Vilnius has no metro, no trams, and no particular interest in apologising for either. What it does have is a compact, walkable Old Town, a reasonably priced bus network for everything the Old Town does not cover, and enough ride-hailing competition to make taxis behave themselves.
Lithuania's capital is also spread out enough, once you get past the postcard centre, that visitors who assume they can walk everywhere for a week-long stay tend to revise that opinion by day three. Here is how to get around without overpaying, oversleeping your stop, or accidentally cycling into a cobblestone.
Public transport in Vilnius runs on buses and trolleybuses only, and the compact Old Town means most visitors barely need either for sightseeing. Where the network earns its keep is reaching the airport, the outer districts, and anywhere your feet have already voted against.
The most useful thing to own is a Vilniečio kortelė (Vilnius card), a rechargeable plastic card sold at kiosks marked Lietuvos spauda or Narvesen for a one-off €1.50. Load it with credit or a time-limited ticket and tap it on the orange validator every time you board.
30-minute e-ticket: around €0.65, with unlimited transfers within the window
60-minute e-ticket: around €0.95
Single ticket from the driver: €1.00, no transfers, the most expensive way to pay for the least flexibility
Day passes: €5 for 24 hours, €8 for three days, €12 for five days
Children under 7 travel free, and students or seniors with valid ID get a discount worth asking about. Ticket inspections happen often enough that skipping validation is a genuinely bad bet, not a victimless one.
For live bus positions and route planning, the Trafi app covers Vilnius as well as most other Lithuanian cities, and is worth having installed alongside whatever you use to pay. Visitors planning a lot of sightseeing in a short window might also look at the Vilnius Pass, which bundles public transport with free entry to a long list of museums and attractions, though it only pays for itself if you are genuinely museum-hopping rather than mostly eating and wandering.
Vilnius Airport Transfers
Vilnius Airport is only about 6km from the Old Town, which makes it one of the more forgivably located airports in Europe.
Train: a dedicated shuttle runs directly from the terminal to Vilnius Railway Station in about 7 minutes, roughly 16 times a day, for around €1. The catch is that it stops running early, with the last departure from the airport around 19:20
Bus: routes 1, 2, 88 and 3G connect the airport to the city centre and railway station, taking 15–20 minutes for €1–1.25 depending on the ticket type, and running later into the night than the train, including dedicated night services
Bolt: typically €6–10 to the centre, more to the Old Town specifically, and the only sensible option once the train has called it a day
Whichever you choose, buy the ticket before boarding where possible. Tapping a contactless bank card directly on some services costs more than a pre-purchased fare, which feels like a small punishment for convenience.
Bolt dominates the ride-hailing market here, as it does across the Baltics, with fares that stay moderate outside Friday and Saturday nights. Uber also operates in Vilnius, generally at similar prices.
Street taxis exist and are perfectly legal, but unlicensed operators do occasionally circle the more obvious tourist spots. If a driver cannot or will not confirm a price or switch on the meter before you get in, that is your cue to find another one.
Passengers who need a wheelchair-accessible vehicle should look for the Asistentinis Taksi service, which specialises in exactly that rather than leaving it to chance with a standard fleet car.
Night Transport
Daytime bus and trolleybus services wind down by around 11pm, though a handful of night routes, including the airport's 88N, keep running on a reduced schedule for anyone arriving or heading out late. Do not count on frequency matching daytime levels.
Beyond that window, Bolt and Uber are the default, and both operate reliably through the night across the city, including from the airport after the last train has gone home for the evening.
Cycling and Scooters
Vilnius runs its own bike-share scheme, Cyclocity, with more than 60 stations dotted around the city between April and November. Registration is free, the first 30 minutes of any trip are free, and each subsequent half hour costs around €0.50, which makes it one of the better-value ways to cover ground that is too far to walk and too short to justify a taxi.
E-scooters from Bolt and other operators are widely available too, priced by the minute, though they are banned from the pedestrianised zones of the Old Town for reasons that become obvious the first time you try to walk through it at rush hour. Cobblestones, incidentally, are hard on both scooters and dignity in roughly equal measure.
The UNESCO-listed Old Town is Europe's largest surviving Baroque old town and is, without much argument, best explored entirely on foot. Winding lanes, hidden courtyards and the odd unexpected church make it a place that rewards getting lost rather than one that punishes it.
Beyond the Old Town, the riverside paths along the Neris and the leafy, self-declared republic of Užupis are both comfortably walkable extensions of the centre. The hills around Gediminas Tower and the Three Crosses will test your calves more than your patience, and the view from the top is generally agreed to be worth the climb.
Further out, the glass-tower business district of Šnipiškės across the river is walkable from the Old Town in about twenty minutes, but it is exactly the kind of trip where the bus or a bike starts to make more sense than principle alone, especially with shopping bags in tow.
Trains and Coaches to Other Cities
Vilnius Railway Station, conveniently a short walk from the Old Town, is the hub for onward travel around Lithuania and beyond. LTG Link runs hourly trains to Kaunas, taking around an hour and starting from roughly €7–10 with advance booking.
Kaunas: hourly trains, about 1 hour, from €7–10
Klaipėda: a handful of direct trains daily, around 4 hours, from roughly €15–25
International coaches: regular services to Riga and Warsaw with operators such as Lux Express and Ecolines, and further afield with connections onward into Poland and beyond
The bus and train stations sit next to each other south of the Old Town, so switching between the two if your plans change requires nothing more dramatic than crossing a car park.
For the classic day trip to Trakai and its lakeside castle, both bus and train work well: buses run roughly hourly from Vilnius Bus Station for around €2–4 and take about 45 minutes, while the train is slightly faster at around half an hour but runs less frequently, roughly every three hours. Either way, budget for a walk at the other end, since neither the bus nor the train stop puts you directly at the castle gates.
Driving and Parking
Central Vilnius is divided into four colour-coded paid parking zones, and the system is at least honest about its priorities: the more central the zone, the more it costs.
Green zone: €0.50 per hour, weekdays 8am–6pm
Yellow zone: €1.00 per hour, weekdays 8am–8pm
Red zone: €2.50 per hour, Monday to Saturday, 8am–8pm
Blue zone: €3.50 per hour, every day, all day
Payment runs through apps such as m.parking or Unipark, so there is no need to hunt for coins. For a cheaper alternative, four Park and Ride car parks around the city let you leave your car for €0.50 and use public transport into the centre for the rest of the day, a scheme sensible enough that more cities really ought to copy it.
Practical Tips
Buy or load your Vilniečio kortelė as soon as you land if you are staying more than a day or two; the savings over single tickets add up faster than expected
Do not rely on the airport train for evening arrivals, since it stops running well before most other public transport does
The Old Town's cobblestones are not kind to wheeled suitcases, scooters, or high heels; plan footwear accordingly
Trafi covers both tickets and live tracking for buses, so it is worth having installed even if you mainly plan to walk
