Hiiumaa or Saaremaa: which island to book

The short answer

First island trip, three nights or fewer, no car, want a restaurant and a spa: Saaremaa, and specifically Kuressaare. Second island trip, or a first trip built around quiet, forest, lighthouses and cycling: Hiiumaa. If you have a week and a car, do both, using the seasonal Sõru to Triigi ferry between them so you are not doubling back through the mainland. That crossing runs roughly late spring to early autumn and takes about an hour.

The two islands are genuinely different, not just different sizes. Saaremaa has a town — Kuressaare, 13,000 people, a castle, a hotel cluster, a restaurant street. Hiiumaa's capital, Kärdla, has around 3,000 people, one small centre, and closes early. Saaremaa's landscape is juniper heath, limestone cliffs and a long southern peninsula; Hiiumaa's is pine forest, sandbars and three of the oldest working lighthouses in the region. Hiiumaa is quieter in every month of the year.

What a night costs on each

Hiiumaa is the cheaper island by a clear margin. Guesthouse and farmstay doubles run €60-100 in July and €50-80 outside it; holiday houses for four to six go for €90-150; free state forest campsites cost nothing. Kärdla's small hotels sit at the top of that range. Saaremaa's equivalents run €90-160 in Kuressaare in July, €70-120 for coastal cottages, and €80-120 per person for the spa half-board packages that Hiiumaa simply does not offer at scale.

Set that against the rest of the country: Hiiumaa in July costs about what Tartu costs in September, which is remarkable for a summer island. Saaremaa in July costs what Pärnu's beach quarter costs. Where Hiiumaa stings is variety — on a wet Tuesday in May you may find three places open on the whole island and one of them fully booked by a cycling group. Saaremaa's larger inventory means you can almost always find something at €70-110 year-round.

Kärdla and Käina: the two Hiiumaa bases

Kärdla, on the north coast, is the practical base: supermarkets, a bank, a pharmacy, a couple of restaurants, the airport 4 km away and the island's museum and long, quiet beach within walking distance. Rooms run €65-105. Everything on the island is within a 45-minute drive from here — Tahkuna lighthouse 15 km north-west, Kõpu 40 km west, Heltermaa ferry port 25 km east. It is not a beautiful town, but it is the one with a shop open on Sunday.

Käina, in the south, is smaller and closer to Kassari island, the Sääre tirp sandbar and the Vaemla wool mill, with rooms at €55-95. Book Käina if you are cycling, birdwatching on the Käina bay, or heading for the Sõru ferry to Saaremaa. Between the two I would pick Kärdla for a first two nights and Kassari or Käina for a longer, slower stay. Skip Kõrgessaare and the far west as a base unless you specifically want to sleep near Ristna's surf beach and Kõpu's 1531 lighthouse.

Kuressaare and the Saaremaa alternatives

On Saaremaa the choice is town or coast. Kuressaare gives you the episcopal castle, the market square, the harbour promenade and every restaurant within a 15-minute walk, at €90-160 in summer. The coast west of town at Nasva and Mändjala gives cottages and pine-backed shallow beaches at €70-170, with the town's dinner options a 10-minute drive away. Muhu, the small island the mainland ferry lands on, holds the archipelago's best-restored farm accommodation at €100-200.

The point of difference against Hiiumaa is that Saaremaa can absorb a bad-weather week. There is a castle to spend three hours in, spa pools, indoor markets, several museums and enough restaurants that you can eat out four nights running without repeating. Hiiumaa in horizontal rain gives you the wool mill, the Hiiumaa museum and a sauna. If you are travelling in May or September and cannot risk a washout, that argues for Saaremaa.

Ferries, flights and the real travel time

Hiiumaa is reached from Rohuküla, 9 km from Haapsalu and about 100 km from Tallinn, crossing to Heltermaa in roughly one hour twenty minutes with several sailings a day. Saaremaa is reached from Virtsu to Kuivastu in about 27 minutes, with far more frequent departures, then 70 km of driving to Kuressaare. Reckon Tallinn to Kärdla at three and a half to four hours door to door, and Tallinn to Kuressaare at four. Small planes fly from Tallinn to both Kärdla and Kuressaare.

Book vehicle tickets for either crossing in July and for Friday and Sunday sailings — the Rohuküla route has fewer daily departures, so missing one costs you two or three hours rather than thirty minutes. That asymmetry is the strongest practical argument for Saaremaa on a short trip: the ferry is a formality there and an appointment on Hiiumaa. Foot passengers rarely have a problem on either route, and bicycles travel cheaply, typically a few euros.

What each island does better

Hiiumaa wins on solitude, cycling and lighthouses. The island roads carry almost no traffic, the terrain is flat, and the loop from Kärdla to Tahkuna and Kõrgessaare is one of the best days on two wheels in Estonia. Kõpu lighthouse, in service since the 16th century, sits on a forested rise you can climb; Ristna's beach gets Baltic surf; the Sääre tirp spit on Kassari runs out into the sea like a road to nowhere. Locals treat the island's separateness as a personality trait, and the humour is real.

Saaremaa wins on set pieces and on wet days: the castle, the Kaali meteorite crater, the Angla windmills, Panga cliff, the Sõrve lighthouse road and the mud-cure spas. It also wins on food, with more restaurants worth a booking and a local drinks culture built on juniper, beer and homebrew. If you are travelling with people who need a plan for each day, Saaremaa supplies it. If your plan is a bicycle and a thermos, Hiiumaa is better value and better company.

The verdict, and the week-long version

Three nights, first visit: Saaremaa, all of it in or near Kuressaare, with a car for two of the days. Three nights, second visit or noise-averse: Hiiumaa, two in Kärdla and one on Kassari, with a bike. Both are poor two-night propositions from Tallinn — the ferry legs eat too much of the trip — so if you only have two nights, use them on Lahemaa or Haapsalu instead and save the islands for a proper stay.

For a week with a car, the clean route is Tallinn to Rohuküla, ferry to Hiiumaa, three nights based in Kärdla and Käina, then the Sõru to Triigi ferry across to Saaremaa's northern coast, three nights split between Kuressaare and the Mändjala shore, and out via Kuivastu to Virtsu. That gives you both islands, no backtracking, and total accommodation around €500-700 for two people in July. Check the Sõru crossing's operating season before committing; it does not run year-round.