Latvian Coast Road Trip: A 7-Day Itinerary from Riga

A week is enough to drive the whole Latvian coast west of Riga, and the route runs Jūrmala, Engure, Roja, Ventspils, Liepāja and back. You need a car for five of the seven days, because the sights that make this coast worth the drive are lighthouses, bog boardwalks, wild-horse pastures and fishing villages that no bus reaches. Give the first day to Jūrmala and Ķemeri, the middle three to Kurzeme, day five to Liepāja and the last two to Riga.

I drove this route west from Riga through Vidzeme, Zemgale and Kurzeme in May, sleeping in a different town most nights and picking up the Latvian artist Linda Rutule partway for local knowledge. What follows is the itinerary I actually did, with the prices, opening hours and parking rules as they stand now.

The route at a glance

The seven days of this Latvian coast itinerary are set out below, with the town you sleep in and the stops that fill each day.

Two things change the shape of this trip. Sunday closes a surprising number of small museums and lighthouses in Kurzeme, and Monday and Tuesday close the three coastal lighthouses you can climb, so plan those days for beaches and trails rather than interiors.

Before you go: car, Jūrmala pass and data

Three things need sorting before day 1: the car, the Jūrmala entry pass and mobile data. Getting them wrong costs you either money or a wasted morning.

Rīga Airport is the arrival point for almost everyone, and fares into it swing widely between airlines and seasons, so it pays to compare flights to Rīga across carriers before fixing your dates. Pick the car up at the airport rather than in the city, because the airport desks sit on the western side of Rīga and put you on the road to Jūrmala without crossing the centre. A small car is plenty. Several stops on this route end in sand or gravel tracks, but I did all of them in a standard hatchback, and the only rule is to keep the speed down where loose stones start. Compare rental car rates for a Rīga Airport pick-up as soon as your dates are set, since Latvian fleets are small and July and August sell out.

Latvian mobile coverage on this coast is better than the emptiness suggests, but it thins out in Slītere National Park and around Irbene. If you are travelling from outside the EU and would otherwise pay roaming, a pocket hotspot is simpler than juggling SIM cards. I used a pocket hotspot for years, on day passes rather than a subscription, and these days an eSIM does the same job for one phone, so you can buy an Airalo eSIM and use the code HARRY5578 for €3 off.

Day 1: Jūrmala and Ķemeri National Park

Day 1 pairs Latvia’s main beach resort with its most-walked bog boardwalk, and the two sit 20 minutes apart by car. Jūrmala is a long string of wooden villa districts strung along the Gulf of Rīga, and Ķemeri National Park begins at its western edge. Start in town, walk the beach, and drive out to the bog after lunch when the light is better on the boardwalk.

The Jūrmala entry pass

Every motor vehicle entering Jūrmala’s paid zone needs an entry pass, and it now costs €5.00 a day (about $6, £4). The rule covers cars, motorcycles, quadricycles and tricycles crossing into the special-regime zone, which is signed “Maksas zona”. Longer passes cost €20.00 for 7 days and €60.00 for 30 days. Because the charge applies to vehicles, coming out from Rīga by train avoids it entirely.

Buy the pass online at visitjurmala.lv, through the Mobilly, Snabb, Citadele or EuroPark apps, at one of the eight permit machines around the city, including Priedaine, the RIMI Lielupe car park and Majori, or in person at the Tourist Information Centre at 5 Lienes Street. You can buy it before or after you drive in, as long as it is paid by 11.59pm on the day of entry. Older guides still quote €2 or €3, which is what the pass cost before 1 January 2026. Public parking inside Jūrmala is free once the pass is paid. Full conditions sit on the city’s own entry fee page.

Jomas Street and Jūras Street

Jomas Street is Jūrmala’s main street, 1.1 km (0.7 miles) long, closed to cars and lined with restaurants, shops, hotels and wooden kiosks that open like market stalls as the evening goes on. Jomas Street also holds the Tourist Information Centre at its far end. In summer it turns into the Jomas Street Festival, with performances and fairs along its length.

Jūras Street runs parallel and is the one to walk for the architecture. Twenty-three of the buildings on it are state monuments, and the street ends at Jūrmala’s Concert Hall with a small square in front and beach access behind it.

