Is Poland Too Expensive To Visit?

Hello guys, we're a group of lebaneses saving money to travel to at least one affordable country in the world per year, and Poland might be on our list if it isn't too costly. Is it too expensive? Are the locals nice to tourists? How the VISA system works? And we're looking for more traditional cities to visit, not the big ones, so I'd be thankful if you tell me the best ones too.

Poland is cheap comparing with most of the Europe, especially with its western part. Locals are nice to tourist, although most of them (except for young or older but well educated people) cannot speak English. About the visa, you need to check it in your country. You can easily google it. There is plenty of cities of a different size, as well as rural areas and forests, here.

Thank you very much for the info, we're looking to visit the more traditional cities with more classical/medieval vibe and perhaps some rural areas for forest strolls too, do you have any recomendations?

Nader, Białystok is not the most beautiful city in Poland, nor does it have much in the way of interesting architecture, but the surrounding area is full of interest if you want to see unspoilt nature. Białowieża is not far away, and is where you can see the last remnant of primieval European lowland forest. Some of the national park is strictly protected, and you can see Bison, deer, moose, lynx, tarpan and wolf in captivity or, if you are lucky, in the wild. If you plan to visit eastern Poland, contact me nearer the time and I'll provide you with more info.

You could visit the medieval town of Toruń, birthplace of Copernicus. It's a lovely town with some great architecture:

poland.travel/en/unesco-sites/medieval-town-of-torun-6

You don't say how long you will be staying in Poland which would help with people trying to advise you.

Malbork has a fantastic castle which is a world heritage site and well worth a visit. It's about an hour away from Gdańsk by train.

Not sure why you are ruling out big cities as you will obviously find much more to do in them, but Gdańsk has plenty of history if you wanted to check it out. Big cities don't have to be expensive, many museums in Poland have set days where you can visit for free for example.

whc.unesco.org/en/list/847

We're planning to stay the last two weeks of the year, is 6500 euros enough to cover the expenses of a 3 people group?

Yes, that's more than enough.

Make sure you know what's available in terms of transport and accommodation. When Poland closes for public holidays it really closes.

Yes. You might find Uber useful too, to avoid overpaying taxi drivers.

Roger5 is right, Poland does tend to shut down for public holidays (Google which days these are) especially outside the bigger cities or tourist spots. That doesn't affect the cost of things - in fact if you're here over a public holiday, plan for a relaxing day and you won't spend money anyway.

if you have 6,500 euros, if you have 2 whole weeks and also have never been to Europe, why seeing only Poland? As a matter of fact, I believe 2 weeks just to visit (since you have noone to visit) is too much. If you don't want to travel very far away from Poland, at least visit Prague (one of the nicest cities in Europe, and much better than any city in Poland, which can be visited in 1, 2 or 3 days), Budapest and aslo go to Berlin. Of course, you could go further but I am talking about very close to Poland. As a matter of fact, with your budget, you could tour almost the whole European continent. Why limit yourselves to Poland??? ;). Coming all the way to Europe just to see Poland is rather ... reducing ;)

Good point. Prague, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest. All easily doable in a couple of weeks.

Yes, Roger, I forgot about Vienna (a "must" too) .... Definitely with such a budget, possible to travel all over the area. Maybe also to ... Saint-Petersburg, which is gorgeous even in the opinion of .... Poles.

I lived there for a couple of years, and yes, it is gorgeous, but I wonder if the hassle of getting visas would be worth it for Nader. Also, it's a dangerous place, especially nowadays, for anyone who doesn't look Russian (I have the scar for life to prove this).

@Roger: yes, you are right re hassle and also the ... danger over there.... However, on such a budget and also in 2 week's time, it is not difficult to sightsee nice cities/areas in neighorhing countries. Poland is nothing special if not of Polish origin and just in the vicinity, Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Budapest are much more interesting and nicer than any city/town in Poland can be (Bratislava, although not a "beautiful" town, is rather nice for a couple of days). My goodness, a budget of 6,500 euros and stay in Poland!!!

Hello again guys, we already took our german tourist visa and nearly everything is all set, we only need to buy the tickets now. But these Paris incidents might have ruined everything for us, I'm no muslim but I'm brown and have a beard, should I worry about any attacks? Especially because we're planning to visit mostly forests and the smaller historical cities of germany and poland.

As long as you don't visit slum areas infested with pathos(from pathology) after 22:00 you're safe. The Polish are not ISIS. Just keep away from dark corners and you'll enjoy your trip.

I was talking about race based attacks after the Paris incidents and not the threat of another mass shooting by ISIS. Still, I'm not going to let this ruin our trip through Europe, think we might visit Russia and Sweden also.

In Poland such attacks are less likely than in France, or even than in Germany

For normal people it will not make any difference how you look like. A human is a human.


Exactly. There is a lot of more dangerous countries and places in some other European countries than in Poland. Behave normally, as you would behave in Italy or Spain, and nothing bad should happen to you.

In smaller towns people don't often meet foreigners (although historic places should be an exception, they have tourists, and it's norrmal that there are always some foreigners among them), so they might be just interested of you (or... afraid, I have read about such a case in a local supermarket :) ), that's all.

And don't except that people in small towns will be speaking English (for sure some will be, but not many of them). The bigger the city, the better. But in this case, it's also more or less the same as in the countries like Italy or Spain.

Noone will attack you because you are muslim or look like a muslim. As I have said, some people (with limited minds) may be afraid of you, but nothing bad should happen.