Riga fits in a weekend. Latvia does not.
Which Old Town walk is worth the money, what the Hill of Crosses day really costs once you cross into Lithuania, and when the huskies actually run. Reviews of every tour you can book in Latvia.
A canal boat, a mascaron, two castles above the Gauja, one bog at dusk.
The four bookings a first Latvian trip is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first hourRiga Sightseeing Tour by Canal Boat with AudioguideThe city canal loop through Bastejkalns park and out onto the Daugava. Twenty minutes in and Riga has explained its own layout to you.
02The facade walkRiga Art Nouveau walking tourAlberta iela, where a third of the street is Art Nouveau and the faces above the doors are the point. Look up until your neck aches.
03The valley daySigulda and Turaida Legends TourTuraida red brick on one side of the Gauja, the Sigulda castle ruin on the other, and a cable car strung between them.
04The bog at duskSunset at Kemeri National ParkA boardwalk out over the Great Kemeri Bog pools as the light goes. An hour from Riga and it looks like nowhere else in Europe.
Every good Latvian day trip leaves Riga before nine.
The country is small enough that almost everything is a day out from one hotel. Four routes south, east and west, what it costs to board each one, and how long the minibus really has you.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castle
The Lithuanian border runA hill of a hundred thousand crosses, usually with Rundale on the way back.
The Gauja castlesTuraida, Sigulda, Cesis. Red brick, ravines and a cable car.
Rundale and the gardensRastrelli baroque on the Zemgale plain, with the rose garden laid out behind it.
The Gauja valleySandstone cliffs, river bends and the trails between the two castles.
All 18 full days out of Riga →
Riga first, then the coast, the river valley and the plain.
A capital you can cross on foot, a pine coast with a wooden promenade, a national park built around one river bend, a baroque palace on the Zemgale flats and a bog that swallows the sunrise. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
The days out most travellers in Latvia book.
Every Latvian tour we have reviewed →The tours more people take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Riga Old Town walking tour
Walk Riga’s Old Town for about 1 hour 45 minutes with an English-speaking guide. Hear the tale behind the Cat House, see St. Peter’s tower and blue flowers at Livu Square, and finish with practical tips near Riga Cathedral. Guides may include Rita, Guna, Carlos, Baiba, or Karlis.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central market
from $44
3
2 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castle
from $157
4
Discover Riga Bike Tour
from $47
5
Husky Sledding or Wheel Kart Tour
from $130
6
Hill of Crosses & Jelgava Highlights
from $54
7
Riga Gun Range: shooting with Winchester, Glock17, & Kalashnikov
from $66
8
Hill of Crosses, Guided Rundale Palace & Bauska Castle
from $130
Riga is a walking city with a hangover of six centuries.
Hanseatic warehouses, a cathedral with a floor below street level, the widest run of Art Nouveau facades in Europe and a Soviet bunker under the suburbs. All of it inside an hour of pavement.
What a day out in Latvia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Riga is one of the cheapest capitals in Europe to book a guide in, and the price ladder shows it.
Old Town walks, the canal boat, market tastings and the short runs out to Jurmala.
- 1Riga Old Town walking tourfrom $18
- 2Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central marketfrom $44
- 3Discover Riga Bike Tourfrom $47
The full days: the Hill of Crosses run, Rundale and Bauska, Sigulda and Turaida, the bog at sunrise.
Private guides, husky teams in the winter forest and the cross-border days done by car.
Three things Latvia has and its neighbours do not.
Castles and old towns run the length of the Baltic. A hill nobody planted, a bog you can walk out into and a forest that runs on dog power do not.
The Hill of Crosses
It sits over the Lithuanian border near Siauliai, about three hours south of Riga, and it is not a monument anybody commissioned. Pilgrims began leaving crosses on the mound in the nineteenth century, Soviet bulldozers cleared it three times, and each time the crosses came back overnight. Nobody counts them any more. Every operator here runs it as a Riga day trip, most of them pairing it with Rundale or Bauska on the way home.
- 12 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castle★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 225 reviews
- 2Hill of Crosses & Jelgava Highlights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 149 reviews
- 3Hill of Crosses, Guided Rundale Palace & Bauska Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 140 reviews
A forest run behind a dog team
The kennels sit in the pine country outside Riga, and the season turns on the snow rather than the calendar. With cover, the sled goes out on forest track; without it, the same team pulls a wheeled kart and the ride is just as loud. Teams are small, the dogs set the pace, and the run itself is shorter than the time you spend meeting them.
- 1Husky Sledding or Wheel Kart Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 155 reviews
- 2Husky Dog Sledding Tour From Riga★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 106 reviews
- 3Ultimate Husky dog sledding experience in Latvia – Private tour from Riga★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 45 reviews
The Great Kemeri Bog
A raised bog the size of a small city, laid out with a boardwalk that loops past hundreds of dark pools. Sunrise is the hour everybody wants and it earns the alarm: mist sits on the water, the pines stand out black, and the whole thing turns copper for about fifteen minutes. Sulphur springs and the old spa town sit at the edge of the same park.
- 1Best of Kemeri National Park In One Day★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 61 reviews
- 2Sunset at Kemeri National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 38 reviews
- 3Sunrise at Kemeri National park + Jurmala★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 37 reviews
Four Latvian bookings that run on somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on snowfall, border crossings, sunrise times and the date the ice comes off the canal.
- 01Husky Sledding or Wheel Kart TourThe teams are small and the winter dates depend on snow cover. When it falls, the good slots go inside a week.
- 022 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castleIt is a full day and it crosses into Lithuania, so departures are fixed and there is usually only one a morning.
- 03Sunrise at Kemeri National park + JurmalaThe bog trips leave before first light, and the departure time moves week by week with the sunrise. Check yours the day before.
- 04Riga Sightseeing Tour by Canal Boat with AudioguideThe canal boats run once the ice is off the water. Either side of the season the loop simply does not sail.
Riga spends five months in the cold. Plan the day around it.
From November the light is gone by four in the afternoon and the wind comes off the gulf. The answer is not to stay in. Book the outdoor thing for the middle of the day, and put the market halls, the bunker, the balsam and the shooting range either side of it.
- 1Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central marketfrom $44
- 2Husky Sledding or Wheel Kart Tourfrom $130
- 3Husky Dog Sledding Tour From Rigafrom $174
Rye bread, smoked fish, and a liqueur that tastes like medicine.
Half of Riga eats in one building: five zeppelin hangars turned into the biggest market in the Baltics. Start there, finish with a Black Balsam somebody has talked you into.
By place: the capital, the coast and the valley
By kind of day: pavement, palace, boardwalk or sled
Riga, the coast, the Gauja, the plain: the loop most first visits end up doing.
Central MarketThe newest Latvian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Ultimate Art Nouveau Experience in Riga – Private Tour
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Private Castle tour from Riga:Rundale, Bauska+Hill of Crosses(LT)
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Riga’s Architecture: A self-guided audio tour of the city’s art nouveau history
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