Jūrmala’s beach and its train stations

Jūrmala’s train stations are worth building a walk around, because several of them face the sea. Majori and Dubulti stations both sit across from the water, and you get a clear view of the Gulf from the platforms. A worn path runs between the tracks and the shore, made by people rather than planners, and the parallel road is the safer option if you do not know how far it goes.

From Dubulti it is a few minutes on foot to the sand, past a church and more wooden villas. Walking back to the centre along the waterline takes about an hour. There is a strip of pine forest behind the beach with a shaded path through it if the sun is strong, and beach bars appear as you get closer to Majori. In mid-May the beach was near empty, but the number of benches and bins along it says a great deal about how busy it gets in July.

The Great Ķemeri Bog Boardwalk

The Great Ķemeri Bog Boardwalk is free to walk and open all year, and it is the reason most people drive into Ķemeri National Park. The boardwalk runs in two arcs across a raised bog of moss, dark pools and stunted pine: the short arc is 1.5 km (0.9 miles) and takes about an hour, and the long arc is 3.5 km (2.2 miles), takes about 90 minutes and includes the observation tower. Climb the tower. From the boards you see pools and bog rosemary; from the tower you see how far the bog goes.

Parking is the part that has changed. The car park is run by a private operator, paid through the Mobilly app 24 hours a day, and charged by the hour: €3 for a car, €4 for a minibus of up to 9 seats or a campervan, then €1 for each extra hour. From the fifth hour a 24-hour rate takes over at €7, €8 and €10 respectively. Budget €3 to €6 (about $3.50 to $7) for a normal visit, and note that the boardwalk itself costs nothing.

To drive there, follow the A10 towards Ventspils and take the “Ķemeru tīreļa purva laipa” sign about 200 m past the Ķemeri turning, then continue roughly 2 km to the car park. It is another 800 m on foot from the car to where the boards start. The road becomes gravel; keep going. On the way you pass Ķemeri cemetery, which is worth slowing for, because it was laid out among the trees rather than cleared for, and the graves follow the ground.

Without a car, take the train to Ķemeri station, cross the railway line, walk about 1 km to the A10 by the cell tower and follow the “uz Tīreļa laipu” signs from there. In summer Jūrmala also runs an express bus, route number 5, between the Open-Air Museum and the Ķemeri Boardwalk stop; it ran from 1 June to 31 August in 2026, so check it is operating before you plan a car-free day around it. Bicycle hire at Ķemeri station is €5 for boardwalk visitors.

The boardwalk is not suitable for wheelchairs and has no handrail. It gets slippery in rain, and snow is not cleared in winter.

One trail to skip: the drive towards the Sloka watchtower. The point of interest that Google Maps offers north of Lake Sloka is at the end of a dead-end gravel track with nothing at the end of it. Walk the marked Sloka trail from its proper trailhead or leave it out.

Where to eat in Jūrmala

Two places on Jomas Street cover lunch and cake. The grill bar at Jomas iela 63 serves seasonal Latvian dishes, seafood and its own grilled fish and meat; it now trades as House of Light, and older reviews and guides still list it under its previous name, Lighthouse. The chicken there is properly grilled, crisp outside and soft through, which is harder than it sounds.

Madam Brioš is the coffee, tea and pastry bar to finish at. The chocolate éclair turned out to be chocolate all the way through rather than just on top, the service was friendly and the room is comfortable enough to sit in for a while.

If you have longer in Jūrmala

Four more Jūrmala sights are worth a second day, and three of them are free. They are listed below in the order I would add them.

1. Jūrmala Open-Air Museum: a coastal fisherman’s farmstead with nearly 2,000 objects covering 19th and 20th-century fishing life, including boats you can board, an anchor collection and rope-making and net-mending demonstrations. Admission is free, and a guided tour costs €20 in Latvian or €33 in other languages for a group of up to 15.
2. Ragakāpa Nature Park: the dune the open-air museum sits inside, 800 m long and 100 m wide, with viewing platforms and an eco-trail through the pines.
3. Jūrmala City Museum: over 60,000 objects, with permanent exhibitions on the Jūrmala and Ķemeri resorts and a multimedia room, and free entry.
4. The Lielupe White Dune: a protected dune on the river Lielupe, formed in the 18th century, where locals swim and fish in summer. The views over the water from the top are the reason to come.

