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The term Baltic states refers to three lovely countries; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This trio was awfully connected together before years 2024-2025, and train travel through these countries required days and overnight stays due to poor connections. These days are nowadays luckily over, and starting on January 6th 2025, it is possible to travel through all three countries in a day – 10-11 hours to be precise. You need to change train once (in Valga), but connections are made to work, with transfer times of 15-20 mins.
In January 2025, it was talked that the amount of transfers would only be one in the future, if/when LTG Link (Ltihuania) starts to operate the one international train in Latvia too. This is currently the case, and even when Vilnius-Riga and Riga-Valga trains might show as two different trains, they are still physically the same train. Vilnius-Riga train has two travel options, first and second class, Riga-Valga only has second class avaible.
This guide is mainly focused on how to get from one country to another, so it includes borders all the way from Finland – Estonia – Latvia – Lithuania to Poland.
Generally train tickets in Baltic states are inexpensive. It can be cheaper to buy a regular train ticket instead of using a travel day. For example, cost of one travel day is around €35 for person traveling with Youth interrail pass (7 days in one month).
Tickets for trains in Baltics are available online and at the stations, as well as to be purchased at the train. It’s cheaper to buy them online, ar least in Estonia.
Timetables are available on each country’s own website. Tickets in the Baltics come to sale maximum of few weeks before travel day. But do not worry – you can assume that the timetable will remain same after that. Timetables change twice a year, and mainly there are only small changes, just a few minutes, in timetables then. But it is always good to double-check the timetables before traveling to just make sure your plans will work out.
Most of these countries don’t send their timetable data to Interrail/Eurail, so you cannot find the timetables from their website or in the Rail Planner app. Your Interrail Pass is still valid on these countries, you just need to add the trains manually to your pass.
Speedrun through Baltics
January 2025 has given travelers the option to speedrun through Baltics in a single day. With seperate single tickets from each operator, price for whole trip between Tallinn and Vilnius is €52,33 in second class and €66,41 in first class (not currently available in all trains).
Starting on February 2025, it is now possible to purchase one single ticket for whole trip between Tallinn and Vilnius if you do the whole trip in one day. This one single ticket is cheaper than purchasing three separate tickets. It costs €39 and is available online from Lithuanian operator LTG link. Only second class is available as a single ticket – for first class, you currently need to purchase seperate tickets.
Daily timetable
Oh well, with current timetables you could speedrun towards South;
- Tallinn 10:25
- Arriving to Valga at 13:54
- Valga 14:11
- Arriving to Riga at 16:37
- Riga 16:55
- Arriving to Vilnius 21:03
Or towards North:
- Vilnius 07:05
- Arriving to Riga at 11:04
- Riga 11:16
- Valga 13:51
- Valga 14:10
- Tallinn 17:34
Arriving to Tallinn at 17:34 gives you possibility to take ferry to Helsinki on the same day, if sitting on a trains for a full day wasn’t enough traveling for you. Tallink Silja has ferry that departures from Tallinn at 19:30 every day and also 22:30 on selected days. The later ships provides possibility to sleep onboard and lesve the ship at 06:00 in the next morning – this needs to be booked in advance and is really often over €100. Viking Line offers sleeping in a boat too, but for opposite direction. The price is usually cheaper than with Tallink Silja.
Estonia
If you are using travel day, there is generally lots of space in the trains and no seat reservations are possible to make. Hop on, add the connection to the travel log or to the trip in the app and show your pass when asked. Trains between Tallinn and Tartu can be full sometimes. If you are buying a single ticket, first class is quite affordable and comes with guaranteed seat reservation.
Map of railway lines and stops
The Elron site has a railway map of Estonia and map of stations in Tallinn and Tartu. Railway station in Tallinn has 9 tracks, being the largest railway station in Estonia, and Tartu has only 3 tracks.
Replacement busses
https://elron.ee/en/soiduinfo/peatused
Live train map
https://elron.ee/en/soiduinfo/soiduplaanid#trainmap
Trains between Estonia and Latvia
From Estonia to Latvia and vice versa, you need to change trains at the border in Valga/Valka. Trains in Estonia don’t always show up in the Interrail/Eurail web site or in the planner. Use elron.ee to check timetables (and tickets) in Estonia.
