Loved Krakow and Wroclaw. Warsaw sucks because half the city is under construction and the other half is polluted. It was flattened during WW2. So there's almost nothing of historical significance there.

At 32, I volunteered to work in a hostel in Edinburgh for the summer after my own backpacking trip through Europe. I was surprised with the diversity of people who stayed there. On occasion, we'd have whole families rent out a room for a weekend. But our hostel was a pretty laid back place that didn't focus on partying. Other hostels cater towards a partying crowd and those tend to be loaded with 16-bed rooms and people in their early 20s awkwardly ****ing on the top bunk. Do your research on which are chill places and which are for parties before staying.

As for adventurous, what do you mean?

My Berlin office is close to Warschauer Brücke, in the same complex as ‘Plus Hostel & Hotel’. Based on the people who come out of there, I’d say it’s a wild mix of families and people between 18 and 50.

Places like that offer hostel feeling but also amenities that you usually only find in a hotel.

Not sure what you mean by adventurous, but I’ve been backpacking through the Carpathians in Romania and the Tatra in the border region of Poland & Slovenia. Especially in Romania you can find a lot of small towns where the European Union hasn’t arrived yet.

My older brother got married in Slovakia. I ended up backpacking with my Mom (58), a buddy (38), my older sister (35), me (33) and my younger sister (25).

We stayed in Hostels in Berlin and Amsterdam. Didn’t feel out of place at all. Both of the places we stayed had a good mix of 20somethings and an older crowd.

The hostel in Amsterdam was huge and had a lot of “older” people peppered in. It definitely helps to meet people and have conversations over a beer or two in the bar at the hostel.

I was the one that mentioned Auschwitz, very somber day, but I’m glad I did it.

I really enjoyed Krakow, I’ve never been anywhere else in Poland, and while there were a few touristy parts, I really enjoyed the big town square, the food was really good, and beer everywhere we went was great.

We also did a tour of the Salt Mine about 20mins out of Krakow which was pretty cool, it’s 1000years old or something.

Totally forgot the salt mines! What a crazy place and definitely worth seeing.

Everyone else seems to like Krakow, I'll concede I probably just did it wrong.

The whole thing about Warsaw being totally rebuilt post-WWII, with few historic structures, was one thing I oddly appreciated about it. In a way, that's kind of historic itself -- it's tough to be in Warsaw without thinking about all the terrible things that have happened there.

To clarify about what I meant by "adventurous", I mostly just meant getting as far away from my own culture (American) as possible. A place like Prague is great but the cafe menus, preponderance of English, remind me of home. Not that that's a bad thing, but looking for places to push my boundaries (while still being a quick flight from London).

I suggest Bosnia and Herzegovina for that. Sarajevo and Mostar are fantastic. The train trip between the two is a series of gorgeous views.

Thanks! My friend has been to Sarajevo and also had nice things to say.

Just stay away from the larger cities and capitals and you'll be well on the way to this. If you arrive in a large city, get on a local train to a small town an hour or two away that you've never heard of. Instead of staying in lolPrague, hop on the train to Tabor or Pilsen. Instead of Salzburg, head to Gmunden. Instead of Krakow, Rzeszow. Instead of Paris, Sens. etc..

Yes, if his “American culture” is the one of a big, diverse city. But to get away from that, he could also head to Montana or Mississippi.

If you’re from NYC, traveling to London will provide you with significantly less cultural change than traveling to Birmingham, Alabama.

If I want to go for a big culture shock, I’ll visit my wife’s grandparents in Louisiana where half the population lives in a mobile home, thinks single-payer healthcare is the devils work and the only ‘word’ I can understand is “y’all”.

Doing that route and passing on Berlin seems like a huge leak, go there

seat61 for train hints. Don't buy a pass unless you're that indecisive that you can't pick a date to leave any city and go to a new one

Had a great time in Berlin, ditto on not skipping it.

Yup exactly, and I should have clarified that, 90% of the time, I find it most fun to travel to big cities (although there are some exceptions; I like Tuscany a lot more than I like the big Italian cities).

Berlin was fantastic. It's definitely not the cleanest city (though nowhere near as dirty as Rome or Naples) but I absolutely loved my time there. One of the few cities that I'd like to visit a second time.

Honestly, I loved most of Germany. Hard to go wrong with a backpacking trip through there.

This would be the exception and not the rule. Anywhere north of 30 should be staying in a hotel unless you like being seedy.

Agree about Berlin and basically the whole of Germany being a good place to visit from what I am able to remember.