Where to stay in Jūrmala: Villa Joma

Villa Joma is a 20-room hotel in a wooden house on Jomas Street, with its own restaurant, bar and summer terrace. Rooms have a private bathroom and a desk, wifi is included, breakfast is a buffet and guests park free. The kitchen is good: a trout starter, plaice with herb crumb and celery cream, and a cold marzipan cake with sorbet and raspberries made a better dinner than the price suggested.

One navigation warning saves a wrong turn. Villa Joma’s official address is on Jomas Street, which is pedestrianised, so a satnav working from the address alone will try to send you down it. The entrance to the hotel’s free car park is on Kaudzišu Street, which is where Google Maps sends you. Book a room at Villa Joma if you want to be on the main street.

Day 2: Engure Lake, Kaltene and Roja

Day 2 trades the resort for empty coast, and its three stops are a bird lake, a boulder forest and a fishing town. Engure Lake takes the morning, Kaltene fills the middle of the day and Roja is where you sleep. The whole day runs along the P131, with short gravel spurs off it.

Engure Lake Nature Park

Engure Lake Nature Park is one of Latvia’s largest nature parks and its main draw is birds, though the semi-wild horses and cattle are what people photograph. The Pathway of the Orchids is 3.5 km (2.2 miles) long and passes a watchtower; in the right weeks you can find 22 orchid varieties along it, and in mid-May I was a fortnight early. I arrived at 10am and had the place to myself, with nothing to hear but birds, and stayed two hours on a trail I had budgeted one for.

The horses here are wild. They are used to people and will reportedly take food from a hand, but they are still wild animals, so leave the approaching to them. The cattle deserve the same respect: one cow stood up and watched me the whole way to the tower, and I was glad of the water between us. From the top of the tower the lake fills one side and forest the other.

Drive to “Dabas Parks Engures Ezers” on Google Maps. Coming from Jūrmala you turn left off the P131 and then follow about 2 km of gravel to a picnic area with space for a few cars. The surface was fine when I drove it, with loose stones rather than potholes, and 30 km/h (18.6 mph) is fast enough. The trail entrance is on your right as you face the lake. Wear long sleeves and trousers: the mosquitoes here are serious in summer, and cycling the 65 km (40.4 mile) loop around the lake means sand and gravel most of the way.

Kaltenes Kalvas

Kaltenes Kalvas is a pine forest full of boulders, and the boulders are why you turn off the P131 for it. They were left behind when an ice-age lake retreated, which is the geology. The local version is better: the devil set out to build a bridge to the island of Saaremaa, filled a sack with stones to drop into the sea, and the sack tore.

Two trails loop through the forest, one of 1.5 km (0.9 miles) and one of 800 m. From the car park, with the road behind you, you can walk straight ahead and turn right into the trees or take the right-hand path immediately; both join the same loop, and a later split leads onto the longer one. The short circuit takes about 15 minutes at a brisk pace. Drive to “Kaltenes Kalvas” on Google Maps, then keep going past the point where it says you have arrived until the road ends at a small car park, which is the actual trailhead. Long sleeves again, or repellent.

Kaltene beach

Kaltene beach is stony rather than sandy, which makes it unusual on this coast and better for looking at than lying on. At low tide the sand between the stones turns soft and heavy going, so the reed trail set slightly back from the shore is the better walk. In places the reeds grow to 3 m (9.8 ft) on both sides of the path and close over into a corridor.

Two extras are worth knowing. There is a birdwatching tower at Kaltene beach, and you can walk the shoreline all the way from Kaltene to Roja and back if you check the tide and your daylight first.

Roja

Roja got its port and its protecting dam at the start of the 20th century, and when the dam eroded the town straightened the river mouth and built new dams and breakwaters, which is what you walk on today. Roja’s beach starts right across the road from the guesthouses, so drop your bag and go straight onto the sand. Follow the water until the river stops you. The pier at the end is built of large rocks that are not meant to be walked on, which I established the hard way.

The yacht harbour is a short walk up the main road and across the bridge, and the view is better from the near side of that bridge, where there is a small dock for canoeists. Behind the bridge lies Roja’s main beach, where the town has laid 514 m of wooden boardwalk that takes prams and wheelchairs, two playgrounds and benches beyond the low dunes. A blue pig sculpture stands near the boardwalk; it is the “pig of hope” and it matches the sea better than it has any right to.

