A travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting part of their Baltic trip: leaving Jūrmala/Riga (Latvia) and traveling to Tallinn (Estonia). They describe spending time at an Airbnb, driving and returning a rental car, buying cheap airport-to-city bus tickets, riding a well-equipped "Lux" bus with TVs, outlets, Wi‑Fi and coffee, checking into an old-style apartment, and eating at a medieval-themed restaurant where soup/drinks/pies and pickles were inexpensive. The vlog includes specific cost details and brief travel tips.
Questions this video answers
Day 5 (approx.) in Latvia
Their 60th country (Estonia)
€35
€0.15 each
About $3 (as stated by Kara)
Chapters
Latvia has been so much better than we thought it was going to be. We only stayed in Riga for one day, which is not long enough. No. And then we scheduled one day for Jermala, which is where we are now.
We've stayed in our apartment all day.
So we stayed in our Airbnb all day today. Not because Jermala isn't cool.
Check out this beach.
Yeah, this beach is super awesome. We just really needed to catch up on some more. I edited two vlogs today and I.
Booked flights to and from Russia. Crazy. We're actually going to Russia.
Yay. And now we're going to eat.
Also, our flights from Russia to South Korea are in business class and they only cost us $15. Thank you, British Airways.
That was yesterday's Instagram story. We did not Vlog yesterday. So days that we don't vlog for our YouTube channel, we try to at least share our day with you via Instagram stories.
So if you're not following us on Instagram and you enjoyed that thing that you just saw, then there's going to be a link down below. Make sure you follow us. We're almost at 10,000, so that would be very helpful in getting us to a nice round number.
Pretty sure there's some old naked women in the grass over there.
At least they're hiding. Today is Day 5 ish in Latvia, and today we are leaving and going to our 60th country of Estonia.
Today we're gonna be spending probably at least seven hours sitting down and some form of transportation. So we thought we'd start our morning off with a little walk on the beach. It's a beautiful day, and now we are heading back to grab our rental car and turn it in at the airport. But we're not flying to Estonia.
We're taking a really, really good form of transportation. If it's not going to be a plane, this is the next best thing, in my opinion.
So we've heard it's been highly recommended to us.
So we've driven this car for at least six hours, and it only cost €35 to fill up, which I feel like is really good after paying $7 a gallon in Iceland. That's all I had to say. Turning the rental car in. And we have an hour and a half to get to the central bus station. We have to take a shuttle back to the airport and then I think take a bus into the city. I think an hour and a half.
We just picked up our bus tickets. A little tip, if you buy your bus tickets at the airport. They're only a euro 15 cents a piece. There's like a little newsletter paper stand where you can buy them at. So if you come to Riga and you're at the airport, you want to take the bus into the city, buy them at the newspaper stand. You'll save a little bit of money.
We walk home as soon as the bus got here.
Not sure if this is the correct stop but got off.
This is looking bus stationy. I think we were right.
We're on the bus and we got.
Food and this bus is awesome.
It's like being on an airplane.
There are TVs in the headrest and.
Outlets to plug in my computer.
I bet there's even wifi.
Probably.
I've never looked forward to a bus ride so much.
Lux bus rocks.
I was really looking forward to getting to edit for five hours straight. Now that there's all these movies.
I might watch a movie instead. Work a little bit. Watch a movie a little bit.
Sam.
That was hands down the best bus ride we have ever had. So we knew there was going to be TVs and outlets to charge our stuff, but we did not know there was going to be free WI Fi and coffee.
Highly recommend luxury bus. I think we actually rode on Lux bus overnight. Maybe from Poland a long time ago, but I completely forgotten that it existed.
And there was a coffee on that list.
Yeah, that was awesome. So now all we have to do is find our way to our apartment. We've bought a public transportation card and so we're just looking for the bus stop now. Should be there in about 30 minutes.
I watch the movie. It was a really good one. It was about a Soviet spy and.
We'Re going to Russia in like a week.
You're definitely supposed to rub his nose. His nose is all rubbed off.
Really putting the wheels to be away. Back to the test. We have about a 10 minute walk to our apartment on these super bumpy road.
I think this is opie.
She was nixon's vitamidus.
We're here. I just messaged our Airbnb host.
Hopefully she comes soon. It does look like we have a great location. We just walked right through the old city. We're like the very next street. And these houses look amazing.
Thank you. Bye. We're here. This is a cool apartment. You can tell the windows are super old because they like look kind of funny. What is that called? They're like dented. Almost all the walls are stone or really old wood. Oh my gosh.
There's a coffee pot. All of the amenities that. That we need a wash.
This is so cute.
Not only does this place come with a coffee pot.
It came with a full bag of coffee.
Oh, yes. We've been drinking powdered coffee. It is so terrible. This smells so good. Sudate Nachen Hattes bug mallet.
That's pretty good.
Really?
It sounded very good.
Thanks. Oh, I'm so happy. We are linking this Airbnb in the description BO shop and two really romantic twin beds that we're probably gonna smush together into one big bed. I love this place.
We just got settled into our Airbnb. Our host was a man at very few words. He was like, here's the keys, Enjoy. And then that was it. He just left.
I don't think that was the actual house. I think that was, like, her friend.
Well, whoever let us into the apartment, he just left.
Yeah. Now that we're in a new city, first things first. We're going to find some food.
So we are sitting down for dinner. Everything just happened really quickly. We read about this place on the Internet. It is a medieval themed restaurant. You walk in, she said that she doesn't have menus because she knows what she has. Pies, soup, drinks, pickles.
What else was it? She said, no need to waste paper. We told her we would take the soup. And then she dipped this huge ladle into this barrel on the ground. He gave us this huge bowl of elk soup. And you don't get a spoon, you have to drink it. And then these are the pies. I got mushroom and there's a huge jug of pickles. And you can fetch your own pickles, as many as you want, but you have to stab them with a spear.
That is delicious. And it was only about $3. Successful dinner.
That place had two major red flags. It just screamed tourist trap. One, it was themed, and two, it was located, like, on the main square. I would have never gone in there had we not read about it on the Internet. But I'm so glad that we did.
We're gonna have to come back too, because there was this huge hunk of meat that people were eating and you get a knife and a stick and you just like, eat it with the stick.
They don't give you any utensils. And, like, I feel like normally somewhere like that being in the square and being, like, themed for tourists would be really expensive. But we paid 8 Euro for the entire meal and ate as many pickles as well we want it.
Which was three, because they're huge.
All right, we are calling it a day. And we will be exploring Tallinn. Or is it Taline?
Tallinn? I don't know.
We'll be exploring this city that we're in that starts with a T tomorrow.
