Saving money while travelling in lithuania, some advices.

Even if Lithuania is a small country you often need to take buses, trains, or other to reach your destination ! You will need also to find an accomodation if you stay overnight. Adding to that food expenses and extra... Travelling could be very expensive.

Exactly the same happen for every day life !

Here some tips and tricks to save a bit of money.

!!!!! Those informations are deducted from my personal experience, no informations have to be taken as always true !!!!!

Tip 1 : ISIC Card

ISIC Card. As you probably no a national student card is (theorically) valid only in your home country. ISIC is the international student card. Valid everywhere (sometimes not accepted outside of europe but it is scarce). With this card you will not only have discount on museums but also for most of the buses lines and train lines.

If my memory is correct you have 50% discount on the regular national coaches and trains. To profit this discount you should buy your ticket directly at the ticket office or the bus driver (Possible on internet only if you have a Lithuanian credit card). In order to take the train it is preferable to buy your ticket at the ticket office rather than on board because in that case you will be charge 1 euro fee for onboard ticket printout.

In Lithuania you generally have lots of discounts with this card : Restaurant, fast food, city buses, museums, cultural activities, sport activities, cinema, spectacles, international coaches  ... et cetera (even bakeries sometimes !!). Do not hesitate to ask everywhere you go if they have student prices, it is not always explecitely written. A great number of time I discovered I could have beneficiate a student price ... too late !!

If you are the holder of an ISIC card not issued in lithuania you should be aware that sometimes the cashier will ask you an identification document as ID card, passeport or driving license (mostly in the train ticket office).

Other tips with ISIC are arriving.

Tip 2: How to go abroad for peanut, Baltic states and Poland short trips.

As every normal ERAMUS student you will go abroad (Lithuania being your home country for a while!) to explore further, always further ! Regarding Russia, Ukraine and scandinavians states I will write about it in an other topic !

From my personal experience the most expensive way of travelling is by car. Even if you are 4 in a car sharing expenses it will most of the time be more expensive than bus tickets ... Think about the parking cost, the eventuals fines you can easily get, the oil, the rental, insurance ... et cetera... Moreover if you go to main cities you will leave your car unused while you are strolling in the city (not negligible if rented car).

If you use your personal car register in your native country you will not receive any fine at your adress, so ... no need to worry !

What about Planes, International coaches, International trains ?

In my opinion you should always consider those three options.

Trains are most of the time unavaliable if you travel in the Baltic states or Poland because the railway network is not really developed. Some new lines should open soon and link the main cities of those countries (Kaunas, Vilnius, Riga, Pranu, Tartu, Tallin, Bialistok and perhaps Warsaw).

International coache companies are well-developped in Eastern Europe (Baltic states consider themselves as part of northern europe ... anyway!!). You normally a little discount using your ISIC Card (10 / 20%).

However you can way save more :

You should register on the bus companies websites. They have always a loyalty program similar to the airlines companies loyalty program (miles, points ...). You will perhaps manage to save a few euros more. In my opinion it is not the best option.

A better option I found is to use special offers ! Often, for events (anniversaries, black friday, holidays ...) those internationale coach companies offers travels with huge discounts (up to - 90%). The only one problem : those offers are only avaliable for early birds. I mean you should book a lot in advance and the number of seats avaliable is limited. Just be wise and check often or register to their newsletters. This way of doing will allow you to travel for peanut but those discounts are quite hard to get reguading the fact discount campains are quite unpredictibles

In my opinion the best option is what follow :

Most if not every international coache companies works with sales periods. To insure a minimum number of people in their buses those companies often make discount up to an amount of passangers is reach.

Let's take an idealistic example on one sale period which last a mounth and let's say you want to go somewhere in ... June. Do not book too early because you will pay the regular fare (there are lots of different companies you will always find a seat later even if you do not find discount). Till 2 months* before the June's sale period prices will be regular prices. If coaches in some lines are not full enough companies will "boost" a bit the line (make a discount) to fill the bus up to a point. So for a travel in June check in April for that kind of dicounts!! You will make great deals and it is less random than the other type of discount above.

* 2 months : it is an example !!!! Just check on each companies websites, the difference between the date of the discound and the date of the travel is quite steady in the time.

!!!!! Those informations are deducted from my personal experience, the explanation of how it works can be wrong. However by thinking like that I made some great deals and managed to guess when to buy with a relatively good accruacy.  !!!!!!

Planes

Going to RIGA :

RIGA is one of the closest capital from Lithuania. I have personally been there with my personal car and I will not do it again ! Way more expensive than buses !!