Your original route is indeed backwards. You need to fly/get to your easternmost destination and work your way westward from there. Get to St. Petersburg first, then ferry over to Helsinki, ferry to Tallin, ferry to Stockholm.

Why do you recommend this itinerary? I did find that the Tallink line does have ferries from Tallinn to Stockhom (and vice versa) every day so I could do this without backtracking but it would mean missing the Stockhom- Helsinki ferry that other posters have recommended. The Stockholm - Tallinn ferry is long. Is it pleasant? Thanks for your advice.

>>>...we would have to take the ferry back to Helsinki and then take the train (I think there is one at 3pm) to St Petersburg<<<

Why? First of all, there is like a dozen of direct buses running between Tallinn and SPb, then Estonian Railways almost definitely will reopen rail connection Tallinn-SPb during summer. Also you can as well get a direct flight to SPb from Tallinn (EstonianAir)

You'll be visiting some wonderful places, but I'm confused by your itinerary.

> I thought we would fly into Stockholm, spend 2 nights, take the overnight ferry to Helsinki, spend the night

So only a day or 2 in Stockholm? Will you need to spend any part of that time recovering from jet lag? Even if not, that doesn't sound like enough to me. And only the better part of a day for Helsinki? You might want to consider giving it more time than that.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for your replies. Right now I'm thinking of going Stockholm, ferry to Tallinn, ferry to Helsinki, train to St Petersburg. However, I will look into the possibility of going directly from Tallinn to St. Petersburg by train or plane. (I've read that the bus is 6-7 hours which does not appeal to me). If we can go directly to St Petersburg from Tallin, we might go Stockholm, ferry to Tallin, then direct to St Petersburg, skipping Helsinki which would give us an extra day for either Stockholm or St Petersburg. I realize we are a little tight on time and I am just trying to juggle seeing as much as we can in the time we have. I know we won't be able to see everything. From reading posts here, it seems most would say to skip Helsinki if we can only give it a day.

Maybe I've missed it, but I don't see a reference to how long you will have in St. Petersburg, information that would seem pertinent to suggestions about how to plan your time in these cities.

For what it's worth, when deciding which city/cities to skip, or where to cut, I suggest taking future trips into consideration. For example, are you likely to travel to Moscow or Oslo or Copenhagen or ...? I try to maximize my time in cities that I don't think I will visit again and that aren't near other locations I expect to see. Conversely, I'm more willing to knowingly give myself too little time in a city that I am reasonably certain I might visit again.

Right now, it looks like we will have 4 nights in St Petersburg and 2 in Stockholm. If we skip Helsinki, we can add an extra night. I have actually already been to Moscow, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki on a previous trip many many years ago so in a way, this is a trip back to see some of what I missed the first time. The trip is complicated because we decided to add 3 nights in Amsterdam because that is a city I have always wanted to see and for some reason the airfare is practically the same if we fly back to the US direct from St Petersburg or if we stop in Amsterdam.

So this is your first trip to St. Petersburg? Then you might do well to consider adding at least 1 day there, maybe more.

Thanks for the info on Stockholm and thanks for the advice on St. Petersburg. If we skip Helsinki, we might add a day there but our flight to Amsterdam is in the evening so we essentially have 4 full days as it is. I have not yet decided on Helsinki because my DH prefers the idea of taking the ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki and then the train to St Petersburg rather than flying direct on Estonian Airlines from Tallinn to St Petersburg even though flying is cheaper and much shorter (assuming no flight delays). Hoping to decide this today so that I can book the tickets before the fares go up.

Hi,

In my opinion the highlight with the ferry between Stockholm and Helsinki or Tallinn is the cruise through the amazing Stockholm archipelago. In this case it doesn't really matter which destination you choose.

If you need information about the TallinkSilja ferries on these routes you can check out this site: http://www.tallinksilja.com/en/

Baltic Queen and Victoria operate between Stockholm and Tallin. Silja Serenade and Silja Symphony operate between Stockholm and Helsinki.

Travel times Stockholm - Helsinki/Stockholm - Tallinn are more or less the same.

Baltic Queen is the newest ship in the fleet and according to their web site you can choose between exotic venues as the Ibiza disco, Sevilla bar, Cigar Club, Manhattan Piano Bar, the Tango lounge. For more local experiences you have the sauna, the Russian a la carte restaurant and the buffet (smorgosbord) restaurant. If you are on a budget there is a cafeteria and a supermarket.

In my opinion it is worth the money to book a sea side cabin.

Bon voyage!

Remember you need a visa for St. Petersburg. Very expensive.