Riga with Kids

We had a wonderful time visiting and exploring the Latvian city of Riga with the kids!

Our visit was in late February and it was mostly cloudy and no snow. This meant we were able to be out with the kids and they didn't get too cold. 

We stayed in the city center near Old Town at Avalon Hotel and it was a great location. If you're visiting Riga, stay on the side of Old Town and not across the river. This way you are near everything and can easily walk around the city. 

Getting into the city

We took the city bus #22 from the airport to a stop near our hotel. The cost was under 4 Euros for 2 adults. The ride was about 25 minutes but it was unfortunately crowded on the bus into the city. 

There are also taxis available and the hotel told us it could cost around 25 Euros if they booked one for us. 

The kids loved exploring the city and finding new playgrounds. There were so many different playgrounds and lots of green space in the city. It's great to walk around then sit at a bench to have a coffee or snack.

We had a couple of days where it was raining for a few hours. We decided during that time to take kids to a museum for our indoor activity. 

Museums

There are quite a few museums in the city! We took them to Cosmos and the National History museum of Latvia.

Cosmos adults 10€, children under 6 are free and kids are 6€. Here the kids really enjoyed all the illusions. It was great that the museum wasn't busy when we visited so we could take our time at each of the rooms and stations.

National History museum is 4€. There is a search and find activity board you can pickup at the start and quite a few drawing stations around the exhibits. It's probably more interesting activity for older kids but we lasted an hour in there!

Coffee breaks!

Kids of course love to take coffee breaks or fika as we refer to it in Sweden. Riga has many different cafes and we enjoyed trying a few places.

Some of the kids favorites: 

Crumble cake - check out my blog post

Molberts - a nice ice cream shop

Coffee Academy - check out my blog post

We also really enjoyed trying traditional Latvian food.

Some restaurants we found to be family-friendly and had good dining experiences were

Lasite and DOM were very nice dining experiences even with the kids.

There is also a chain called LIDO where you serve yourself cafeteria style. Check out my blog post on LIDO. 

Cherry Fix - good for snacks after playing at the park

Playgrounds

We visited this amazing playground area that had so many areas for different ages! There were climbing structures, slides, trampoline, zip line and more. Kids loved it.

Near this playground there's this cafe called Yohoho Cafe. Check out my blog post on this cafe. 

There is a lot of green space in the center of the city and quite a few play areas along the canal and nearby. We visited a different area each day during our trip.

Overall, our visit to Riga was enjoyable and manageable with young kids. We stayed a week, but we enjoy traveling slow. Note: we flew in both directions, but you can also get to Riga as part of a cruise from Stockholm. 

Don't forget your snacks!