Where did Poles spend summer vacations in the PRL era?

Did they go to Croatian SR? Balaton? Here in Bulgaria? Italy?

Balaton and Bulgaria (more Zlatni Pjasyci than Slanchev Brjag) were the main international destinations AFAICT though the great majority spent vacations in the PRL partly for financial reasons and partly difficulty in any kind of international travel....

After the collapse of communism people wanted to go somewhere else and travel to Bulgaria more or less completely stopped until around 2006 or so... now it's one of the main destinations again. I never heard of Poles in the PRL vacationing in Jugoslavija though presumably some did...

Here's a slide show but for some reason it doesn't load in my browser... maybe you'll have better luck...

turystyka.wp.pl/wczasy-w-czasach-prl-6043989699368065g

Sorry, but I've never been to Bulgaria, but I heard stories of people going there for a summer holiday in all family packed into the Polski Fiat 126P. It seemed an absolutely crazy idea to me at that time not even mentioning our time.

I was once on the Balaton lake (the Hungarian sea) during the PRL times. Also in Budapest and the western part of Hungary. All was magical for me in Hungary even if the country was then Poland's socialist "brother country". I did not have that feeling either in Czechoslovakia or the USSR or the DDR.

Maybe it's me but even today Hungary somehow just feels and looks nicer than ex DDR, Czechia, the non mountain parts of Slovakia, and most of former USSR. Heck, to me the roads and small towns on the way to Balaton felt more developed than small ones in Austria and Slovak ones.

And what about today, do Poles mostly go to Croatia and Italy?

Even more so than Poland there is a big East-West divide in Hungary... Budapest and the Duna are the rough boundaries. Places like Veszprem and Szekesfehervar in western Hungary are very clean and developed looking. But go further east to Miskolc and it's a very different story...

Budapest is its own thing and you get all the extremes of wealth and poverty of the country crammed in to one city.


you already asked that and I answered... look that up before asking again....

Yeah, Miskolc is like a Slovak town almost. Debrecen looks good though

More importantly, it was the first European city I saw a real ethnic shanty town in (as in people living in wooden shacks)

I thought you visited Moscow twice a year during Communist times mafketis, but i guess that was more of a work trip?

Most people took their holidays in Poland. There were (and still are) a lot of holiday centres, some belonging to Trade Unions, some to various clubs and associations and some private.

They're very popular for weddings nowadays, however there are always still no shortage of holidaymakers in season.

Most Poles have in the past and still do, take most of their holidays in Poland.
Either by the sea, by lakes, by rivers, by forests or in the mountains.
In recent years some, mainly young Poles have gone abroad.

You'd be surprised. Most people here have travelled, different places are popular year on year according to wherever Tui, Itaka or Rainbow are marketing.

All communist block countries accepted Poles as tourists, even the USSR. But it differed throughout the times - eg., during Solidarity period 1980-81 the tourist exchange with Poland was blocked by some countries, e.g., East Germany which feared anti-communist infection.

There was no seperate Croatia but Yugoslavia then. I visited Belgrade in mid 1970s.

As a student I was on holiday in Greece. I sold my guitar and camera there and the holiday paid for itself. Poles were very enterprising then.

Yes my mother brought back some fur coats from Afghanistan.

When on domestic holiday, my family used to travel two directions - southern Poland to the town of Rabka or Zakopane and northern Poland - the seaside with Kołobrzeg as the main destination.

Poles preferred to travel to places where "meat and fat" food bonds were not needed:

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This means all countries in Europe except such communist dinosaurs as Romania and Albania. And Cuba in the world.

That is, almost everywhere.