If the weather turns, the Roja Fishery Museum covers the history and craft of the regional fishing industry in the 19th and 20th centuries, with three costumed women from different periods filling in the detail in what I was told is a particularly Kurzeme sense of humour.

Where to eat around Kaltene and Roja

Akmens stāsti, which means “stone stories”, is the lunch stop, and the name fits a morning spent among boulders. It is a family-run guesthouse just across the P131 from Kaltene beach that opens as a restaurant in summer and takes overnight guests all year. Vilma and her husband took it over and rebuilt it, and the food is more careful than a roadside guesthouse suggests: a seafood and vegetable parcel that was light without being thin, and a good cappuccino.

Otra Puse in Roja handles dinner. It is a large cabin from the outside and a bright room inside, with a terrace and a barbecue area. All the fish on the menu came fried, which pushed me onto the marinated duck leg with carrot mash, and that was the right accident. Order the banana split.

Where to stay in Roja: Pilava

Pilava is a wooden guesthouse on Krasta iela with three rooms upstairs, a breakfast room and kitchen on the ground floor and a lounge on the top floor with a couch, a desk and enough to do to justify a night in. There is a terrace for good weather, and the beach is across the road. Breakfast is booked separately rather than included, and it is worth adding: cold meats, fruit and cheese on the table, with muesli, toast, omelettes, pancakes, coffee and a wide tea selection from the counter. Book a room at Pilava before summer, because Roja has few beds.

Day 3: Pūrciems, Cape Kolka and Slītere to Ventspils

Day 3 is the longest driving day and the one with the most stops, running around the top of the Kurzeme peninsula from Roja to Ventspils. It takes in a Stone Age dune, the cape where two seas meet, Latvia’s most inland lighthouse, a Soviet radio telescope and the oldest lighthouse in the country. Leave early.

Pūrciems White Dune

The Pūrciems White Dune is a 20 m (65.6 ft) dune formed about 6,000 years ago, and a 900 m nature trail along the Pilsupīte river takes you past it and two smaller dunes. The trail was one of the highlights of the whole week: it sits right off the main road, climbs and drops repeatedly and swings along the river, and it takes under an hour.

The archaeology is the other reason to stop. Traces of the first Stone Age settlement on Latvia’s north-western coast were found here, and information panels along the trail explain the finds, though only in Latvian.

The Livonian House in Kolka

The Livonian House in Kolka is a community house that keeps Livonian history and traditions going and explains them to visitors. Livonians, or Livs, are a small Finno-Ugric people related to Estonians and Finns rather than to the Baltic Latvians, and their cultural centre is Mazirbe. You can read more about the Livs on Latvia’s own national portal.

It is also the practical stop of the day. The house holds a large stock of regional maps, brochures and booklets, most of them available in English, which is more useful than it sounds on a coast where trail signage is mostly Latvian.

Cape Kolka

Cape Kolka, or Kolkasrags, is the point where the Baltic Sea meets the Gulf of Rīga, and standing on the sandbar with different water on each side is the whole attraction. Cape Kolka also carries a red lighthouse built on an artificial island at the end of that sandbank, 5 to 6 km (3.1 to 3.7 miles) offshore. Around 60,000 migrating birds pass over the cape in mid-April, and because of how the land points you can watch both sunrise and sunset from the same spot, which is easiest in summer when the nights are short and warm.

The beach changes. It is usually a wide, long stretch of sand, and on the afternoon I arrived the water had come in close enough to surprise Linda, who told me that happens only a few times a year. Walk west along the shore to reach the watchtower, where the birdwatchers gather. Birdwatching is a serious pursuit here; roughly half of Latvia is forest, and the bird numbers show it.

Slītere National Park and the Liv villages

Slītere National Park surrounds Cape Kolka and was a closed military zone before it was a hiking area. The 1.5 km (0.9 mile) pine trail is the quick option if you only have half an hour.

Four old Livonian villages line up inside the park: Vaide, Saunags, Pitrags and Košrags. I would not send you along the whole chain. The road from Vaide to Košrags is dirt and badly rutted, and while a normal hatchback copes, it is a slow and uncomfortable half hour. Instead, drive from Cape Kolka to the entrance of Vaide and stop at the parking spot just before the little bridge, where the view over the lake costs nothing and beats most of what you pay for on this coast. If you want one more beach, take the P124 to Košrags rather than the dirt road, turn into the village, follow the road through its two right turns and park at the second, then walk the left fork down to the water. Wooden poles stand in the sea there, and the beach is empty.

