Latvia Travel Guide

Riga International Airport () is the only airport in Latvia with regular international flights and is 10 km southwest of Riga. Bus 22 operates on a route from the airport to the centre of Riga (and vice versa), a ticket from the driver costs . Alternatively, you can buy yellow e-tickets (for 1, 3 or 5 days) from the Narvesen kiosk just outside the airport. Various other methods of transport are available on-site such as taxis.

Latvijas Banka (The Latvian National Bank) is the only place you can get commemorative €2 coins at nominal value and exchange euro banknotes to smaller or larger denomination euro banknotes without having to pay a fee. This can be done at the branch in Riga. Latvijas Banka's cashier's office in Riga also exchanges Latvian lats issued 1993 to 2013 at a fixed rate against euro.

In Latvian, the word for street (as in street names) is iela. An example is Brīvības iela which is translated as Freedom street. National and regional roads in Latvia have been through a process of update since the accession to the European Union. All national roads are paved and are signposted in red with numbers from A1 to A15. Most of the national roads are also part of the European route grid of roads. 84% of the regional roads are paved and they are signposted in blue with numbers from P1 to P133. 78% of local roads are gravel roads and they are signposted in grey with numbers from V1 to…

Latvian (latviešu valoda) is the only official language in Latvia. Natively spoken by around 1.5 million people in Latvia and abroad (Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, USA, Russia, Brazil and Australia), it belongs to the Baltic language group of Indo-European languages. It is related to Lithuanian but is different enough to be hard to grasp even for native Lithuanian speakers. Latgalian (latgalīšu volūda), spoken by roughly 10%, is closely related, officially regarded as a variant of Latvian, wi…

It is generally safe to travel around Latvia on your own, although some petty crime exists. If travelling by bike, watch out for bicycle theft. Cyclists are a small minority in Latvian traffic, and dedicated bike lanes are rare. It is common practice that bikes drive on the pavement in larger cities.

You can turn to any doctor or hospital at any time during your stay. Depending on the circumstances, you may need to pay a fee for receiving urgent care. In a sparsely-inhabited, remote area, it may be difficult to obtain medical care due to the low number of air ambulance helicopters in the country. Having a first aid kit around during those times is a good idea. The 112 (emergency service number) operators will be able to assist you in Latvian, English and Russian and will be able to either dispatch a team to you or connect you to the appropriate emergency services, if required.

The country code for Latvia is +371. If you plan to stay in Latvia for more than a couple of days, it may be cheaper to buy a local SIM card including voice, text and data. Prepaid SIM cards and separate renewal vouchers can be bought in almost all gas stations, kiosks and supermarkets. All operators are generally similar in their pricing and offered services. eSIM is not widespread yet. There are only 4 operators (listed alphabetically):

Latvians in general are fairly reserved and generally respect others' personal space, for example, Latvians do not usually greet strangers unless introduced by someone. As with many countries in Europe, inquiring about someone's salary or talking about your own is uncommon and not recommended. Similarly, personal, political, or religious convictions are no-go areas until you're better acquainted with someone.