Creator journal / 7 days until the next adventure
Estonia is back
on the table.
The open day is no longer open. We are taking the ferry across the Gulf of Finland and giving Tallinn one full, curious day.
The decision: with seven days until we leave, Estonia is back on the itinerary. Mikey and I are taking the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn for the day.
A week ago, I was trying to be responsible about it. We had one open day in Helsinki, and I kept asking whether a Tallinn day trip would make the trip richer or simply make it busier.
The argument for staying in Finland was solid: slow down, find the coast or an island, and give Helsinki enough space to surprise us. But the more we talked about it, the more the ferry itself started to feel like part of the experience—not merely transportation to another box on a map.
So Estonia is back on the table. Actually, it is on the itinerary.
The ferry is part of the story
I like the idea of leaving Helsinki by water, crossing the Gulf of Finland and arriving somewhere we did not originally plan to visit. It feels different from hopping on a plane or a train. It gives the day a beginning, a middle and an arrival.
That is exactly the kind of thing I want to be open to on this trip: a plan with enough shape to trust, but enough looseness for a real detour to matter. I do not want to collect countries. I want to remember how it felt to get there.
What I want from Tallinn
I am not going in with a frantic checklist. I want a walkable day, good food, texture, old and new architecture, a few ordinary moments and one or two things that make Tallinn feel specific rather than simply beautiful on camera.
As a creator, that gives me something useful to work with too. The ferry, the harbor, the change in language and atmosphere, the process of arriving somewhere by water—those are the connective pieces that make travel storytelling feel like more than a montage.
And yes, I still want the photograph nobody else was looking for. But I also want the sound of the boat, the bad coffee if it is bad, the feeling of stepping off into a city with no practiced version of it already in my head.
Seven days out
Seven days is close enough for the trip to stop feeling theoretical. The packing list becomes real. The content ideas become less like prompts and more like assignments. Helsinki, Stockholm, Donegal, Dublin—and now Tallinn—are no longer mood boards. They are places we are about to walk through.
I am excited, a little overwhelmed, and very aware that I still do not know exactly what this trip will become. That is probably the point.
Next stop: Helsinki, then Tallinn
I will take the ferry, show what actually fits into the day, and report back on whether Tallinn feels like a clever detour or a place that deserved longer. Either way, you can expect the honest version.