That's a pretty old generalization. The hostel industry has diversified and become much larger in Europe. For example, you can find luxury hostels which offer more comfortable accommodation for a higher price while still having a hostel layout. Those tends to appeal to tourists willing to splurge a bit for a more comfortable night's sleep while still enjoying the social environment a hostel offers. I've stayed in luxury hostels in Amsterdam and Porto. The hostel I worked at, though not a luxury hostel, attracted a lot of tourists looking for some peace and quiet. This place tended to draw in more Asian tourists and families looking to stay due to its quaintness and silence at night.

Of course, you still have plenty of party hostels where you pay £8 for a bed in a 24 bed room you share with 23 gap year travelers who spend every waking hour getting drunk and laid wherever they go. But they are no longer the only hostel type that exists. With cursory research, you can find a quiet, comfortable hostel that suits an older traveler interested in a quiet night's sleep.

Yeah, most of the Hostels we researched had a mix of big open rooms, and then slightly more expensive smaller rooms (up to private rooms).

There were 5 of us, and in both cases we just booked a 6 person room, but the hostel overall still had a nice social vibe that you don’t get from a hotel.

Other than that we stayed in AIRBNBs.

Well yeah that basically describes hostels in general. I thought you were referring to a specific set of luxury hostels like these.

https://budgettraveller.org/20-luxur...k-out-in-2015/

Thanks for all the new posts! I hadn't checked 2p2 in a few days, good to see this thread is still alive!

Update: My flight to Iceland leaves in two weeks, on Thursday the 27th. Today I booked four nights in a hostel in Stockholm. Then I plan to take the ferry to Helsinki and stay there for two nights and then go to Tallinn. From there I'll go to Riga or Vilnius or both and then Krakow, Budapest, Prague, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, etc.

Not sure if you’re set on your order, there’s an overnight train from Krakow to Prague, it was great, probably the best sleep I got on my whole trip.

Definitely check out the outdoor spas in Budapest, we had a good time.

I also have the name of a great little pub with craft beer, Bartender was a cool guy, shut the bar down with him and then he took us out drinking at a different spot. Budapest was fun.

Please do post the name of the pub and the location if possible. Thanks!

This is the place;

http://www.edisonbudapest.com

It’s maybe a 5min walk from the train station. My sister and I stopped in for a ‘quick pint’ on the way back to our airbnb.

I walk in, the guy is playing some old Tupac and Big, and there’s a TV with Bob Ross painting in the background. Ended up drinking there for 3-4hours chatting with the bartender who spoke great English. He told me he taught himself English watching the comedy network, he’s a comedian and was on an episode of Drunk History.

Went back there after supper. They close at like 10pm or something, we asked the bartender if he wanted to come out drinking, and he walked us to another bar a few blocks away. Ended up shutting that bar down, flipped for round of shot with him, and then got on a train 3 hours later to Bratislava.

Get a global entry card. With one of those, you go to an automated kiosk and are back in USA#1 within a minute.

One of my daughters is in Paris at the moment. Both her roommate and her roommate’s mom were pickpocketed, one at the airport and the other on a train. They said the pickpockets were pretty skilled, and even zipped the mom’s purse back closed after lifting her wallet from it. Beware being jostled and keep a xerox copy of your passport.

I’m probably too old for hostels, but if I were taking a trip like this I’d do as little planning as possible.

Will a copy of my passport help me get around if the original is stolen?

Our kid doesn’t have one and we’ve been too cheap and lazy to pay $100 for him and work through the backlog to get an appointment for an “interview”. I wonder what the CPA agent would ask a 2 year old? But yes, global entry is the way to do it in general.
A copy of your passport doesn’t even get you into a bar in the US.

Carry your passport in a save place without stuff that’s worth stealing around it. If you lose your passport, you’ll have to contact the closest US embassy or consulate. The only thing a copy of your passport helps with is the process of proofing your US citizenship at the embassy/consulate.

Don’t lose your passport. That’s going to cost you a lot of time and money. Especially if your replacement is only a temporary one that’s valid for a year. That way, you basically have to pay for two new passports.

It will instantly prove your identity to the US consulate, where you’ll need to get a new passport. I doubt that an air carrier will let you on board an international flight without your actual passport, but I’ve never tried. As madlex suggests, I travel with my passport in a place that isn’t accessible to pickpockets.

I’ve had many EU hotels ask for my passport on check-in, and one or two have refused to take my drivers’ license as identification.