Visitors to Riga will soon discover that there are a wealth of free guides to the city, most of them pocket sized and available in hotel lobbies. I was looking through my stash of them and thought that it might be useful to run through some of the best.
Of the pocket sized freebies, the best in my opinion is Riga This Week. In some of the others, the editorial content (hotel reviews, listings, etc.) seem to be there just to fill in space between the adverts. Riga This week adheres to higher standards, and its web page is also worth a look. Better still is the bimonthly Riga In Your Pocket, but that is not always free – if your hotel does not offer it, then you may need to buy a copy for a very reasonable 1.20Ls. The guide has been running for several years, and when I first visited the city it had very little competition and was indispensable as a companion to a standard guidebook such as the Lonely Planet.
Nowadays there are other options, but In Your Pocket still comes highly recommended. Its bar and club reviewers have their finger on the local pulse, and the cultural event listings are handy too. There are also extensive hotel and restaurant reviews which are kept up to date, and the magazine asserts that they are not influenced by advertising. Best of all, the content is available in full on the website to browse or download as a PDF.
Other free magazines which are worth picking up, but which come in larger than pocket sized formats, include the full-sized magazine rigaNOW! and the newspaper Baltic Guide (which covers all of Latvia but concentrates on Riga).
6 responses so far ↓
1 yeah // Jul 23, 2007 at 9:59 am
Also i saw one magazine - Rigaguide & Jurmalaguide. Also they have webpage - www.jurmalaguide.lv and www.rigaguide.lv. I think rigaguide is old site.
2 Mike Mason // Jul 23, 2007 at 10:36 am
The booklets have all got to be better than the websites on Riga and Latvia - most of which are the wrong side of dreadful. The only good one I found after an hour searching was at http://www.travelsavvy-riga.com which appears to be UK-based. As Riga is fast becoming THE city to visit in the Balkans it’s about time the Latvian locals woke up to the web and put together some decent city guides themselves.
3 John // Jul 23, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Thanks to both of you for reading – it’s always good to get some feedback.
@ yeah: I’ve seen the Riga Guide, although personally I prefer Riga This Week - there seems to be more substance to it. Most hotels have a selection of these pocket sized guides anyway, so visitors can always have a look at several and then keep the ones they like. Some of them, incidentally, have sealed sections listing strip clubs etc. From memory, I think that Riga Guide has one.
You are right that the Riga Guide website is well out of date. It’s also a bit lacking in content (clicking on Places of Interest gives a short and oddly chosen list). Jurmala Guide looks a bit better, but it doesn’t seem to have any objective reviews - it’s more like a collection of adverts and listings. In Your Pocket is far better, and as I mentioned in my post it is also available for free online.
@Mike: I agree that there is a real lack of good online information about Riga. Most of it is clearly aimed at selling you something, and very badly written. This was one of the reasons I started this blog, although of course a blog is rather different to a well-structured travel resource. I may look into creating a more straightforward website at some point, but for now I am enjoying building up information by blogging (reasonably) regularly.
I took a quick look at TravelSavvy Riga and it looked to be worth browsing - not extensive, but decent information. I’ll have a look through my collection of bookmarks when I have chance, and possibly post an article on Riga web resources. Don’t forget to subscribe so that you don’t miss it!
4 armands brants // Oct 10, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Mike, Riga is THE city in the Baltics not Balkans.
5 Mike Mason // Oct 10, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Oops sorry - too much black balsam perhaps. Baltics of course. What is happening with inflation in Latvia though? Up to 11.4 per cent last month from 10 per cent the month before. Does this mean it is getting to be too expensive to visit?
6 [波羅的海三國] 行前準備/語言/旅遊資訊/旅遊書 « 從德國出發，歐洲走透透 // Mar 25, 2008 at 7:07 pm
[…] Free guides to Riga: Which are the best? […]
Leave a Comment