Travelling in the Baltics with LuxExpress

Hey, it's probably late for you but I'll reply in case that helps people in the future.

I did my Erasmus in Latvia so I'm pretty familiar with transit there.

This is the main way of travelling in the Baltics, their busses are much more efficient than trains, they take basically the same time but are much more comfortable (busses are clean, modern, they have toilets, seats have a good recline, a free coffee machine and even screens on seats like on airplanes). Lux Express is incredibly cheap compared to their level of service, in my opinion, even more if you're under 26, you just have to indicate this on their website and that's it, you'll show your ticket to the driver, they won't ask a proof of age if you look young enough (also this is a culture based on trust). They're also linking increasingly more destinations every year. It's an Estonia-based company, so they have much more destinations in Estonia, but even in Latvia for instance they started to serve Liepāja and Daugavpils when I was leaving.

They run also much more often than trains, and if you need to connect between the Baltics and Poland or Russia, this is your only way as no trains are running.

Trains in Latvia are pretty special. I often took the Liepāja-Rīga line; it's a diesel train, it's incredibly slow (3h15), considering the seat configuration it's essentially a bus on rails, it has a rather inconvenient schedule (one train per day leaving Liepāja at 4h59 in the morning, back at 21h47, although it seems they have recently increased the service frequency due to competition with Lux Express), toilets are closed between Jelgava and Rīga for some reason. But, on the other hand, it's very clean, calm and cosy, cheap (plus you can buy your ticket directly onboard), and always precisely on time.

In Estonia, I only took it once, from Narva to Tallinn, the train was much more modern and has more amenities but it's not much faster and still gets competition from bus companies.

Fairly recently they managed to synchronise trains so you can go between Vilnius and Tallinn with changes in Riga and Valka/Valga, the whole journey takes 10 hours. There's even a direct train Vilnius-Valka now.

Honestly if you prefer comfort you should take the busses, but trains have their own charm. They take essentially the same amount of time. Even Flixbus in the Baltics is fairly good from experience, but not as good as Lux Express. You should prioritise the bus during the night (for example the ones leaving Tallinn at 2am to Vilnius via Riga Airport, they're great, silent and you can sleep well if you're not too bothered usually), and trains for the scenery. Most towns have busses and not trains though, so that's an easy choice.