CITY: Riga

HOW LONG: 3 NIGHTS

ACCOMMODATION:

I stayed at Cinnamon Sally’s hostel. Overall this is a fabulous hostel, but there was one major downside. First the good:

• Super social & easy to meet people; organized social activities for the guests almost every day
• Location was great – near the bus & train station, and only 10-15 min from Old Town. Grocery store across the street!
• Bed was comfy, rooms were not cramped, & there were large lockers for your stuff.
• Free breakfast that includes yummy fresh waffles! There were tons of toppings/spreads as well including my favorite: peanut butter!
• A few different spots to sit with a computer and work or just chill & meet people.
• Lots of volunteers & folks working so it was easy to get any questions answered.

Then the bad:

• I found a bed bug in bed: When I went to bed at midnight, I felt something on my arm and grabbed it between my fingers in the dark. I thought “there’s no way it’s a bed bug but I’ll shine my phone on it anyway” Sure enough…. it was a bed bug 😦 Luckily it hadn’t bit me so I just killed it and went out to reception to get me a new bed. Here’s where I messed up, I let them give me a bed in the same bedroom
• I woke up to more bed bugs: Cut to 2:30am and I wake up to me itching my arms…. I immediately fully wake up and grab my phone to shine the light, and yep there’s another bed bug scurrying around in my bed. I count 6 bites on my arms and back. Once again I kill it, but now there is now way I can go to bed. For one, the reception is now closed and two, I won’t even be able to sleep anyway. Now I get to begin the fun process of gathering all my things and going out to the common room to inspect every inch of every item to ensure no bed bugs got into my stuff. After much research about bed bugs, since this is the fourth time I have gotten them while traveling (1x in Naples, Italy in 2016, 1x in Gili T, Indonesia in 2020, 1x in Skopje, North Macedonia in Aug, and now Riga) and bed bugs don’t tend to carry any diseases so while the bites are itchy & annoying, it’s not that different than getting a bunch of mosquito bites. The thing you have to worry about is that they are incredibly difficult to get rid of and they are happy to hitch hike in your stuff all the way to your home (or wherever you are going next). Hence why it’s common to get them in hostels & hotels (since so many people are coming & going). Given this, after you find bed bugs, it’s incredibly important to ensure that they don’t continue on your journey with you , which inevitably means taking 1-2 hours to meticulously inspect your stuff and/or subjecting your bag to heat, since extreme heat or extreme cold are the only things that kill bed bugs. One technique often used by backpackers in hot places, is to put their bag in a black trash bag & leave it in the sun for a day or two. Well now you know way more than you want about bed bugs 🙂 Your welcome!!
• All in all I don’t really blame hostels/hotels because they can do their best to keep bed bugs at bay, but travelers can just as easily bring them in. Given that, I don’t get mad at hostels for having bed bugs, but I certainly judge them based on how they handle the aftermath. I would give this hostel a 7/10 in their response. They ultimately gave me a refund on the night, free laundry & a new bed in a new room for my final night, but they were a little slow to agree to it and seemed to be slightly skeptical that I’d actually had bedbugs, even though I had photos… Definitely some room for improvement on how they treated me, especially since I’d had 2 hours of sleep!

Weirdly enough, I would still recommend this hostel but I probably can only give it a 7/10 because of the bed bug situation.

WHERE TO EAT:

The hostel had a delicious free breakfast in the morning so I would fill up on that and then I cooked at the hostel for dinner 🙂

WHAT TO DO:

As always, I headed out on the free walking tour my first day there. I wrangled two Germans from the hostel into joining me and after the walking tour, we grabbed some snacks & headed to one of the many beautiful parks to soak up the sun.

I did a day trip to Sigulda to visit the Castle, do some walking in Gauja National Park, and see the highest and widest cave in the Baltics.

Lastly don’t miss Riga Central Market, Europe’s largest market & bazaar. It’s over 72,000 square meters (778,000 square feet), featuring more than 3,000 stands.

While I didn’t have time for it, another great option for a day trip is Jūrmala to visit the beach!

I also joined a gym that was nearby the hostel because they had a 3 day trial for 10 euros 🙂

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Riga is a very approachable city with clean streets, and a healthy mixture of old & new architecture. It was easy to get around and the parks were a dream. I met a few folks that had visited Riga and then never left, so it does seem to have something about it 🙂

BUDGET FOR 3 DAYS IN Latvia:

Accommodation: $71 ($24 per night) but I did get $24 back because of the bed bugs.

Food: $0

Groceries: $37

Activities: $6

Health: $10 (gym)

Local Transportation: $11

Total: $133 (Daily average: $44)

Transportation to next destination: $128 (Flight to London)