Best Things to Do in the Baltic States: Easy Travel Guide

Three countries. Three languages. Three distinct personalities - and enough medieval architecture, ancient forests, and genuine surprises to fill two weeks without once feeling like you've seen it all before. The Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - sit in the northeast corner of Europe, quietly offering one of the continent's most rewarding travel experiences.

If you have a long weekend or a fortnight for vacation, our guide offers the best things to do across all three countries, from world-famous old towns to off-the-beaten-track experiences most visitors miss entirely.

A few facts:

Country	Estonia	Latvia	Lithuania
Capital	Tallinn	Riga	Vilnius
Language	Estonian	Latvian	Lithuanian
Currency	Euro	Euro	Euro
EU/Schengen	Yes	Yes	Yes
Best base for	Northern Baltics	Central route	Southern Baltics

Explore the Medieval Old Towns of Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius

If there's one experience that defines a Baltic trip, it's stepping into one of the region's remarkably preserved medieval city centres. All three capitals have old towns you can walk in an afternoon - but each feels entirely different from the others.

Planning to see all three? Our Baltic tours packages connect the capitals in a single itinerary, so you don't have to piece together buses, hotels, and timing on your own.

Tallinn is the most dramatic. Enter through the medieval gates, walk along the ancient defensive walls, and you're inside a city that looks almost unchanged since the 15th century. The centrepiece is Town Hall Square - one of the finest in Northern Europe - surrounded by merchant houses, guild halls, and the spire of the Gothic town hall itself. Don't miss Raeapteek on the corner of the square: a pharmacy that has been operating continuously since around 1422, making it Europe's oldest, and the tiny museum inside.

Climb the hill to Toompea for views across the terracotta rooftops and out to the sea. On a clear day it's spectacular. The hilltop is also home to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, with its distinctive onion domes - a striking reminder of Estonia's time under Russian rule.

Riga's old town sits on the banks of the Daugava River and rewards slow exploration. The House of Blackheads - a striking Gothic and Renaissance façade rebuilt after Soviet-era destruction - is the postcard image of Riga. Nearby, look out for the Cat House: an Art Nouveau building topped with two black cats, originally placed (legend has it) with their tails raised towards a merchant guild that had snubbed the building's owner.

Vilnius is the most relaxed of the three. Its UNESCO-listed old town stretches across a wide area, full of baroque churches, hidden courtyards, and quiet lanes that open unexpectedly onto grand squares. Cathedral Square is the geographical and social heart of the city - look for the magic tile embedded in the cobblestones nearby, which is said to grant a wish if you spin on it clockwise. From the square, follow the path up to Gediminas Hill for panoramic views over the city.

Before you leave Vilnius, cross into Užupis: a small bohemian neighbourhood that has declared itself an independent republic, complete with its own constitution and a guardian angel statue. It's playful, artsy, and unlike anywhere else in the region.

Discover Riga's Art Nouveau District

Most visitors spend all their time in Riga's medieval old town and miss what is, architecturally speaking, the city's greatest treasure. Riga has the highest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture anywhere in Europe - an entire district of ornate facades, elaborate masks, flowing plant motifs, and sculpted human figures that cover entire building fronts.

The key streets are Alberta iela and Elizabetes iela, a short walk from the old town. Unlike in other European cities where Art Nouveau buildings are scattered landmarks, here they line entire blocks, giving the district a coherent, almost theatrical quality. The Riga Art Nouveau Museum on Alberta iela lets you inside one of the apartments, preserved in its original early 20th-century state.

This part of the city rewards wandering without a fixed plan. If you'd rather explore with an expert who knows which facades to stop at and what the details mean, Baltic States Escorted Tours take care of exactly that - local guides who know the stories behind the stonework.

Visit Trakai Island Castle

Forty minutes from Vilnius, on a narrow strip of land between two lakes, sits one of the most cinematic castles in Eastern Europe. Trakai Island Castle is exactly what it sounds like: a 14th-century red-brick fortress on an island, connected to the shore by wooden bridges. The setting is absurdly photogenic at any time of year - glassy lake reflections in summer, icy stillness in winter.

Trakai was once the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, before Vilnius took over that role. The castle was the residence of Grand Duke Vytautas, and its museum gives a solid account of the medieval political history of the region - which, given that the Grand Duchy at its peak stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea, turns out to be surprisingly interesting.

While you're there, try the local Karaim cuisine. The Karaim are a small ethnic group with Crimean Tatar roots who settled in Trakai centuries ago, and their signature dish, kibinai - small pastries filled with spiced meat - are sold at simple restaurants all around the lake shore.

Trakai works perfectly as a day trip from Vilnius, and pairs well with a walking tour of the old town the day before.

Stand at the Hill of Crosses

No list of things to do in the Baltic States would be complete without the Hill of Crosses in northern Lithuania, near the city of Šiauliai. Nothing quite prepares you for the sight of it: a low hill covered with over 100,000 crosses, from tiny trinkets to elaborate multi-metre structures, accumulated over almost two centuries.

