silvanap

We are two uninitiated females to Europe and are planning our maiden trip of 22 days there. Problem is we booked return tickets to prague and have no choice but to be constrained that way. We will like to see Warsaw,Gdansk,Auschwitz,Krakow,Budapest,Vienna,Sal zburg Hallstatt and maybe squeeze in ski if ski season starts in late nov.

We think we are being too greedy and especially when we are on a tight budget.
Hoping to get some advice and help in planning the order of cities and if train or bus travel is preferred at certain leg of the trip. Currently we are reading up as much as we can but we end up very confused and undecided.

Thank you very much in advance.

PalenQ

Well without thinking itineraries you are traveling so much by train that the Eastern European Railpass should be a great deal for you - hop on any train anytime in Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary - for added comfort go first class and you'll always IME find lots of empty seats - for 2nd class make seat reservations at a few euros once there.

For lots of great info on trains in Eastern Europe check out these IMO fantastic sites - www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com.

Improviser

You are suggesting a possible 9 places (not counting Auschwitz which is usually done as a day trip from Krakow).

That is being a bit 'greedy' as you put it. Here is a simple rule of thumb to use when planning. The Rule of 3s says, never spend less than 3 full days/4 nights in a place unless it is just an overnight stop between A and B.

Note the 'less than', it is a minimum, in places like Rome or Paris for example, most would say you need more than 3 days. Also note the 3/4 which allows for a travel day between places. If you are moving from B to C you are not IN either seeing/doing things. Regardless of how short the journey between places might be, you invariably lose most of the day making the move. Most people tend to ignore travel time when planning. As a result, they have less time IN places than they thought they were going to have.

So using this rule it is easy to determine how many places you should think about visiting. With 22 days minus your arrival and departure days (also 'lost' days) you have 20 full days you could spend IN places. That tells you that 6 places plus 2 day trips (a day trip adds a day to the 3/4 making it 4/5) would be a good number to start planning around. Krakow and Auswitz for example would be a 4/5 to allow for the day trip.

The common phrase used is 'to see as much as possible'. But the word 'much' is not synonymous with the word 'many'. The way to see as 'much' as possible is to spend time IN places, not in BETWEEN places. In travel, less is always more.

You cannot visit everywhere of interest in one trip. No one ever can, there will always be places you don't have time for on THIS trip. Get your head around that and plan accordingly.

Improviser

Oops sorry, 20 days and 20 nights means 5 places at 4 nights each would be a good max to shoot for.

BigRuss

Gdansk is great, but it's not easy to get to from where you'll be and it's off the path from the rest of your trip. Flight connections aren't great either because it is a small city and the tourism demand comes from Western Europe (i.e., the UK - it's a beach destination [nearby Sopot] and stag weekend destination), not the rest of Central Europe other than Warsaw. Connections may be better now.

Warsaw is not great - it's basically a reconstruction of what was combined with a ton of post-war commie architecture influenced by Stalin because the city was fairly well wiped out in WWII. Note that ALL of Poland's main cities have direct flight connections to Warsaw.

Train connections between Prague and Poland are poor because the train routing goes around various mountains so a 5-6 hr car ride is a 8+ hour train ride. Central European trains are NOT TGV/Thalys/ICE type 180mph flyers; if they crack 100 mph, they're probably going too fast (one exception may be the Krakow-Warsaw express, but that's unique in the region). Check the schedules (bahn.de is useful). Buses may be better; so might flights.

Prague-Vienna-Budapest is an easy triangle, but one of those trips (Prague-Budapest or the reverse) will be 7+ on the day train unless you find a cheapo flight (which is possible).

Check a map and pick an itinerary. Fact is that by setting up the flights RT to Prague, you picked a physically central location relative to the others you want to visit such that your preferred destinations are basically south, north and west of it. That means overlapping travel to hit your high points.

To make it simpler, pick half of the destinations and rework it (Prague and Poland or Prague and Hapsburg Empire).

Exact dates would help with planning suggestions too . . .