Walking the RMK trail in Kõrvemaa: a four-day section you can reach by train

What the trail is, and why the Kõrvemaa section is the one to walk

The Peraküla-Aegviidu-Ähijärve trail is Estonia's long-distance backbone, roughly 820 km from the northwest coast to the Latvian border in the south, maintained by RMK, the state forest management centre. It is waymarked on trees and posts, mapped in the free Loodusega koos app, and threaded with RMK campfire sites and forest huts that cost nothing to use. Almost nobody walks the whole thing. Sections are the sensible unit, and Kõrvemaa, the sandy lake-and-heath country around Aegviidu, is the best of them for a first attempt.

The reasons are specific. Aegviidu has a railway station on the Tallinn-Tapa line, an hour from the capital for around €4, so you need no car at either end. The terrain is dry glacial ridges and eskers between clear lakes, which means good footing and swimming, not the ankle-deep peat you get further south. And the density of RMK infrastructure here is the highest in the country, so you are rarely more than 8 km from a shelter with firewood and a dry toilet. Total distance below is about 70 km across four days.

Getting to the start, and what to carry

Take the Elron train from Tallinn's Balti jaam towards Tapa; Aegviidu is about an hour and roughly €4 with a ticket bought in the app or from the conductor. Trains run several times a day, and the same service takes you home at the end. Aegviidu village has a shop for the last resupply, closing around 20:00, and this is where you fill water bottles. There is no shop anywhere else on this loop, so carry four days of food: expect 3-4 kg per person if you are cooking, less with cold meals.

Kit that matters here more than elsewhere: a tent or hammock as backup, because the huts are first-come and can be full on a July weekend; a water filter or purification tablets, since most water is bog-stained lake or stream water; a gas stove, because RMK campfire sites have firewood but wet spring wood is slow; and tick protection, which is not optional between April and October in Estonia, where tick-borne encephalitis is present and a vaccine exists. Total pack weight of 11-14 kg is normal for this section.

Day one, Aegviidu to the Kõrvemaa lakes: about 18 km

Walk out of Aegviidu northwest, past Nelijärve, a cluster of small lakes with a recreation centre and a swimming spot, then into the pine ridges of the Kõrvemaa recreation area. The trail here is soft sand and needles, gently rolling, and it is the fastest walking of the four days: 18 km takes five hours with stops. Paukjärv, roughly halfway, is a clear-water lake with a beach, a campfire site and swimming that in July hits 20-22°C. Stop here for lunch even if you are ahead of schedule.

Camp at one of the RMK sites near the Jussi lakes, a chain of narrow kettle-hole lakes between heath ridges, or at the Kõrvemaa hiking and skiing centre area if you want a roof. The RMK forest huts are open-fronted log shelters with sleeping platforms, free, and there is a woodshed and a dry toilet at each site. Nothing needs booking, which is both the charm and the risk. If you would rather sleep indoors on night one, Aegviidu and Nelijärve have guesthouse rooms and cottages at about €55-95 for two.

Day two, the Jussi heath to Kakerdaja: about 20 km

This is the day the landscape earns its reputation. The trail crosses Jussi Nõmme, an open heath of low pine and lichen on former military training land, where the horizon opens out in a way it almost never does in Estonian forest, then works north through the Kõrvemaa nature reserve. Twenty kilometres is a seven-hour day here because the sand slows you and the views make you stop. There is no shop, no tap and no phone signal in places, so ration water at each lake rather than hoping for a stream.

Aim to finish at Kakerdaja, a large raised bog with a lake at its centre and a boardwalk running out to it, which is one of the most photographed spots in the region and deservedly so. The campfire site nearby fills up on Friday nights in summer, so if you are walking a weekend, plan to pitch a tent rather than claim a hut platform. Swim in the bog lake if the weather allows; the water is dark, soft, unnervingly warm on the surface and cold two feet down. Evening light here is the reason to carry a camera.

Day three, Kakerdaja towards Valgejõgi: about 17 km

Turn the loop back south and east on forest roads and singletrack, through spruce stands and clear-cuts that show you the working side of Estonian forestry rather than the postcard. Seventeen kilometres, five hours. This is the least dramatic day and the one where the trail markers matter most, because logging tracks multiply and it is easy to follow the wrong one for a kilometre before the app catches you. Check your position at every junction rather than every hour. Expect wet feet in spring; April and early May leave standing water in the low sections.

Camp near the Valgejõgi river or at whichever RMK site your pace reaches, cook early, and be in the shelter before dusk in June, when mosquitoes take over from about 21:30 and do not relent until 04:00. If the weather has turned and you want out, this is the day where escape is easiest: forest roads lead south to the Tallinn-Narva road and the Aegviidu-Tapa area, and a taxi from Aegviidu costs €25-40 depending on the pickup point. Otherwise a fourth day gets you home on foot.

Day four, back to Aegviidu and the train home: about 15 km

Close the loop through the ridges east of Nelijärve, 15 km and four hours, which lands you in Aegviidu by early afternoon. Do not skip the swim at Nelijärve or Paukjärv on the way in: arriving at a train carriage after four days without one is an anti-social act. The village has a shop, a café that keeps limited hours, and the station on the main street; check the return timetable at the start of the day, because there are gaps of two hours or more between trains and the platform has no shelter worth the name.

If you want a night indoors before travelling back, Aegviidu and the surrounding recreation centres rent rooms and small cottages at roughly €55-95 for two, and several have a sauna bookable for about €25-40 an hour, which after 70 km is the best money you will spend on this trip. Otherwise the train to Tallinn takes an hour and gets you to a restaurant table in the old town by early evening, which is exactly the correct end to four days of freeze-dried food and lake water.

Season, rules and what goes wrong

The walking window is late April to early October. May and September are the best: firm ground, few insects, and daylight from about 05:00 to 21:00. June has the light but also peak mosquitoes and the tail of tick season. July and August bring swimmable lakes, blueberries from late July, and busy huts on weekends. Avoid November to March unless you are equipped for winter camping at temperatures that regularly sit between minus 5 and minus 15°C, and note that some sections become ski trails.

The rules are simple and worth respecting: fires only in the built rings at RMK sites, no fires at all during the periodic fire-danger bans announced in dry summers, pack out all rubbish because there are no bins, and everything at the huts is free and unbooked, so leave firewood cut for whoever arrives after you. What goes wrong most often is water planning, followed by underestimating sand underfoot: 20 km in Kõrvemaa costs the legs more than 20 km on a Lahemaa gravel road. Plan 4 km/h with a pack, not 5.