Museums

Food

Planning the Trip

Visas and Invitations

Airline and Accomodations

Our Arrival and the Apartment

Transportation

Miscellaneous

  St. Petersburg - Planning the Trip  
Catherine Palace
Catherine Palace

Many thanks to Tell The Truth Traveler Bob93_2 for this write-up of his trip!

Travel Guide

Lonely Planet GuideWe started by reading through the Lonely Planet Guide for Russia concentrating on St. Petersburg and what documentation was required for travel to and in Russia.  The Guide was quite useful and led us to surf the Web for more information about visas, invitation letters, tours, etc.  I describe our efforts below in regards to documentation, accommodations, and so on.

Need a Travel Agent?  We Didn't Use One.

We made all the reservations (airline, accommodation, and invitation letter) ourselves.  You definitely do not need a tour group or a travel agent (however, if you enjoy tours, St. Petersburg is a great tour destination or you may feel more secure using a travel agent).  We did use a courier service to handle our passports from our home city to the Russian Embassy to get the Russian visa.  Even for our air flight we dealt directly with an Air France agent rather than a travel agent.