Half a century as a closed military zone had one unintended benefit: nobody built on Naissaar or logged it heavily. Since 1995 the whole island — almost 19 square kilometres — has been protected as Naissaar Nature Park. Most of it is pine and spruce forest on old dunes, broken by bogs, boulder fields and a long, varied coast.
Three marked hiking trails make sense of it. The southern trail is about people: Männiku, Lõunaküla, the church and the cemetery. The central trail is the military one, past the mine depot and batteries. The northern trail is the long one, to the heavy batteries and the lighthouse. All start from the harbour, where there is an information board with a map.
Top things to do: Nature Park Trails
Walk the southern trail
The best choice for a first visit or a short day. It links the harbour with Männiku, Lõunaküla, St Mary’s church and the south-coast beaches on easy forest tracks.
Take the central trail
A loop through the middle of the island for anyone drawn by the military story: mine warehouses, railway beds and coastal batteries, with Kunilamägi and the western dunes along the way.
Go north
The longest route leads to the northern batteries and the lighthouse. It is a full day on foot and a comfortable one by bike.
Find the giant boulders
The last ice age left Naissaar strewn with erratic boulders carried from Finland. Several are house-sized and have names of their own; they are marked on the trail maps.
Pick berries and mushrooms
Bilberries ripen from July and lingonberries from late August, and in a good autumn the forest is full of mushrooms. Picking for your own use is part of Estonian everyday life — but only eat mushrooms you can identify with certainty.
Cycle the forest roads
The old military roads and railway beds are mostly firm sand and gravel, and the island is nearly flat. A bike turns Naissaar from a place where you choose one corner into a place you can see end to end. Ask the boat operator about bringing bikes aboard, or about hire on the island.
How to get to Nature Park Trails
- Start point: all three trails begin at the harbour on the east coast, where the boats from Tallinn land.
- Distances: each trail is a loop of roughly 10 km or more; the northern one is the longest. Check the map board at the harbour and match your route to the return boat.
- To the island: see getting to Naissaar.
Insider tips
- Stay on the marked trails and roads. Apart from protecting the vegetation, it keeps you clear of old military debris: unexploded ordnance is still occasionally found on Naissaar.
- Ticks are common in Estonia from spring to autumn and can carry Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis. Wear long trousers, use repellent and check yourself in the evening.
- Carry at least a litre and a half of water per person. There are no shops and you should not count on finding drinking water on the trails.
- Light fires only at the official campfire sites, and never in a dry spell when a fire ban is in force.
- Mobile coverage is generally fine near the harbour and the south coast, weaker in the forest — download maps for offline use.
Best tours & tickets: Nature Park Trails
These experiences are the easiest way to see Nature Park Trails:
Private island trip from €796 per group From Tallinn: Half-Day Guided Tour to Naissaar Island
The only Naissaar trip listed on GetYourGuide: a private half-day outing from Tallinn with the crossing and a guide on the island. It is new and has no reviews yet, and the price is for the whole group — it makes most sense when you can share the cost.
- Boat crossing of Tallinn Bay with your own group
- Guided visit to the island’s nature park and military heritage
- Priced per group, not per person
Day trip from €119 From Tallinn: Lahemaa National Park Full-Day Tour
Estonia’s favourite nature day trip, with more than nine hundred reviews. If Naissaar gave you a taste for pine forest, boulders and quiet coast, Lahemaa is the mainland version — and it runs when the island boats do not.
- Jägala waterfall and the Viru bog boardwalk
- A historic manor estate
- A traditional fishing village on the coast
