Travel to St. Petersburg

If you just want a short visit to St. Petersburg, check out the new ferry from Helsinki that offers a visa-free two-night/three-day visit: http://www.stpeterline.com/en/OnBoard/News.aspx.
I'm planning on including that option in my Scandinavia trip next year. If you travel to St. Petersburg on your own or for longer, you will need to get a visa which usually requires working with a tour company such as ScanTours or Hansa Travel (two companies I'm considering if I try a longer visit). I used Hansa for a Baltics tour without St. Pete's a while ago and they were fantastic. I think some of the hotels In St. Pete may assist with visas as well. If you are considering finding a local guide, check into International Travel News (http://www.intltravelnews.com). They have a message board and readers are very well traveled. There are local guides who advertize with them.

I used a company called "White Nights" to assist with the visa application, to book my rail trip out of the country (at the time, it had to match the info on the visa) and to book a home stay on Nevsky Prospekt. They may not still be in business, but any Russian guidebook should offer recommendations on similar companies. You are correct that is confusing for an individual to walk through the visa process, as the rules for Russian visas are quite Byzantine, and they change with little notice.

I did the Rick Steves, Tallin-Helsinki-StPetersburg trip a couple years ago, and really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend it. The visa process seems a bit difficult but isn't really that bad. I used a service similar to "White Knights" and it was easy and quick; you pay the fee, mail them your passport, they mail it back with the visa, takes about 3-4 weeks.
I don't think it would be that difficult to do it yourself, especially if you live somewhere with easy access to a Russian Embassy, but it will mean two trips to the embassy (one to drop off and one to pickup) I think the RS tour is a good value, but if you really enjoy organizing, researching and planning and enjoy spending your time doing that, and are willing to accept a little risk of ending up in a place that might not be what you'd expected, then I think it would be easy enough to do the trip on your own and save a little money. I enjoy the RS tours, I like the combination of organized group stuff and free time. The trip I did was the last two weeks of September, weather was great, not too hot, but not cold at all, a little drizzle and rain but nothing bad. 2 days in Tallin, 2 in Helsinki (although we arrived later afternoon one day, and left on a 7AM train the last day, so it was really only one full day of site-seeing), and 4 days in St Petersburg. One of the days in St Petersburg we took a bus trip to a town about 45 minutes outside of St Petersburg.

Thank you all for your replies. This is very helpful.

I was only there for 2 days (cruise port). I can't help on the visa issue (Israel and Russia have a no-visa agreement). Three of us explored together on our own (none of us speaks Russian). Here's what we found. Beautiful city, not to be missed. The people are generally very friendly, but you have to smile and say hello first. Otherwise they seem dour. Hardly anyone speaks any English, even at the busiest tourist sites. Most cab drivers do not speak English and you should know the fair price of a ride and negotiate before you get in the taxi. The Hermitage is spectacular, but very little is labeled in English. There are audio guides (we didn't take them). I wasn't sorry, since most of the rooms we went through only had one item - or none at all - explained by the audio. We spent the better part of a day there and loved it all. We took a boat ride through the canals and on the river. It was about 1.5 hours and the guide spoke Russian non-stop the whole time. We just sat back and enjoyed the view. We also went to Peterhof, another WOW. We lucked out and joined a small private tour in English for the royal apartments, but we would have enjoyed it almost as much on our own. Two days was barely enough to get a taste.

We did a tour with DenRus last month (July 2011). We had a private tour (10 people including kids), so we saw what we wanted. It was worth the price, which was much cheaper than some of the other tour companies. I recommend them.

BTW, if you visit without a tour, I would recommend taking the time to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. Certain words important to tourists have a similar pronunciation in both Russian and English, but you might not recongize them if you can't sound out the letters. For instance, "PECTOPAH" and "METPO" sound very similar to the English "restaurant" and "metro".

Also make sure you have rubles. We didn't find anywhere to exchange euros for them, or an ATM to just get them.

"Also make sure you have rubles. We didn't find anywhere to exchange euros for them, or an ATM to just get them." Rubles are generally not available outside of Russia. Technically, you need legal permission to take any Russian currency outside the country. ATMs are available in St. Petersburg, although they can be a little harder to find than in many western European cities. Check the lobbies of international-style hotels.

We arrived by ship. We used dollars for the taxi to the Hermitage, then credit cards for the entrance fees. When we stopped at the cafe, we got stuck - they only took rubles, no cc. There was an ATM in the Hermitage, so that solved our problem. We were only there for 2 days, so we didn't want to take more rubles than we'd spend. I think you can convert a percentage of the rubles you bought when you leave, if you have the receipts. The taxis all negotiated in and accepted payment in $. At the Peterhof, general admission was cash only, but for the royal apartments we used ccs. We were advised to take small bills in $ (1, 5, 10) and new ones.

Thank you for pointing out the issue regarding money. I would not have realized that it might be inconvenient to find an ATM, and it certainly would never have occurred to me to take dollars. Any other advice?

I was in St. Petersburg in 2009 for nearly two weeks. There are several Citibank offices with ATMs on Nevsky Prospect, which are not hard to find. I was also able to get about $100 worth of Rubles throught Bank of America prior to my trip. Regarding the time of year to visit St. Petersburg, please keep in mind that July and August tend to be rainy. I visited in late May/early June and lucked out with the weather. Also, in late May, the city celebrates its birthday and there was a big parade and other events going on along Nevsky Prospect which were fun.

I did Alla tours for two days in St. Petersburg. The cost of the tour was $300; I figured the visa, transportation costs, included admissions, and hassle made it well worth the price (a Russian speaking guide was a bonus).