Help with Eastern Europe
 

Im planning on going travelling this summer for roughly 1-2 months, with eastern europe been the destination, mainly as it is near and 'cheap'. Im a travel virgin so have no idea regarding budget rail, rail passes etc.
so fair my rough plan is to fly to prague, head to budapest, lake batalon (Hungary), Zagreb, Dalmation coast and then the travelling seems to become a little tricky. Ideally i look then to head over to Bulgaria, ultimatley finishing in Athens or Istanbul!!!!

Can anyone please offer past experiences for a similar trip, ideas, money needed

cheers
Mike

G'day Mike, Welcome to TravelPunk!

Firstly you won't need a rail pass for Eastern Europe, travel is very affordable and rail passes aren't great value.

Secondly I'd recommend you add Poland to your itinerary. Krakow was one of my favorite places in Europe.

just moving this thread to the Eastern Europe forum!

I don't have much experience with this, I'm planning out my eastern european adventure at the moment! what I've found though is that if you want to do it by rail, don't buy a eurail pass! half the countries you want to go to aren't covered by eurail and point-to-point train tickets in eastern europe are really cheap anyway.

Sounds like a good plan. Prague will be an excellent intro for a "travel virgin." As for Bulgaria, I enjoyed it quite a bit, as well. The most difficult part was reading the Cyrllic signs in the bus stations. So, if you can, maybe start boning up a bit and teaching yourself to read the Cyrllic alphabet? Other than that, you can always ask someone in the station which bus goes to your city. People are pretty helpful there.

My favorite part of Bulgaria was the old, walled fort at Veliko Turnovo. It is a bit of hike to get there, though. The "second city" in Bulgaria, Plovdiv, is nice, as well...

Feel free to ask any specific questions...

worldwidemike

You can get from Dubrovnik to Bulgaria fairly easily. Take a bus from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo, then one from Sarajevo to Belgrade, then a train from Belgrade to Sofia. Stop off in Mostar on the way to Sarajevo as well, it's a lovely little town to spend a couple of days in.

cheers for the advise its appreciated. Has anyone any ideas on what kind of budget id need for such a trip. Also how is Serbia, Bosnia etc, is that region generally safe to travel through

Mike

:afro:

The dangers are passed. Go before the rest of the world discovers them! The only potential hot spot is Kosovo, but I don't think the Serbs are going to contest their attempts to wriggle free...

They've had their flare of nationalism, hopefully, and are done with that whole international condemnation thing...at least that's my take on it.

worldwidemike