Central Europe in sunmer: good or bad idea ?

We were there in mid-late June and it was very nice. I would assume it get hotter in July and August, but I say work with what you’ve got, schedule wise, like planning strenuous activities for earlier in the day when possible.

Certainly you must travel now. The only question is where.

The places you mentioned will not be worse than Rome. They may or may not be cooler; Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava have pretty similar temperature patterns in the summer--in theory somewhat cooler than Rome. Take a look at the climate-summary charts in Wikipedia, but consider that they almost certainly understate the level of heat you will experience, because those averages are based on data going back to 1991. We are all aware that summers have gotten noticeably hotter since then. The Wikipedia data indicates Krakow is a lot hotter, on average, than the other three cities, but its record highs are lower; I am rather doubtful that the comparison is accurate. As always, I recommend checking out the actual, historical, day-by-day weather statistics for the most recent five years on the website timeanddate.com. That's where you'll find out how many extremely bad days there have been in recent years.

If you can spend some time up in the mountains along the way, that would be smart, and as you no know, getting an early start in the morning is very, very useful.

My trip this year subjected me to an amazing (in a bad way) series of miserably hot days. I started in Albania in mid-May, then I traveled through North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Switzerland (very briefly) and northern Italy. I was unusually unlucky, but I knew all of those places could be (and some of them definitely would be) extremely hot in the summer. It's just that the heat settled in early and I had virtually no breaks from the heat until about the second week of September. I hope you are more fortunate.

I was in all of those cities in mid-July and while some would say hot, not really unpleasant for me. High temps on my trip ranged from upper 70's in Vienna to a couple of 100 degree days in Budapest. Mostly it was in the 80's and low 90's but not as humid as I had expected and not uncomfortable at all. I was used to humid summer heat where I lived most of my life, but as I age I find I don't tolerate heat as well as when young. My hotel in Vienna was air conditioned but it was not that hot when I was there. I stayed in apartments in Krakow and Budapest - Krakow had no A/C but Budapest did and I was thankful as that was the hottest city. Now, that was a few years ago and temps have risen slightly on average. But I will say that I was also in Rome and in Istanbul in July of another year and they were brutally hot, especially in the ruins.

If you can tolerate heat at all you should be fine. But these days predicting weather is so iffy that no one can really say. If you have any problem with heat make sure your lodgings have A/C and you'll be fine. I absolutely loved all of those places so much that the weather did not have much impact. I'm sure you'll love it there. Budapest is now my favorite European city after Paris.

Given the 2 options, I would suggest travel now in the summer heat. I do that re: Central Europe and France as well, did that prior to retirement and currently too as a retiree.

All 3 cities you list I have been there only to in the summer; I go back to Vienna on every trip as I'll be doing next summer too, and it can get pretty warm to hot.

Thanks to all for those answers (you can keep them coming !)
MrÉ: we will have 32-to 40 nights.Those suggestions are fine, but we already been to Prague and Cesky Krumlov, ok it was almost 20 years ago but stil...

Yes we do mean Slovakia.Maybe we could have 5-7 nights for that country...if it's worth it ! We already know that Bratislava doesn't worth a stay but maybe we will do it as a daytrip from Vienna.

Our trip must happen between june 30 and august 18.

Going back to your initial question, if your choice is travel in July or don’t travel, the answer is obviously
(to me) travel in July. And go where you want to go.

It does take a certain mindset of being ok to take some time off if you are hot and tired. But this is a good mental strategy for any trip - things aren’t always perfect and we can never see everything. I was in Venice in July this year, and while it is certainly not a first choice, it is manageable (just an example).

Maybe making sure your lodging has air conditioning in some places would help - that way if you are hot and tired, you have a cool place to recoup.

As far as Slovakia, I haven’t been yet, but I had an outline ready last year (that I had to cancel). I was going as far as Kocise by train, then renting a car driving across the country and returning it in Banska Bystrica (I had the car reserved), then bus on to Budapest. Since I didn’t get to do it, I don’t know how it would have worked - but I do know it is possible.

Have you considered Slovenia? I was there this year in June,weather was wonderful, people were kind and friendly, Ljubljana is a beautiful city. Bus system is efficient, clean and modern. I took busses from Ljubljana to Lake Bled and lake Bohinj . It is a small country so distance is not far.

1) We will check for AC where we can. We usually (95% of time) rent airbnb, so we will look into comments for working and decent AC !
2) Rent a car ? why not we have done it 6 times in Europe (France, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Spain and Portugal) without any problems.
3) Slovenia is a great idea, but we already done 2 weeks there 4 years ago .
4) Slovakia will be on our list for sure. Maybe we coul take the train to Bratislava, stay a night there and rent a car from Bratislava the next day.

while we are on vacation

What is the range of dates for your "vacation"?

Where I am, "vacation season" generally runs from late May to early Sept which encompasses more than the height of summer that is July & August.

Knowing your actual date range helps a lot for replies.

We want to do a 32-36 days trip. That trip must happen somewhere between june 30 and august 18.

