I find overland travel quite romantic. It feels like a bit more of an adventure and gives me that thrill of independence and exploration. And there are a few overland journeys on my travel bucketlist that I’d like to complete at some point. This year I ticked one of them off – the Helsinki to Tallinn ferry.
Sure, it’s not one of the longest (only 2 hours) or most adventurous overland journeys on my bucketlist, but I just loved the idea of hopping on a boat in Scandi-chic Helsinki, Finland, and jumping off in fairytale Tallinn, Estonia. So I made sure it was part of my Eastern Europe trip this summer.
The process of booking the ferry was easy, just like booking a train online. But finding my way to the ferry terminal in Helsinki was a bit more difficult. We got the tram as close as possible to the ferry terminal and walked the rest of the way. But I had to rely solely on Google Maps as signs weren’t entirely clear that we were going the right way.
But it did give us a chance to glimpse the “Bad, Bad Boy” sculpture on the way. Lolz.
Once we got to the terminal, it was absolutely heaving with people. The ground floor was chaos with people trying to queue for various different kiosks and machines, all just to check-in. Thank sweet baby Jesus that I checked in online the night before!!
Seriously, if you’re planning on doing this journey, the biggest tip I can give you is to check-in online!
We did have a bit of a queue to board the ferry but it was quick and easy and painless. So I was happy with the whole process.
There are various ships that go to and fro on this route but the ferry we boarded was the Tallink Megastar. It’s the newest and most impressive of Tallink’s fleet so I was keen to have a good look around.
Onboard was pretty much like a big departure lounge at an airport. There’s a duty-free section, various bars and restaurants and lots of areas, that kind of look like trains, for sitting down and relaxing. One of the bars even had a live band playing!
Oh and there’s a sun deck so you can get out in the fresh air and watch Helsinki disappear into the distance. It was actually really lovely here with the glorious weather we had!
We were actually really lucky as Tallink treated Josh and I to their Business Lounge, which was a total dream.
It had a big buffet of food (Josh ate about 3 plates of smoked salmon because he can’t handle the high life…), comfy seats and pretty views of Tallinn appearing near the end of the journey. It was really chilled and we even got free Wi-Fi!
WINNING.
Like I said, it was only 2 hours so we left Helsinki at 10.30am and arrived in Tallinn just in-time for lunch! Disembarking was very easy and luckily Tallinn’s Old Town is just a 5-10 minute walk away so no need for public transport.
It doesn’t sound like much but i just get such a kick out of leaving one country and arriving in another without boarding a plane, especially with countries so different like Finland and Estonia!
I would definitely receommend doing this journey by ferry. It was fun, it was fairly cheap (from 32 EUR at time of writing) and definitely a change of pace from fumbling around in security queues in airports.
Would you do this journey? Book your ferry with Tallink over here.
Let me know in the comments below, tweet me or find me over on Instagram!
Total Blogger Transparency: I accepted complimentary travel on the Tallink Megastar but all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. I wouldn’t play you like that, shorty.