Tallinn-Valga: 3,5 hours. Tickets are around €22 in second class and around €26 in first class when you buy them online. Also avaible from train, but they are about 20 % more expensive then.
Valga – Riga is little bit under 3 hours and costs 5-6€. Only second class avaible.
Ferries between Estonia and Finland
There is no train connection between Estonia and Finland, you need to take a ferry instead. The fastest connections will take you across in 2h, there are also slower overnight ferries. Overnight ferries will make the journey in 2-3 hours, but they will let you sleep in the ferry until morning, when you have purchased a cabin. Multiple companies serve this route, some offer discounts for Interrail pass holders. The ferries aren’t expensive anyway, cheapest daytime ferries are around €14 and night ferries €50 when it is not peak season. Prices for daytime ferries can be around €20-40, and night time ferries are even over €100 in peak seasons. The Ferries go between Tallinn (Estonia) and Helsinki (Finland). Companies that offer this route are: Eckerö Line, Viking Line and Tallink Silja. There are minimal differences between the ferry companies, I would suggest you choose the cheapest one or that one that suits your timetables the best. Remember to check from which ferry terminal your boat departs, as there are multiple ones in both cities. Depending on the company, you should be at the port 20-40 minutes before departure time usually.
Check discount codes from Interrail/Eurail Discounts & Benefits portal:
https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/pass-benefits
From Helsinki there are trains to every part of Finland. Timetables available at https://vr.fi, reservations can be done by phone to long distance trains (Intercity and Pendolino). Commuter trains (named with single letters) don’t have an option to reserve seats.
Latvia
Ticket and timetables available at https://vivi.lv/en, no option to make a reservation with Interrail Pass. Just hop on, add connection to the travel log or to the trip, and show your pass when asked (or buy a regular ticket to save your travel day).
The baggage policy generally allows you to carry 60 * 40 * 20 cm bag for free. Extra ticket for a bigger bag can be bought for under 2€ for the journey to Valga-Riga.
Read the whole policy here: https://www.pv.lv/en/information-for-passengers/baggage-transportation-conditions/
Live train map
Note: It works best when you are in Latvia or at least in same time zone than Latvia. Otherwise you might not see all trains on the map.
Lithuania
No reservations needed, but recommended on the route to/from Klaipeda according to Interrail.
Trains between Lithuania and Latvia
In December 2023, daily direct service started running. Starting from January 2025, the connection is synced both ways with trains to/from Estonia.
Travel time is around 4 hours. Trip costs €34 in first class and €24 in second class. Tickets are available from https://ltglink.lt. This train has been sold out in weekends week before travel time. So do not leave booking this train for too late.
If you would like to use a travel day, you can purchase seat reservations from https://ltglink.lt. Select the number of passenger, and choose “I have Eurail/Interrail pass” at the bottom of the dialog. It will cost €5 for either 2nd or 1st class seat reservation.
Trains between Lithuania and Poland
Starting 11 December 2022, a new daily service links Krakow & Warsaw with Kaunas & Vilnius.
Lithuanian train route is Vilnius – Kaunas – Mockava. You need to change trains in Mockava, even when Ltglink sells you the ticket as a one train and do not always mention about the change. Timetables are well synced for change, you have about half hour time to change from train to another in same platform. Note that there is one hour time difference between Lithuania and Poland. All times in timetables are generally mentioned in local time. Polish train goes from Mockava to Krakow Glowny via Warsaw Central.
Note: to search a connection to Białystok (Poland), you have to write “Balstoge”.
Seat reservations (LT – PL)
You can also purchase a seat reservation going from Warsaw to Mockava to at the stations in Warsaw (and Mockava to Vilnius from LTG Link noted below). If purchasing at Warsaw Central, note that you need to skip going to the open-air queue for purchasing tickets, and go into the air-conditioned room for international services.
A seat reservation costs 15.29 PLN (as of September 2024) for a 1st class reservation from Warsaw to Mockava. Note that reservation from Mockava to Vilnius is not possible with PKP. So you will need to purchase a seat reservation from ltglink.lt. It will cost €5 for either 2nd class or 1st class seat reservation.
More on trains in Poland: Poland.
Updated 01/2025