Wondering which transport is best for traveling in Eastern Europe?

If you have ever visited Eastern Europe, you absolutely already know one thing – in these countries it takes a bit longer to travel from one place to another. When in the Western Europe train liness are greatly well developed (a great example may be TGV in France), in many Eastern European countries that can still be an issue. A good example, to present this subject more, can be Poland. It is the biggest country in the region, which is highly attractive for tourists, due to the fact that:

- Poland has sea, mountains and many lakes;
- Poland is bordered with a few other smaller countries, that are a perfect destination for 1-2 days trip, (for example, Lithuania).

However, plenty of tourists may be still disappointed. Why? It is rather obvious. A lot of of them have heard that in Poland it is easy to experience everything you want – sea, lakes, rivers and mountains (find out). Nevertheless, it is not repeatedly mentioned, that transport between those spots is rather bad. Despite the fact that new train connections were introduced lately , most of them are still rather slow. E.g., it may take up to dozen hours to travel from the sea to the mountains. Even though there are several express train, there are much more expensive than the standard one. Coach enterprises do their best, to offer better connections. They offer fast and highly well organized bus connections, not only between big Polish cities, but neighboring countries. This is worth to notice that bus companies perfectly fit into the market niche. Passengers, tired with slow and always delayed trains, started to travel mainly by buses. However, it is still worth to be aware, that there are not many highways yet. This means that even though bus companies try their best to make travel as quick as possible, the travel time still hugely depends on public roads. Therefore, travel from one site of Poland to the other one, might still take a long time.

Happily, the problem has been noted by many airlines. Few years ago, domestic flights were not that popular. Even though there were, for example, flights to Wroclaw, there were rather expensive compared to trains or buses connections. So, they were not very famous. It was very similar case with flights to neighbouring countries, for instance, flights from warsaw to Vilnius. A while ago, individuals were travelling mostly by coaches (click).
Luckily, this has changed a while ago. Airlines started to see the big potential in the needs of passengers travelling on short distances. They not only introduced new connections between various Polish cities and neighbouring countries, but also started to have more competitive prices.

Consequently, if you are going to travel around Eastern Europe, my advice would be as following – remember to check flight connection first. This is not an advice you would find in travel guides or hear from local. However, trust me. It might save a lot of your precious time.