Vilnius or Tallinn?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on nature & day trips and museums & heritage with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and places to eat with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Tallinn if you want the coast in the trip: beaches within reach and a sea that reaches 17°C in August, plus a spring that stays drier than its own summer.
Choose Vilnius if museums and heritage matter more, if you want day trips into protected country, 10% of the land around the city, and a summer that starts earlier and runs a little warmer.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Tallinn leads by 54 points.54
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 | 54 |
| Swim season months | 0 | 0 |
| Beaches 10 km | 16 | 18 |
| Coast distance | 260 km | 0 km |
| Water distance | — | 0 km |
Places to eat. Tallinn leads by 2 points.2
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 60 | 62 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 537 | 481 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 32 | 39 |
Museums & heritage. Vilnius leads by 9 points.9
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71 | 62 |
| Museums within 10 km | 74 | 71 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 54 | 57 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 73 | 80 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 3 | 1 |
Nightlife. Vilnius and Tallinn are level on 46.
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 46 | 46 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 464 | 462 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 388 | 370 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 84 | 80 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 39 | 43 |
Nature & day trips. Vilnius leads by 10 points.10
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 31 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | 10 | 2 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 100 | 53 |
| Park area within 2 km | 88 hectares | 89 hectares |
Good for families. Vilnius and Tallinn are level on 51.
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 51 | 51 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 27 | 20 |
| Park area within 2 km | 88 hectares | 89 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 0 | 1 |
Sights concentration. Vilnius leads by 3 points.3
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 65 | 62 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 161 | 135 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Vilnius leads by 6 points.6
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 76 | 70 |
| Price level global | 53.1 | 62.4 |
| Daily budget | €125 | €143 |
Year-round weather. Vilnius leads by 5 points.5
| Vilnius | Tallinn | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 53 | 48 |
| Monthly daytime high | -1.5 °C to 24 °C | -1.2 °C to 22.3 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 41 mm to 90 mm | 34 mm to 83 mm |
| Dry months | 0 | 4 |
Where they differ
Tallinn is the city where swimming is on the table: 18 beaches nearby and a sea that peaks at 17°C late in summer. It also offers a somewhat wider range of kitchens for a similar number of restaurants near the centre, and several months at 40mm of rain or less, which Vilnius has none of.
Vilnius leads on heritage reach and on getting out of town: 3 UNESCO-listed places within day-trip range against Tallinn's 1, and 10% of the surrounding land protected against 2%. Its centre also holds somewhat more notable places within walking distance.
Where they are alike
Nights out are where the two match most closely. Each has a comparable number of places to drink and of nightclubs, and in both the majority sit close to the centre, so an evening does not involve transport.
They are also level for families and for eating: similar park space near the centre, a similar count of restaurants, though Tallinn has 1 theme park within reach and Vilnius none. Both centres are compact enough to cover on foot.
Which traveller are you?
If summer swimming is the point of the trip, take Tallinn. It has the beaches and the sea, which reaches 17°C in August, while Vilnius has no comparable swimming to offer.
Museum-led travellers willing to leave the city should take Vilnius: more heritage within reach, with 3 UNESCO-listed places on day-trip range against 1, and much more protected land around the city.
Families come out close to even. Tallinn has 1 theme park within reach; Vilnius has somewhat more attractions near the centre and a similar amount of park space, so decide on the rest.
What the numbers don't tell you
The daily budget figures, €143 and €125, are national estimates of restaurant and hotel price levels, not measurements of Tallinn or Vilnius. A capital can sit well above its own country average, and by more than the gap between these two figures, so they cannot tell you which city will cost you more.
A beach count is not a swimming season. Tallinn's sea peaks at 17°C, and only in the two warmest months, which are also among the wettest, near 80mm each, and are the months most other visitors pick. The drier spring reads well until you check the water.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Vilnius: 1991-2020 normals, Vilnius (13 km from centre). Tallinn: 1991-2020 normals, Tallin / Harku (10.9 km from centre).
Tallinn is at its best in July and August, when highs reach 21-22°C and the sea sits at 16-17°C. Expect close to 80mm of rain in each. Its driest stretch is spring, though the water is far too cold for swimming then.
Vilnius warms earlier and further, 19°C in May and 24°C in July, so late spring already works there. Rain is steadier through the year: no month falls below 41mm, and July is the wettest at 90mm.
Getting there
| Flying from | Vilnius | Tallinn |
|---|---|---|
| LondonLHR, LGW, STN, LTN +2 | 2 h 45 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 2 h 50 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| AntalyaAYT | 3 h 0 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 3 h 40 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| FrankfurtFRA, HHN | 2 h 10 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 2 h 25 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| RigaRIX | 1 h 0 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 1 h 0 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| WarsawWAW, WMI | 1 h 10 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 1 h 40 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| StockholmARN, BMA, NYO, VST | 1 h 30 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 1 h 10 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| HelsinkiHEL | 1 h 25 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 45 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| MilanMXP, BGY, LIN | 2 h 30 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 2 h 50 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| Sharm el SheikhSSH | 4 h 15 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 4 h 50 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
| HambantotaHRI | 9 h 15 m no fares VNO · 6 km | 9 h 35 m no fares TLL · 6 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it.
Before you go
| Measure | Vilnius | Tallinn |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Lithuanian | Estonian |
| Currency | Euro (EUR) | Euro (EUR) |
| Sockets | CF220 V, 50 Hz | CF230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Right | Right |
| Time zone | UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer | UTC+2, UTC+3 in summer |
| Emergency number | 112 | 112 |
| Elevation | 98 m | 28 m |
| Main airport | Vilnius International Airport (VNO)6 km from centre83 non-stop destinations | Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport (TLL)6 km from centre64 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 14 days | 12 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Vilnius | Tallinn |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 581,475 | 457,572 |
| People per km² | 1,450 | 2,871 |
| Museums within 10 km | 30 | 15 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 3 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 54 | 63 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | – | None |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Vilnius or Tallinn somewhere new.