Extension to Rick's Best of Scandinavia trip

You asked for opinions, so here is mine: This is not an optimal plan and you need to go back to the drawing board.

The tour starts in Stockholm if I'm not mistaken? So going first to Finland and Estonia, then the Scandinavia and after that head back to the Baltics is just a lot of backtracking.

If it was my trip I would do it this way:

Fly to Vilnius. Continue by train and bus via Riga to Tallinn (Kaunas can be done as a day trip from Vilnius). Ferry to Finland and then ferry to Stockholm. Take the tour, and fly home from Bergen.

Appreciate the thoughts! I should clarify- we got a great deal on flights into and out of Helskini, so that is why we are circling back around. We will fly into Helsinki, plan have a few days there and then travel via ferry to Tallinn. We will be in Tallinn for 3 nights and then fly to Stockholm for the tour. Somehow we will have to get back to Helskini to fly home! Convoluted, but can't argue with cheap business class seats...

Have you booked the flights and are the dates set? Even if you're starting and ending in Helsinki there are more efficient ways to do it.

We do have the flights and dates set. We will have 6 full days before the tour starts and 4 full days after the tour (the 5th day our flights depart mid afternoon). This requires we fly from Riga to Helsinki to DFW on the last day, as those flights are linked.

Really appreciate your thoughts, thank you!

I hope you got a really amazing deal on those flights, because this is a really weird route.

How did you find a flight from Bergen to Kaunas? As far as I can see Wizzair does not operate that route. And what exactly are the areas your mother wants to visit?

Well look at that- it appears WizAir has canceled that route since I last looked. Originally W6 1984 was scheduled to fly that day. Definitely need an itinerary overhaul now!

But if your arrival in Helsinki and departure from Riga are set, your original itinerary doesn't look unreasonable. But still needs some tweaking.

If you have five nights before the tour my suggestion is one night in Helsinki and then take the ferry over to Tallinn, spend two nights in Tallinn before you take the overnight ferry to Stockholm (one night on the ferry) and add one extra night in Stockholm before the tour.

With four nights after the tour I'd suggest flying from Bergen to Vilnius. There are no direct flights but should be pretty easy and smooth with SAS and a change in Copenhagen. Spend two nights in Vilnius before you take the train to Riga and spend the last two nights there.

Basically the major changes are that you really should not fly from Tallinn to Stockholm and Vilnius to Riga.

Another option would be to take the bus from Vilnius to Riga. You could get an express bus. I have not been to Latvia / Lithuania since pre-COVID, so I’m not up to date but we were happy w the bus. I would not fly.

While the express buses in the Baltic states certainly are very nice, there is now a direct train from Vilnius to Riga that would be my first choice. The only drawback is that the train only runs once per day and it departs Vilnius rather early.