A week in west Estonia without a car: Haapsalu, Hiiumaa and Saaremaa by bus and ferry

The shape of the week, and the one thing that decides it

Everything depends on the Sõru-Triigi ferry, the little link between southern Hiiumaa and northern Saaremaa. It runs roughly from late spring to early autumn, only a couple of sailings a day, and it turns this trip from a there-and-back into a clean loop. Book it before you book anything else. Without it, you would have to backtrack to the mainland at Rohuküla and re-cross at Virtsu, which costs the better part of a day.

The spine: two nights Haapsalu, two nights Hiiumaa, two nights Kuressaare, one flexible night before returning to Tallinn. Total ticket spend for one person is modest — long-distance buses in Estonia are €6-18 a leg, foot-passenger ferry fares are €3-5, and bikes cross free or for a euro or two. The real currency is patience: rural island buses run three to six times a day and stop for the school holidays. Read the timetable on tpilet.ee the night before, every night.

Days one and two: Tallinn to Haapsalu

Take a morning coach from Tallinn's bus station; Haapsalu is 100 kilometres and takes about 1 hour 40 minutes for €7-10, with departures roughly hourly. Get off at the town's restored wooden railway station, which has the longest covered platform in the region and a rolling-stock museum in the sheds. Walk fifteen minutes to the bishop's castle and the cathedral, climb the wall walk, then follow the promenade past the Africa Beach bandstand to the mud-cure buildings that made this a spa town for the Russian court.

Day two is where a no-car trip actually beats a car: Haapsalu is compact, and the best of it is on foot. Do the wooden-house lanes of the old town in the morning, the Ilon's Wonderland museum if you have children, and the promenade at sunset — the west-facing bay makes this one of the two or three best sunsets in the country. If you want a bigger day, the Matsalu National Park visitor centre at Penijõe is reachable by bus via Lihula with planning, and spring goose migration there is genuinely world-class.

Day three: crossing to Hiiumaa

Buses run from Haapsalu to Rohuküla port (10 kilometres, 15 minutes, €2-3) timed loosely to the ferries. The Rohuküla-Heltermaa crossing takes about 1 hour 15 minutes and costs €3-4 as a foot passenger; several daily sailings, more in July. Sit outside on the way over — you pass low wooded islets and, if you are lucky, seals on the shoals. On the Hiiumaa side a connecting bus meets most sailings and runs the 25 kilometres into Kärdla, the island capital, in about 35 minutes.

Kärdla is a town of 3,000 built around a nineteenth-century broadcloth factory, with a green central square, a long avenue of trees down to the sea and a cluster of small museums. Spend the afternoon there: the Pikk Maja museum, the harbour and its café, and a swim at the town beach if the water is above 17°C. Buy food in the Kärdla supermarket before you head anywhere else on the island — village shops close by 17:00 and some by 15:00 on Saturdays.

Day four: Hiiumaa's lighthouses without wheels

The island's three famous lighthouses — Kõpu, Ristna and Tahkuna — are the reason people come, and they are the hardest thing to reach without a car. Kõpu, one of the oldest continuously operating lighthouses in the world, is 50 kilometres west of Kärdla. There is a bus, usually two or three a day, taking about an hour; check whether the return leaves at 14:00 or 17:00 before committing. Entry to climb Kõpu is around €5-6. Tahkuna, 15 kilometres north of Kärdla, is a comfortable half-day by bike.

So do this: hire a bike in Kärdla for €12-18 a day and ride the Tahkuna peninsula loop — lighthouse, the ferry-disaster memorial, quiet pine roads, a sandy shore where you will see nobody. Save Kõpu for the bus day, or split a taxi; island taxi rates run roughly €1-1.50 a kilometre and drivers will wait. Do not try to hitchhike as a strategy, although on Hiiumaa it works better than anywhere else in the country.

Day five: Sõru to Triigi, and into Kuressaare

This is the day that needs the timetable open on your phone. A bus runs south from Kärdla to Sõru port (about 50 kilometres, an hour), and the ferry to Triigi on Saaremaa takes an hour or so, sailing typically twice a day in summer for €3-5 on foot. On the Saaremaa side, a connecting bus takes you towards Leisi and on to Kuressaare, 60 kilometres south, arriving mid-afternoon. If any link fails, the fallback is a Kärdla-Heltermaa-Rohuküla-Virtsu-Kuivastu chain, which works but eats the whole day.

Kuressaare rewards the effort. The episcopal castle is the best-preserved medieval fortress in the Baltics, sitting in a moat with a bastion park around it, and the museum inside is worth two hours (€10-15). The town centre is Baroque town hall, low limestone houses and a spa-hotel economy that has been going since the 1840s. Eat on the square, then walk out to the yacht harbour and the shoreline path for the evening light.

Day six: Saaremaa by bus and bike

Two options, both good. Option one: the Kaali meteorite crater and Angla windmills, reachable on the Kuressaare-Leisi bus corridor with a bit of walking, plus the Karja and Valjala churches if you like thirteenth-century stone. Option two: hire a bike in Kuressaare (€15-20 a day) and ride the Sõrve peninsula road as far as time allows — Tehumardi, the war memorial, the tapering spit and, at the tip 30 kilometres out, the Sõrve lighthouse and the strait towards Latvia.

The bus down Sõrve runs a couple of times daily and is a legitimate way to reach the lighthouse without pedalling 60 kilometres round trip: take the morning bus out, walk the shore, ride or bus back. Whatever you choose, keep the late afternoon free for a spa. Kuressaare's spa hotels sell day passes to non-guests for roughly €15-25, which buys pools, saunas and a hot tub, and after four days of buses it is the correct decision.

Day seven: the way home, and where you sleep each night

Direct coaches run Kuressaare-Tallinn several times daily, taking about 4 hours 15 minutes including the Kuivastu-Virtsu ferry — the bus drives on and you stay aboard or go up to the deck for the 27-minute crossing. Fares are €13-18 if booked a few days ahead. Alternatively, break the journey at Virtsu and bus north to Haapsalu, or add a Muhu stop at Koguva village, an entire preserved fishing hamlet, if a timetable allows a two-hour gap.

Beds, by night. Haapsalu: guesthouses and small hotels in the old town, €55-90 a double, a couple of larger spa hotels on the promenade at €90-130. Hiiumaa: Kärdla guesthouses €50-85, farm-stays outside town €45-70 but only if you have a bike. Saaremaa: Kuressaare has by far the widest range, from €40-60 hostel-style rooms near the bus station to €110-160 spa doubles with half board. Everywhere on the islands, book July and early August at least two months out.