Pärnumaa Travel Guide

Estonia's summer capital — a long white-sand beach backed by a pine forest and a charming 19th-century resort town. Pärnu Beach stretches for 2.5 km along a sheltered bay where the Baltic is genuinely warm in July. The promenade connects the beach to the old town's wooden villas, a well-preserved city gate, and streets full of outdoor café terraces.

A UNESCO-listed living cultural landscape — a small island where traditional Kihnu culture has been maintained almost unbroken for centuries. Women still wear striped woollen skirts on weekdays, and the island's unique songs and handicrafts are an active part of daily life. A car ferry or light aircraft connects Kihnu from Munalaiu harbour. Once on the island, hire a bicycle or drive the single road.

One of Estonia's last truly wild beaches — a narrow strip between the Baltic and coastal meadows where a bird migration monitoring station has operated since 1967. In September, hundreds of thousands of birds funnel through the narrow coastal corridor. In summer the beach is empty, the sea is clean, and the dunes are covered in juniper and crowberry. No cafés, no car parks, no infrastructure.

Estonia's wettest national park — a vast raised bog and floodplain forest that floods to create Estonia's 'fifth season' each spring when entire valley floors become navigable by canoe. In summer the park offers bog walks, traditional dugout canoe trips, and the most atmospheric old-growth alder carr forest in the country. The visitor centre near Tõramaa is the starting point for most trails.

Estonia's oldest and most famous horse stud — established in 1856 to breed the Tori horse, a compact working breed developed specifically for Estonian farm conditions. The stud farm offers tours of the stables and the small horse museum, and in summer hosts riding events. Tori village itself sits on a dramatic bend in the Pärnu river and is worth the short detour for the limestone gorge below the bridge.

The longest continuous dune system on Estonia's west coast — mobile dunes up to 10 metres high advancing slowly through coastal pine forest. The beach at Häädemeeste is broad, unspoilt, and almost entirely unknown to foreign visitors. The dune nature trail through the forest shows how the moving sand engulfs trees, creating buried ghost forests of grey trunks and stumps.