Slītere Lighthouse

Slītere Lighthouse is the only Latvian lighthouse that is nowhere near the sea, standing 5.3 km (3.3 miles) inland on the edge of the Blue Hills. Slītere is also the second oldest surviving navigation structure in the country after Ovīši: a 26 m boulder tower built in 1849 that only became a lighthouse in 1961 and was switched off in 1999. Because the Blue Hills rise 76 m above sea level under it, the light once sat more than 100 m up, and from the top you could see the lighthouses of Miķeļtornis, Ovīši, Kolka and even Saaremaa.

It has been a Slītere National Park attraction since 2002, with an exhibition inside on lighthouses in Latvia, the Baltics and beyond, and summer hours of 10am to 6pm daily. Search “Slīteres baka” rather than “lighthouse” on Google Maps, since baka is the Latvian word. A 1.2 km (0.7 mile) nature trail climbs to it from the end of the road, or you can drive up. The displays on the lower floors are in Latvian only.

Irbene Radio Telescope

The Irbene Radio Telescope is a 32 m dish left behind by the Soviet military and now used for radio astronomy, and it is the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. RT-32 is commonly ranked the eighth largest radio telescope in the world and is built from more than 20,000 components. The Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre runs guided tours of the site.

If the centre is closed when you pass, as it was on the Sunday I did, you can still see the dish properly. Drive past the entrance gates and continue to the small pull-in on top of the hill, where there is an information panel and a clear line of sight. It is public road, so there is no trespassing involved.

Ovīši Lighthouse

Ovīši Lighthouse is the oldest lighthouse in Latvia, completed in 1814 on a promontory 360 m from the shoreline, and it is still working. Ovīši is a 37 m double-cylinder tower of red brick and stone built on wooden piles, with an outer wall 11.5 m across and an inner cylinder of 3.5 m; that double-shell design was a defensive feature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Bonfires and tar barrels were burned on this headland as navigation marks as far back as the 11th century.

Check the day before you drive there. The Freeport of Ventspils Authority looks after the three Latvian lighthouses officially open to the public, Ovīši, Užava and Akmeņrags, and all three close on Mondays and Tuesdays. Ovīši opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm from April to October and 10am to 2pm from November to March. Entry is €3.00 (about $3.50, £2.60), €2.00 for pupils, students and pensioners, and free for pre-school children and disabled visitors with a companion. Parking is free for the first 2 hours and €3.00 for 24 hours. You buy the ticket from the lighthouse keeper, in cash or by card.

Ventspils

Ventspils is bigger than it feels, and on a Sunday it is very quiet. The harbour is industrial rather than picturesque and the promenade is a promenade rather than a Mediterranean corniche, so arrive without the wrong expectation and the town wins you over anyway.

Ventspils is known as the City of Cows for the painted cow sculptures standing around its streets, parks and waterfront, and it holds a Cow Parade every year to show them off. The other set piece is the Little Engine, a working steam train on the only 600 m of narrow-gauge track still running in the Baltics, part of the Open-Air Seaside Museum. The market square, with its wooden clock house and cabin-like stalls that fill up in the morning, is the prettiest corner. What stays with you along this whole coast is the building stock: wooden houses in colours and materials that belong to another century, in villages and towns alike.

Where to eat and stay in Ventspils

Skroderkrogs is the place to eat, and the name translates roughly as “tailor’s pub”. It looks like a casual café and cooks like something more serious. Order the cold pink beetroot soup, which is a Latvian summer standard and exactly right on a hot day, and the cappuccino, which is as good as it looks.

Viesu nams Zītari sits on Tirgus iela, 90 m from the promenade and the river, 300 m from the ferry terminal and directly across from the market square. Wifi is free throughout, street parking is free, there is a courtyard used for summer barbecues and guests get 10% off in the guesthouse restaurant. My room above the restaurant was large, with a private bathroom and a jacuzzi bath, though the wifi did not reach it well. Breakfast is à la carte rather than a buffet; the pancakes were the right choice, and pancakes for breakfast turn out to be a Latvian institution. Bring an eye mask, because this was the second room of the trip with no blind on the window. Book a room at Viesu nams Zītari if you want to be able to walk to everything.

