Flight and Arrival
One of the most important parts concerning the preparation is to choose the way of traveling to Vilnius. You can arrive by car, by train, by ship or by bicycle but in most cases I bet, the decision comes to the arrival through the air.
For the arrival by plane, there are a lot of questions we ask ourselves: Which website is the best? Where can I find the cheapest flights? Which flight company suits me best?
I think these questions cannot be answered in general, because for everyone there is another company or website, which suits them the best.
The only thing I can say in general is, that if you want to save money, you should not book the next best flight you find on a website, because with a really high probability, this is not the cheapest or best offer you can find. You have to do a little research for yourself.
Below you find a selection of websites, that former students, who came to Vilnius from abroad, recommended for the flight search:
-
Flüge.de
-
TAP (Only flights from and to Portugal)
-
Momondo
By choosing your flight, always check, if luggage is already included or not. Some companies offer a so called "light-tariff", where only hand luggage is included, but they offer you to book extra travel luggage after the booking is finished. Most of the time, this variant is cheaper, then directly booking a flight, in which luggage is already included.
Also it is recommendable, NOT to fly on Fridays, because these flights are the most expensive. It is rather recommended to fly on Thursday evenings. So always compare the prices on different dates.
Another important thing to check concerning the flight date is, if any special events take place during that time in the country you are heading to and if there are some holidays going on because then you can bet, that the prices are very much higher.
If we talk about the arrival in Vilnius, the next important thing to prepare is, how to get from the airport to your booked apartment in the most comfortable but also cheap way.
For the transport, there are two main options:
1. Public transportations:
From the Airport you can take the Busses with number 1, 2, 3G and 88. A single ride without discount costs 1€ and you can buy a ticket from the bus driver. This is for sure the cheapest way, how you can get to your accommodation but in most cases, it won't take you directly there.
Find the way from the airport to your Accomodation with the Public Transport on google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Flughafen+Vilnius+(VNO)
Find out more about Public Transport
2. Taxi:
This is probably the most comfortable way to get around, because it can drive you directly to where you will stay for your first days in Vilnius. Normally the Taxies are very expensive, because the drivers at the airport know, that "tourists" are not aware of the actually low Taxi prices in Vilnius. Besides there are a lot of cheaper taxi options in Vilnius like Taxify or Uber.
Renting a car in Vilnius is not recommendable, as the Public transportations are very much cheaper and have quite good connections. Besides, the Lithuanians are driving very crazy and trust us on that: you don’t want to be responsible for a car in the traffic of Vilnius!
The search for the place, where you will live during you semester abroad is really important aswell. The question is always: should I rather find something for long term in advance or should I start searching, when I am actually in Vilnius? - well you kind of have to think for yourself, what suits you the best but we always recommend to you to search in advance because this way you can be sure to have a place to live during your semester abroad from the beginning on and if you are early enough, it can save you a lot of money.
Find out more about Housing