I think as long as you have a place with AC you should be ok. Poland sometimes gets hot and humid later in the summer season, but mostly it's bearable. Best to visit sooner than later though, climate change will only make the summers worse.

I don't think this was mentioned about Slovakia yet but they are on the Euro, making them roughly twice as expensive as their neighbors (most have their own local currencies). You can always homebase in the Polish Tatras and daytrip using a car to northern Slovakia (that's what I did).

Why not Scandinavia and / or Northern Germany? With that plenty of time you can rent a house at Danish North Sea beaches and then start a round tour through the nicest Scandinavian places.

If you take Bratislava out of the equation (because its really more of an Austrian economy), then Slovakia is maybe 15% more expensive than Hungary; and I think thats high. The US is twice the cost of Hungary (well almost, depending on how you look at it, Budapest is 30% to 50% less than the US). But unless you want to ride a bunch of busses, the cost of tourism in Slovakia will be higher because you will most likely be depending on more private providers than in places like Hungary.

Vienna and Austria in general will be the most expensive of the places on your list. I was there a few weeks ago and went into cost shock, but then I live in Budapest so ......

The Idea of Slovenia isnt bad if it was meant "in addition to" Budapest and Vienna. But as a stand alone destination .... ehhhhh. I dont think there are direct flights from Budapest or Vienna and its something like an 7.5 hour train ride from Vienna or Budapest. Not really the most accessible place in the world.

Thanks so much for the responses! We had a FABULOUS trip and loved Poland and Slovakia. Krakow was incredible, magical and affordable, and the people were lovely. We stayed at a spa hotel in Zakopane (the town is SO busy but it's fun) and then day tripped into Slovakia both days to hike and explore the mountains. Slovakia prices were nearly double Poland's because they are on the Euro. I'd highly recommend staying and eating on the Polish side. We took the chair lift and gondola up to Tatranská Lomnica and it was stunning!!!

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/poland/krakow-and-slovakia

No arguing with perception.

But, saying Slovakia is twice the cost of Hungary, Poland, Austria and Ukraine ready doesn't hold up.

don't think this was mentioned about Slovakia yet but they are on the
Euro, making them roughly twice as expensive as their neighbors

These guys and a few other sources I checked before I posted above (I try and do that cause when i wing it i am generally wrong) disagreed. https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/hungary. But to be honest, no two sources were the same. But, this one put the most expensive Eastern European country as Poland, 5th Slovakia and 9th Hungary. The other sources showed a 7 to 10% spread between the three.

I'm curious, why all the discussion about costs of different countries? I don't believe the OP mentioned anything about budget considerations, only about the weather in mid-summer.

The OP was warned that if he went to Slovakia it would cost twice as much as Hungary and Poland because Slovakia was on the Euro. Since the OP is in the decision making stages, thought it important to correct the error. If it were true, I might choose another location than Slovakia too.

Poland is almost unbelievably inexpensive, aside from Warsaw. Czechia is also, even Prague. They're both wonderful places to be in the summer, especially if you make sure to have A/C.

If you have a time frame then you go, summer or not. Or else, you will be at your home in summer, and it may be hot. So the point is, do you want to travel or not?

We want to do a mix of cities (Vienna, Budapest, Krakow) and mountains sights. Are those place really more unbearable than Rome ?

The answer - especially in comparison to Rome - is "NO - those places will in no way be unbearable in the summer."

There are online historical weather apps, and also, in the "Conversions and Climate" section of any RS guide book (or any guidebook generally) there is a overview of weather averages/ranges you can expect.

Europe - a relatively large place - does have sporadic heatwaves in the summer - but those are unpredictable. You do run into "no AC" hotels and the like, but that's usually more a logistic thing - choosing your needs - but if you could handle Rome in the Summer, you should easily be able to handle the expected weather in places like VIenna or Budapest or similar.

Once again many thanks for all the helps and all those answers !

1) I didnt ask anything about the cost because we have Travel in France, Spain, Portugal , Italy , Croatia, Slovenia and Germany before so my guess is that all those places we want to see would be the same or less than those countries which is perfectly fine for us. A quick look on AIrBnb for lodging price show prices that are fit on our budget, we dont need to know more, for now !

2) Mr. É : thanks for that proposed itnerary. We will have to make some adjustement to it since we are leaving from Montréal and not USA. We will also fly to Venice because flight there is 500$ less per person (so 2000$) than Budapest, Vienna, Krakow or Munich...or anywhere else in central Europe.

We would take the train from Venice (which we already seen twice) to Vienna or Insbruck,. We would also go to Bratislava from Vienna by train and we would rent a car there (Bratislava) for the remaining (Slovakia, Poalnd and Hungary) of the trip. Drop the car at the end (in Bratislava), go back to Vienna, and once again train to Venice.

"Bearable" is very much a personal assessment.

I was in Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in early September. Was it hot? Yes. But no hotter than New York in August, which I am used to, though less humid.

As for going now or waiting until you're retired, you never know what twists and turns will happen in your lives. If you can go now, you should.