Day 4: Užava, Jūrkalne and Alsunga, ending in Liepāja

Day 4 runs south from Ventspils to Liepāja along the open coast, and its three fixed points are a lighthouse, a cliff and a Catholic village with its own singing tradition. The driving is easy and the stops are short, so there is room to add a fourth.

Užava Lighthouse

Užava Lighthouse stands on a wooded dune about 20 km (12.4 miles) south of Ventspils and is 19 m tall, and the reason to climb it is the 360-degree view from the platform. Užava was first lit in 1879, wrecked in the First World War and rebuilt on its surviving octagonal base in 1925, and it is a protected national cultural monument. Locals once called it Bakofen, the German for baking oven, after the shape of the 28 m dune it sits on.

Opening and prices match Ovīši: Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm all year, closed Monday and Tuesday, €3.00 for adults, €2.00 for pupils, students and pensioners, and free for pre-school children and disabled visitors with a companion. Guides that still quote €0.80 are out of date. The displays inside are in Latvian only.

Akmeņrags Lighthouse makes a good fourth stop if you have the time. It is the most remote of the three, roughly 80 km (49.7 miles) from Ventspils and reached via Ziemupe, and its 38 m tower looks out over sea and forest with nothing else in sight.

Jūrkalne seashore bluffs

The Jūrkalne seashore bluffs rise about 20 m (65.6 ft) straight out of the beach and are the most dramatic piece of coastline on this route. The wooden stairs down to the sand have to be rebuilt regularly, because storms take several metres off the shore every year, which tells you what the winter here is like. In calm weather it is a good place for a slow walk or an afternoon on the sand.

Watch the colour where the sea meets the shore. When it turns yellow, Latvians say the sea is blossoming, which is a better phrase than anything English has for it.

Pilsberģu krogs is the lunch stop, a guesthouse with a restaurant about 1 km from the path down to the bluffs, with a large car park and a garden. The dining room feels like somebody’s living room and the portions are enormous, so treat any offered side dish as an addition rather than a substitution. Ask about sauce when you order: a cheese sauce over meat and fish is popular in Latvia and does not always appear on the menu.

Alsunga and the Suiti

Alsunga is where you meet the Suiti, a Catholic minority in otherwise Protestant western Latvia with their own dress, dialect and singing. The Livonian Order castle at Pils iela 1 is the place to learn about them, and Visit Kuldīga lists adult admission at €2.78 with reductions for pupils, students, pensioners, disabled visitors and families. Walking the castle grounds is free.

Book a workshop rather than just paying the entry. We were dressed in full traditional Suiti clothing while Inga explained the order the pieces go on in, what each one means and when it is worn, and then sang in a room with hard acoustics while we joined in as well as we could. She told us it works far better with a larger group, because the parts divide properly. Other workshops teach crafts such as knitting the coloured Suiti socks.

The tea session in Alsunga was the day’s other surprise, and it is a storytelling event rather than a ceremony, because Latvia has no tea ceremony tradition. Dace and her husband left Rīga to run a tea café here while restoring an old family summer house, and on their land a ring of birches encloses a natural clearing. She lights a fire to heat well water, asks you to pick plants to add to it, lays out nine Latvian power symbols in stones around the fire with the fire itself inside the ninth, the circle of the sun, and talks through how the pre-Christian traditions survived alongside Christianity and how alive they still are outside the capital. Nine teas match the nine symbols, each with a purpose, from cramps to stomach ache to sleep, and you drink them separately or mixed. It takes two to three hours with a traditional guitar playing under it. Approach it as a way into the part of Latvian culture that normally stays inside people’s houses and it is time well spent.

Day 5: Liepāja

Day 5 is Liepāja, and the city splits cleanly into a walkable centre and the Soviet naval district of Karosta 5 km (3.1 miles) north. Do the centre in the morning and Karosta after lunch, which leaves the late afternoon for the coast.

The city centre

Liepāja’s centre is compact enough to see on foot in a morning, and the walking between sights is half the point because of the buildings. Liepāja rewards wandering, but seven places are worth aiming at. They are listed below.