The tradition began after an 1831 uprising against Russian rule. Families of fallen soldiers started leaving crosses here, and the practice grew across generations. The Soviet authorities bulldozed the hill three times. Each time, the crosses reappeared within weeks. That persistence - quiet, stubborn, collective - is part of what makes the site so moving.

Today it's a Catholic place of pilgrimage and one of the most unusual and genuinely powerful sights in the region. It's a detour from the standard capital-to-capital route, but entirely worth it.

Hike the National Parks and Baltic Forest Trail

The Baltic States are far greener than most visitors expect. Around 50% of Estonia is covered by forest, Latvia is one of the greenest countries in Europe, and all three countries have extensive national parks within easy reach of the main cities.

The Baltic Forest Trail is a 2,141 km hiking route connecting national parks and forests across all three countries - one of the longest in the region. You don't need to walk all of it. Sections are easily accessible for day hikes and multi-day trips.

The highlights by country:

Gauja National Park (Latvia) is the largest national park in the Baltics. The Gauja River valley cuts through sandstone cliffs, past medieval castle ruins and small towns. The trail along the Amata River is one of the most beautiful walks in Latvia, and Sigulda - often called the "Switzerland of Latvia" - makes an excellent base.

Lahemaa National Park (Estonia) is Estonia's largest, covering a stretch of the northern coastline along with forests, bogs, and manor houses. The combination of sea, pine forest, and peat bog feels distinctly Estonian - and distinctly unlike anywhere else.

Soomaa National Park (Estonia) is famous for its "fifth season." When the spring snowmelt comes, the rivers overflow and the park floods, turning the forests into a temporary waterway. Locals once navigated it by dugout canoe; today you can join guided paddle tours during the flood season.

If you'd rather let someone else handle the logistics of moving between parks and cities, a Baltic highlights private tour gives you the green spaces alongside the capitals in a single, well-paced itinerary.

Explore the Curonian Spit and Estonian Islands

Two coastal experiences stand out in the Baltics, and they couldn't be more different from each other.

The Curonian Spit is a narrow strip of land along the Lithuanian and Russian coast, shared between the two countries and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's home to some of the highest sand dunes in Europe - up to 60 metres, shaped by Baltic winds into constantly shifting forms. The dunes are extraordinary: vast, golden, and oddly otherworldly for a corner of northern Europe.

The small town of Nida, at the southern end of the Lithuanian section, is the best base. It's a quiet, picturesque fishing settlement with colourful wooden houses and the Thomas Mann Cultural Centre - the writer spent several summers here in the 1930s. The combination of dunes, pine forests, and lagoon views makes Nida one of the most pleasant places in the region to spend a day or two.

Saaremaa, Estonia's largest island, offers a completely different kind of escape. Bigger than Luxembourg but with only 30,000 residents, it has the unhurried, slightly timeless quality of an island that hasn't been overrun by tourism. The medieval Kuressaare Castle - the only fully preserved medieval stone castle in the Baltic region - sits surrounded by a moat in the island's main town. Nearby, the Kaali meteorite crater is one of the largest impact craters in Europe, formed roughly 4,000 years ago and now a quiet, reedy lake.

Experience a Traditional Smoke Sauna

This is the kind of experience that separates a real Baltic trip from a quick city break.

The smoke sauna tradition - particularly in southern Estonia - is genuinely ancient, and it was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list for good reason. A smoke sauna is not like a Finnish sauna or a gym steam room. It's a wood-fired chamber that heats over several hours, filled with soft, enveloping warmth that you can feel in your bones. The ritual around it - the preparation, the birch whisks, the cooling off, the shared silence - is as much the point as the heat itself.

Mooska Farm in southern Estonia is one of the best places to experience this properly. Visits include traditional cooking in a ground pit, smoked meats, and a guided nature walk in the surrounding hills. It takes half a day and tends to stay with you longer than most things on a Baltic itinerary.

Shop Riga Central Market and Try the Local Food

Baltic food is better than its reputation. The region's cuisine draws on German, Russian, Scandinavian, and local peasant traditions, producing something that's hearty, seasonal, and genuinely distinctive.

Riga Central Market is the best single place to understand Baltic food culture. It's housed in five enormous WWI-era Zeppelin hangars on the edge of the old town - one of the most architecturally unusual markets in Europe - and sells everything from fresh cheese and pickled vegetables to smoked fish, honey, and locally brewed kvass.

