Estonia Complete Guide 2026: Tallinn, Lahemaa, Saaremaa, Tartu, Pärnu and the Digital Republic
Browse more guides: Estonia travel | Europe destinations Estonia Complete Guide 2026: Tallinn, Lahemaa, Saaremaa, Tartu, Pärnu and the Digital Republic TL;DR Estonia is the smallest of the three Baltic states and, by a comfortable margin, the most surprising country I have spent a long stretch in. On paper it is a sliver of land squeezed between the Gulf of Finland and Latvia, only 45,339 square kilometres, with a population of roughly 1.3 million and two thirds of its territory under forest. In practice it feels like three or four different countries layered on top of each other: a medieval Hanseatic merchant city wrapped in 1.85 kilometres of intact stone wall, a Soviet-era republic that walked away from Moscow in 1991 without firing a shot, a forested wilderness of bogs and boulders and lighthouses, and a digital republic where 99 percent of government services live online and you can become an e-Resident from Mumbai or Mexico City without ever boarding a flight. I built this ...