Booking a Trip to Russia

Me and my roommate are going to St. Petersburg, Russia in December. I am not sure if I should book through a local travel agency or online. What online site would you personally recommend for booking vacations to Russia?

You're going to St. Petersburg in December? Ummmm.....why?

I haven't got any personal experience with these as I went to Russia on a student visa, but supposedly waytorussia.net (which is a great site for researching a trip also) and the HI hostels can easily supply you with an invitation for a tourist visa.

quote:

Originally posted by Sophie9:
You're going to St. Petersburg in December? Ummmm.....why?

Why Not?

quote:

Originally posted by seraphim:
I haven't got any personal experience with these as I went to Russia on a student visa, but supposedly waytorussia.net (which is a great site for researching a trip also) and the HI hostels can easily supply you with an invitation for a tourist visa.

Thanks, I'll check that out. Do I need a tourist Visa, even if I am staying just a week?

EDIT: Nevermind, The above website you posted explained it. Thanks Again!

quote:

Why Not?

Because it is very, very cold, gray and miserable. What are you planning on doing there? Have you thought this out?

I like the cold, Were going to explore the city have fun and drink. Possible take the train into Moscow. I still need to research more of what to do there but, hell. Russia in the Winter time. Oh Yeah!!

Edit: Also tourist attractions are less crowded. 2 Thumbs up!

That's a hell of a long way to go for just a week, and there are not many other more dire places to visit in the winter.

"I like the cold"? Pal, you don't know cold. We are not talking Oregon cold.

There are plenty of places known for fun and drinking. St. Petersburg is not one of them. And how much is that visa again? Me thinks that you need to seriously re-think this idea. While I applaud the idea of going to Europe off-season, that is not where I would go, not in a million years. Prague for a week? OK. St. Petersburg? No way, For the $100 plus a day that it will cost you, there are better places to go for "fun and drinking".

I appreciate your concern but I am dead set on this trip, and well aware of the cost of the VISA(just looked it up). I don't want to get in a argument about it but I plan to have a good time. even if it gets down to 5 degrees F

5 degrees f.? As if.

Let me get this straight: This is your first trip overseas.
You haven't even ever been to Europe, even in the summer.

Let's see: you will probably fly PDX->ORD->FRA->LED.
In the winter. Yeah, that ought to be real fun for a first time trip.

You come here for advice and one person who actually lives in Russia is questioning it and another guy has been backpacking in Europe since the early 1970s is questioning it.

Did you lose some sort of bar bet?

Oh well, rock on. Don't say that we didn't warn you.

I came here for advise on booking the trip online or not. I talked to people that went there in the Winter and had a amazing time. So I'll let you know in January if I wasted my money or not.

quote:

I came here for advise on booking the trip online or not.

Right you are. Sorry for the digression (although you did ask "why not?").

You can do this trip independently. Travel agents will just muck it up. Companies like Intrepid don't have what you want.

Ok...I have never been to Russia (would love to go one day)...but is it really thatcold??

Here are the stats I got from the BBC weather network:
Deember
Average hours of sunlight = 0 C
Average Low = -8 C
Average High = -3 C
Maximum Low = -23 C
Maxium High = 5 C

...that's not that cold. But then Again, I've never experienced St. Petersburg at that temperature -- is it a 'wet cold?'

hi

Well, since you asked so civilly, I'll tell you why St. Pete in December may not be a vacation wonderland.

The very biggest stumbling block is that from about the end of November to the middle of January, there is virtually no daylight. The winter solstice is Dec. 21, and for 3 or 4 weeks before and 3 or 4 weeks after, it's just plain dark all the time. All day and all night.

This means that sightseeing is almost impossible. You're always looking for an address (god forbid) in the dark, visibility is about 2 blocks. It's not so much the miserable cold; but the bitter cold combined with the unrelenting darkness, added to the cultural Russian gloom, makes Russia in the dead of winter a depressing environment.

Not exactly conducive to Happy Hour festivity.

Our poster also may not have adequately investigated the expensive, and for Americans, burdensome Russian visa process.

But who are we to say that he shouldn't go to a inhospitable country in the dark and the cold to drink beer for a week?