What to try across the region:

• Cepelinai (Lithuania): large potato dumplings filled with minced pork or curd, served with sour cream. The national dish of Lithuania, essentially.
• Kibinai (Trakai, Lithuania): pastries from the Karaim tradition, filled with spiced mutton or lamb.
• Black bread: dense, slightly sour rye bread served everywhere, excellent with butter and cold cuts.
• Smoked fish: particularly good on the Estonian coast and on Saaremaa, where juniper-smoked fish is a local speciality.
• Riga Black Balsam: a bitter herbal liqueur that has been made in Riga since 1752. An acquired taste, but an experience.

Estonia also has a strong foraging tradition - school children learn to identify edible mushrooms, and from midsummer through autumn, forests fill with people collecting berries, chanterelles, and wild garlic. Several restaurants in Tallinn have built entire tasting menus around foraged produce.

Understand the Soviet History

The Baltic States spent nearly 50 years under Soviet occupation, and the traces of that period are everywhere - in the architecture, in the museums, and in the conversations you'll have with older residents.

Several sites make this history vivid in ways that no textbook quite manages:

The KGB headquarters and prison in Tallinn occupied a building in the city centre until 1991. Today it's a museum - the cells, interrogation rooms, and execution chamber are intact. It's not a comfortable visit, but it's an important one.

The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga covers both the Nazi and Soviet occupations with a collection of personal testimonies, documents, and artefacts that gives a human scale to events that are sometimes reduced to statistics.

The Baltic Way in 1989 - when an estimated 2 million people formed a human chain stretching from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius - is one of the defining moments of modern European history. The chain passed through all three capitals on 23 August, the anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Understanding why that date mattered transforms the entire region from a collection of pretty cities into a story of remarkable resilience.

How to Get Between Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius

The distances between the Baltic capitals are shorter than they look on a map, and the connections are practical.

By bus is the most straightforward option. Long-distance coaches between the capitals run frequently, are comfortable, and typically take around 4 to 4.5 hours between each city. Ecolines and Lux Express both run regular services.

By train works well within each country for day trips - Vilnius to Trakai, Tallinn to smaller Estonian towns. Cross-border train routes exist but often involve combinations with buses; check current schedules as connections are improving.

A typical well-paced itinerary runs 10–12 days: three or four nights in Tallinn, three or four in Riga with a day trip to Sigulda or the Rundāle Palace, and three or four in Vilnius with a day at Trakai.

The honest truth is that planning this itinerary independently - finding the right buses, timing the national park visits, fitting in the lesser-known stops without rushing - takes a meaningful amount of research. Our Grand Baltic Adventure Escorted Tour is designed for exactly this: you get the well-paced route, the local guides, and the kind of insider knowledge that makes the difference between ticking boxes and actually understanding what you're looking at.

For those who want complete flexibility with expert support, a Jewish Heritage of the Baltic States private tour gives you a tailored itinerary built around your interests and pace.

When to Visit the Baltic States

Summer (June–August) is the most popular time, and for good reason. Days are very long - in June, it barely gets fully dark in Tallinn - and the old towns come alive with outdoor dining, festivals, and street life. Book accommodation early.

Spring and autumn (April–May, September–October) offer a quieter experience with softer light and fewer crowds. Autumn is particularly beautiful, when the forests turn and the city parks fill with colour. More about spring travel to Baltics read in our article.

Winter is cold and short on daylight, but Tallinn's Christmas market is one of the best in Europe, and there's something genuinely atmospheric about the medieval old town under snow.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Baltic States

How many days do you need for the Baltic States?

Ten to twelve days is the sweet spot for visiting all three capitals with time for a day trip from each. You can see highlights in seven days, but you'll feel rushed. If you're combining the Baltics with a broader Scandinavian or Central European trip, three or four days in one country is enough for a solid introduction.

What is the best time to visit the Baltic States?

Late spring and early summer (May–June) offer the best combination of good weather, long days, and manageable crowds. July and August are the busiest months. September is excellent for autumn colours and a more relaxed atmosphere.

Is it easy to travel between Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius?

Yes. Long-distance buses run frequently between all three capitals and are comfortable and affordable. The journey between each pair of capitals takes around 4 to 4.5 hours. Train connections are improving but currently work best within each country rather than across borders.

What food should you try in the Baltic States?

Cepelinai (Lithuanian potato dumplings), black rye bread, smoked fish on the Estonian coast, kibinai pastries in Trakai, and Riga Black Balsam liqueur are all essential. The food is hearty, seasonal, and underrated.

Do I need to know the local languages?

No. English is widely spoken in all three capitals and at major tourist sites. Each country has its own language - Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian - but you'll get along comfortably with English throughout.

Are the Baltic States safe for tourists?

Yes. All three countries are EU and Schengen members with low crime rates and well-developed tourism infrastructure. Standard travel precautions apply, as in any European city.

What is the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania?

The Hill of Crosses near Šiauliai is a site where over 100,000 crosses have been placed by visitors over almost 200 years, beginning as an act of resistance after an 1831 uprising against Russian rule. It's a Catholic place of pilgrimage and one of the most unusual and moving sights in the Baltic region.