be able to find it on the website. Give us a little more ideas what you had in mind. Some of the other posters on this website can also tell you about all the excellent regional passes you can buy.

Hi, You have another option to get to Helsinki from Germany aside from flying a budget airline...go by ferry. A Global Pass holder receives a discount on ferry lines between Germany and Helsinki. Two ferry lines serve the Germany-Helsinki route leaving from Travemünde and Rostock. I would do one leg by ferry, the other by a budget airline flying in/out of Berlin, depending on your budget.

To amplify Tom's and Fred's excellent replies: Here's the Man in Seat 61's discussion of rail passes, and why they have gotten to be a bad deal for most people: http://tinyurl.com/bkw4u6c Here's his explanation of the options for getting from London to Helsinki by rail and boat. You'll see the Germany to Helsinki portion discussed (look for "Travemünde to Finland" and "Rostock to Finland"): http://tinyurl.com/br799xg