Estonia travel tips

6 guides in Estonia — when to go, how to get around, which ATMs not to use, and what a fair price looks like.

Tallinn’s old town from Toompea hill, spires and red roofs

TallinnEstoniaThe best-kept medieval city in northern Europe, with a startup nation behind the walls, a sauna culture that means it, and Helsinki two hours across the water

A red lifeguard tower on the wide sand of Pärnu beach

PärnuEstoniaThe summer capital: a long shallow beach on a warm bay, spa hotels from the tsars’ time, and a wooden town behind the dunes

Tartu town hall and its square with the Kissing Students fountain

TartuEstoniaThe university town on the Emajõgi, a kissing-students fountain, a science centre for the family, and the intellectual capital of a country that takes the idea seriously

Two visitors in front of Kuressaare castle on Saaremaa

SaaremaaEstoniaThe big island: a Teutonic castle with a moat, windmills, a meteorite crater, juniper heath and a coast that nobody else has found

The boardwalk through the pines and heather of a Lahemaa bog

LahemaaEstoniaEstonia’s first national park, an hour from Tallinn: bog boardwalks, manor houses, fishing villages on a stony coast, and the forest that is most of the country

Reeds and wooden villas along the still water of Haapsalu bay

HaapsaluEstoniaA small spa town on a warm bay with a bishop’s castle, a promenade Tchaikovsky walked, a railway station with the longest platform in the north, and a lace shawl to buy