1. The concert hall
2. The viewing platform at Holy Trinity Church
3. Liepāja Seaside Park
4. The beach
5. The market hall
6. Courtyard Roma
7. The Swan Pond

Lunch is Hot Potato on Lielā iela, near the Liepāja Museum, which builds a menu around potato dishes alongside burgers, salads, noodles, soups, steak and poultry. It sits in an arched basement with a retro fit-out and puts tables outside in good weather, and it is the most-reviewed restaurant in the city.

Karosta Prison

Karosta Prison is a red-brick building put up around 1900 as a hospital and used almost immediately as a jail, by Tsarist, Nazi and Soviet forces in turn, until it closed in 1997. It is the only military prison in Europe still open to the public.

Two things have changed since older guides were written. You can no longer walk the grounds on your own: the prison is seen on a guided tour only, lasting about 45 minutes and starting on the hour. Adults pay €8 (about $9, £7), students €5, pupils and seniors €3.50, and under-6s go free. Hours shrink sharply outside summer, from 9am to 7pm daily in June, July and August to 10am to 6pm in May and September and weekend-only hours from November to March. Individuals can turn up for the next tour; groups of 10 or more must ring ahead. Tours run in Latvian, English and Russian as standard.

The prison also sells an overnight “prisoner experience” with guards, rations and mock interrogations, alongside a normal room-only stay in a cell. It is not for children, and it is not for everyone: re-enacting what actually happened in a building like this sits badly with some visitors, including me.

Nearby, St Nicholas Maritime Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox church worth seeing from the outside at minimum. If you go in, the rules are strict: no shorts, no cameras or phones, and heads covered.

The Northern Forts and Liepāja Lake

The Northern Forts are a line of abandoned coastal fortifications being taken apart by the sea, and they are the most photographed thing in Karosta. Search “Kurlies 8 Monument” on Google Maps. A landslide shifted many of the bunkers, so they now lean and tilt as though sliding into the water, and a walking trail runs behind them along the beach.

Park under the wind turbine. Facing the coast, going right brings you to a quiet beach and the point where a small river comes out of the forest into the sea; going left gives you the Northern Breakwater and one bunker carrying a mural of an old woman worked together with a Latvian power symbol.

Liepāja Lake closes the day. Drive to Zirgu Sala and park, then walk past the flower beds and along the wooden boardwalks to the pier and its watchtower, passing smaller jetties on the way. The site is well kept, with picnic benches and outdoor gym equipment, and it is quieter than the sea side of the city.

Dinner is Pastnieka Māja, which surprises the same way Skroderkrogs does. Locals watch ice hockey at the bar while other guests eat in the garden, and the food is far more precise than the room suggests. The duck breast marinated in orange with carrot mash and beetroot was good enough that I ordered a second version of a dish I had already had in Roja, and the chocolate fondant with nut ice cream was the right ending.

Where to stay in Liepāja: Promenade

Promenade Hotel is a design hotel in a converted grain warehouse on Vecā Ostmala, beside the canal, the yacht marina and the port. The lobby doubles as an art gallery and the restaurant cooks Latvian and international food. Rooms have a private bathroom, minibar, television and seating area, and some have their own sauna. Wifi and the gym are free, and the hotel arranges activities such as fishing and water skiing.

Breakfast is a warm and cold buffet with sweet and savoury dishes, juices, tea, coffee and champagne. Book a room at the Promenade early for July and August; Liepāja fills up around its summer festivals. For anything else along this coast, accommodation across Latvia is where the guesthouses in the smaller villages actually list themselves.

Days 6 and 7: back to Rīga

Days 6 and 7 belong to Rīga, and the drive back from Liepāja fills most of the sixth morning. Drop the car at the airport if you are flying out, or in the city if you want two full days without parking charges. Rīga is a different trip from this one: Art Nouveau streets, a Hanseatic old town, a covered market in five Zeppelin hangars and a food scene the coast cannot match.

Our Rīga guide covers what to do with those two days, and the wider Latvia hub covers the rest of the country if you have longer.

What to know before you drive the Latvian coast

Six practical things shape this trip more than anything in the itinerary, and they are listed below.

