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Latvia eSIM
7 data plans · from $4.99 · one-tap install by email
Choose your plan
Travelling as a group? Buy everyone an eSIM in one checkout and the discount is applied automatically — no code needed. See group pricing
7 data plans · from $4.99 · one-tap install by email
Travelling as a group? Buy everyone an eSIM in one checkout and the discount is applied automatically — no code needed. See group pricing
Connects automatically to the strongest signal across Tele2, LMT.
Setup
Set up your eSIM before you travel — it takes about a minute. Scan once, switch it on when you arrive, and you’re online.
On iPhone (iOS)
On Android
9 plans for Latvia, from 3 to 50 GB. Validity runs from 1 day to 180 days. 9 of them run on 5G where the local network has it.
6 plans can be topped up without installing a second eSIM. Plans run on Tele2, LMT.
Counted from our live catalogue, not a marketing figure — the plan list above this section is the same data.
No regional bundle covers Latvia — a single-country plan is the only option here, which is usually the cheaper one anyway.
A travel eSIM for Latvia is a digital SIM your phone downloads — no plastic card, no airport pickup counter. You buy online, tap the install link we email you (a QR code is included too), and it installs a second line alongside your existing SIM. It stays dormant until you arrive in Latvia, then connects automatically to Tele2, LMT on 5G where available and LTE everywhere else. Your home number keeps working for calls and texts; the eSIM simply carries your data.
Maps, messaging and rideshare apps are light — roughly 300–500 MB a day. Add photos, social and the occasional video and you’re closer to 1 GB a day. For a one-week trip a 5 GB plan is comfortable; for two weeks, sharing, or heavy use, choose 10 GB or more, or a reloadable plan you can top up on the go. Latvia plans start at $4.99 across 7 sizes, with the per-GB price shown on every one so the right choice is obvious.
No. A travel eSIM for Latvia is a local data plan, not international roaming — you pay the price you see up front, with no per-megabyte bill from your home carrier. Set the eSIM as your data line and switch data roaming off on your home SIM, and there are no surprises when you get home. Full refund any time before you install, so there’s no risk in buying ahead.
Rupjmaize
Dark sour rye bread, dense and slightly sweet, baked in long loaves. It is the foundation of the cuisine rather than an accompaniment to it, and Latvians take its quality personally.
Riga Central Market, where several bakers sell whole loaves cut to order.
Sklandrausis
An open rye pastry case filled with a layer of potato and a layer of sweetened carrot, from the Courland coast. It holds an EU protected traditional speciality designation.
Bakeries in Kurzeme and the Livonian coast villages; market stalls in Riga.
Grey peas with bacon
Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi — large grey peas boiled soft and served with fried onion and pork fat, eaten with soured milk. Plain, filling and about as Latvian as food gets.
Traditional restaurants and canteens; a fixture at Christmas.
Pīrāgi
Small crescent-shaped buns filled with diced smoked bacon and onion. Served at every celebration and sold by the bagful.
Bakeries everywhere; the market halls in Riga.
Aukstā zupa
Cold beetroot soup on a kefir base, an alarming shade of pink, with dill, cucumber and half a boiled egg. Summer food and genuinely good in heat.
Almost every menu from May to August.
Smoked fish
Baltic sprats and flounder smoked over alder in coastal smokehouses. Sprats in oil in a flat tin are the export version; the fresh-smoked fish on the coast is a different thing entirely.
Roadside smokehouses along the Kurzeme and Vidzeme coast, particularly around Salacgrīva and Roja.
Jāņu siers
A yellow curd cheese set with caraway seeds, made specifically for the midsummer Jāņi festival and eaten with beer.
Markets in June; available year-round in supermarkets but the point is the season.
Rupjmaizes kārtojums
Layers of toasted rye breadcrumbs, cranberry or lingonberry jam and whipped cream, served in a glass. A dessert built from the same bread as everything else.
Traditional restaurants across the country.
Kvass
A lightly fermented drink made from rye bread, barely alcoholic, sold from tanks on street corners in summer.
Street kiosks and markets from late spring.
Riga Black Balsam
A very dark herbal bitter in a ceramic bottle, made to an eighteenth-century recipe. Drunk neat, mixed with blackcurrant juice, or stirred into coffee.
Bars across Riga; the blackcurrant version is the gentler introduction.
