Prague
 

Landing in Prague and will have 8 days on the ground, we are a group of 5. We would like to travel to Vienna and Budapest and are thinking of renting a car fro 4-5 days, any opinions or suggestions? Would it be more advantageous to use some form of other transportation considering this route? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
thank you!

Are you also flying out of Prague? If you haven't already purchased tickets, it would be better to do an "open jaw" ticket - fly into Prague out of Budapest so you won't have to backtrack and waste half a day or more of your already short time on the ground.

Renting a car makes sense if you wish to stop in smaller towns or in the countryside. Renting a car would be a huge headache in big cities like Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. The train connections between the three cities are excellent, and public transportation within the cities is also excellent.

If you had more time, I might recommend renting a car and driving from Prague say to Brno, Czech Republic, and stopping in some of the pretty little towns in Southern Bohemia and Moravia, before heading on to Vienna and Budapest. But you really don't have enough time for that. You could do JUST Czech Republic. Eight days in Prague plus some little towns by rental car would be fun, and that makes even more sense if you are also flying out of Prague.

Are you sure you will have time to see and experience the things you want in these 3 magnificent cities in the time you have? I wanted at least 2 weeks just to cover their highlights, but maybe your interests are different. I urge you to plot your trip on a calendar: Identify the things you want to see and experience, find their opening hours on the internet, and mark them on your calendar. Also mark in your transportation (as Andrew noted, trains connecting these cities are excellent) and some time to either side for getting to / from your hotel, checking in / out, packing / unpacking, and getting lost / oriented. Then see how things fit together.

I also agree that open jaw tickets would be worth considering if you don't already have your flights reserved, and I would say that even if you limit yourselves to "just" two of these cities.

8 days is VERY short for all that and a car would be pretty useless in any of the three cities.

If you are flying out of Prague you really only have about 6.5-ish days before having to return to Prague the evening prior to your departure.

If you decide to stay closer to Prague, consider a side trip to Cesky Krumlov - about two hours by car (or you can take the train from Prague). It's a beautiful village with a wonderful castle. I would definitely advise to stay overnight, as there are quite a few tour groups there during the day, and the quieter evenings and early mornings are nice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%8Cesk%C3%BD_Krumlov

I don't think you'll regret your decision to limit your trip to Prague and surrounds! :tu:

We did a nine day trip to Prague. We went to Vienna for 2 nights. We enjoyed our trip.

So yes, it's possible to do, either by train or by car. But I wouldn't add Budapest too.