1. Gravel is normal. Several trailheads sit at the end of 1 to 3 km of sand or gravel. A standard car handles all of them at 30 km/h (18.6 mph).
2. Mondays and Tuesdays close the lighthouses. Ovīši, Užava and Akmeņrags all open Wednesday to Sunday only.
3. Sundays close small museums. Several Kurzeme sites, including Irbene’s visitor centre, keep limited Sunday hours.
4. Mosquitoes are real from late spring. Long sleeves and long trousers beat repellent at Engure and Kaltenes Kalvas.
5. Cash still matters. The lighthouses take cards, but some small sites and workshops in Kurzeme ask for cash.
6. Latvia is roughly half forest, and it shows. Expect long stretches between fuel stops on the P131 and P124.

Travel insurance for a Latvian road trip

Latvia is in the EU, so an EHIC or GHIC card covers state healthcare on the same terms as a Latvian resident, but it does not cover a cancelled ferry, a stolen camera, or repatriation if something goes badly wrong on a road far from Rīga. A separate policy does. SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance can be bought after a trip has already started, which is the practical difference from most policies if you only think of it once you are on the road.

Latvian coast road trip FAQ

How many days do you need for the Latvian coast?

Five days covers the coast itself and two more give you Rīga, which is why this itinerary runs to a week. Four days is possible if you cut Liepāja to a single day and skip Alsunga. Fewer than four and you spend the trip driving rather than stopping.

Do you need a car to travel the Latvian coast?

You need a car for the stretch between Jūrmala and Liepāja, because the bog boardwalks, lighthouses, nature parks and villages on this route are not served by useful bus times. Jūrmala alone works by train from Rīga, and Liepāja and Ventspils are reachable by intercity bus, but the coast in between is not.

When is the best time to drive the Latvian coast?

May to September is the driving season, and June and July give you the longest days and the most open museums. Mid-May, when I drove it, has empty beaches and cool water but misses the orchids at Engure by a couple of weeks. Winter closes several sites and cuts lighthouse hours, though the bog boardwalk stays open all year.

How much does the Jūrmala entry pass cost?

The Jūrmala entry pass costs €5.00 a day for a vehicle, with 7-day and 30-day passes at €20.00 and €60.00. It applies only to motor vehicles entering the signed paid zone, so arriving by train from Rīga costs nothing. Buy it online, in an app, at a machine in the city or at the tourist office, by 11.59pm on the day you drive in.

Is Cape Kolka worth the drive?

Cape Kolka is worth the drive if you make it part of the day rather than the point of it. The sandbar where the Baltic meets the Gulf of Rīga is genuinely strange to stand on, but it takes 20 minutes. Pair it with Pūrciems White Dune, the Livonian House and Slītere Lighthouse and the day earns itself.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from driving this route in May and from re-checking every price and opening day for 2026, and none of them is obvious from the official pages.

1. Buy the Jūrmala vehicle pass before you cross the boundary. The resort charges €5.00 a day, €20.00 for 7 days and €60.00 for 30 days. The daily rate rose from €3.00 on 1 January 2026, so older guides still quote €2.00 and readers arrive expecting to pay it.
2. Plan the lighthouses around their closed days, not their hours. Ovīši, Užava and Akmeņrags open Wednesday to Sunday and close Monday and Tuesday, at €3.00 for adults and €2.00 concession. I have driven to one on a day it was shut and left with a photograph from the car park, which is a long way to come for a photograph.
3. Karosta Prison admits guided tours only, on the hour. Each tour runs 45 minutes, so arriving at ten past the hour costs you a 50-minute wait. Adults pay €8.00, students €5.00, and the gates open 9am to 7pm from June to August.
4. Allow the Ķemeri bog boardwalk far longer than the map suggests. I planned a short stop and stayed 2 hours, and left only because a lunch reservation was waiting. The walk out to the tower and back is the part people underestimate.
5. Bog parking is app-only through Mobilly. A car costs €3.00 an hour and a campervan €4.00, each extra hour adds €1.00, and from the fifth hour a 24-hour rate takes over. Set the app up before you lose signal in the woods.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes on Jūrmala, Engure, Roja, Ventspils, Alsunga and Liepāja come from the week she spent driving the Latvian coast west from Rīga. That trip was made in collaboration with Magnetic Latvia, the Latvian National Tourism Board; the route and the opinions are her own. The team covers Latvia for independent travellers, including the guesthouses, restaurants, car hire and nature trails worth booking, and updates this page when prices, opening hours and entry rules change.