Riga Old TownRiga
A UNESCO-listed medieval core of guild halls, the reconstructed House of the Blackheads and the Three Brothers houses, with a lift up St Peter's spire for the view over the roofs and the Daugava.
a day
Riga Art Nouveau districtRiga
Alberta iela and the streets around it carry one of the densest concentrations of Jugendstil architecture anywhere, much of it by Mikhail Eisenstein, with faces and masks worked into the facades.
half a day
JūrmalaJūrmala
A long white-sand beach backed by pine and streets of wooden summer villas, half an hour from Riga by train. Cars entering the town pay a daily charge; the train avoids it.
a day
Sigulda and the Gauja valleySigulda
Sandstone cliffs above a river valley with Turaida's red-brick castle, the graffiti-covered Gūtmanis cave, a cable car strung across the gorge and a working bobsleigh track.
a day
CēsisCēsis
A small town around a ruined Livonian Order castle, toured by candle lantern that you carry yourself up the dark tower stairs.
half a day
Rundāle Palacenear Bauska
A Baroque palace by Rastrelli, the architect of the Winter Palace, built for the Duke of Courland and restored over decades. The formal gardens are the equal of the interiors.
half a day
KuldīgaKuldīga
A wooden-house town on the Venta, where the river falls over a rock shelf several hundred metres wide — the broadest waterfall in Europe, if not a tall one — beside a long brick road bridge.
a day
Cape KolkaKolka
The point where the Gulf of Riga meets the open Baltic, with visible colliding currents offshore and a shore of drifted timber. The Livonian villages along the road are the last of a nearly vanished language community.
a day
Ķemeri National Parknear Jūrmala
A boardwalk loop across the Great Ķemeri Bog, over pools and stunted pines, with a tower to see the whole expanse. Best at sunrise, when the mist sits on the water.
half a day
Liepāja and KarostaLiepāja
A port city with a music-themed centre, and north of it Karosta, a former closed naval district with a beachfront fortress being eaten by the sea and a military prison open to visitors.
two days
Train
Vivi runs the passenger network. The electrified lines out of Riga to Jūrmala, Sigulda, Cēsis and Aizkraukle are frequent and are the easiest way to reach the two most-visited day trips.
low
Intercity coach
Coaches reach the towns the railway does not, including Kuldīga, Ventspils and the Latgale lakes. Riga's coach terminal sits beside the Central Market. International services run to Tallinn and Vilnius.
low
Riga city transport
Rīgas satiksme runs trams, trolleybuses and buses on the e-talons ticket, bought at kiosks and machines. Buying on board costs more than buying in advance.
very low
Car hire
The main highways are good; secondary roads in Kurzeme and Latgale are often gravel and slow, especially in spring thaw. Distances are short but journey times are longer than the map suggests.
moderate
Ride-hailing
Bolt is used constantly in Riga and works in the larger towns. It is normally cheaper than a metered street taxi, and settles the fare in the app rather than at the kerb.
low
Ride-hailing
Bolt, Yandex Go
Bolt is the default and covers Riga thoroughly, with useful coverage in Liepāja, Daugavpils and Jelgava. Uber does not operate. Street taxis in the old town have a reputation for high fixed rates, so use the app.
Paying for things
Basics
| Easter | Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday | Long weekend; shops keep short hours and domestic travel picks up. |
| Labour Day and Convocation of the Constitutional Assembly | 1 May | Public holiday; the unofficial start of the outdoor season. |
| Restoration of Independence Day | 4 May | National holiday days after 1 May, often bridged into a long break. |
| Līgo and Jāņi | 23 and 24 June | Midsummer, and by a distance the biggest holiday of the year. Cities empty into the countryside, shops shut, intercity roads jam on the 22nd and much of the country does not sleep on the shortest night. Book accommodation far ahead. |
| Song and Dance Celebration | every five years, in summer | Not a public holiday, but tens of thousands of singers converge on Riga and accommodation is effectively unavailable. Check whether your dates fall in one. |
| Proclamation Day of the Republic of Latvia | 18 November | The national day, with a torchlit procession and fireworks over the Daugava in Riga. |
| Christmas | 24, 25 and 26 December | Three days of holiday; Christmas Eve is the family evening and shops close early. |
| New Year's Eve | 31 December | Public holiday from the afternoon; Riga's old town is very busy. |
Recurring dates — the day these fall on moves year to year.