Solo 24 Backpacking Eastern Europe

Of the countries/towns you list, I've only been to Hungary and Poland, ie Budapest on 3 day trips and Warsaw, both well worth the time and effort getting there. Great food too. You are leaving 80 days for Eastern Europe after the Italian phase. Be advised to check out any visa requirement. The good part about traveling that long duration in east-central and eastern Europe is that with the trains no reservations are mandatory. If you're under 26, use a Pass and point to point tickets as a combination. . Budapest is a hub for EN night trains.

Just curious...how did you "go crazy" in downtown Warsaw?

By the way, have you ever considered going to Romania or Bulgaria? Seems to fit the laid back country (and even rural/rustic) lifestyle

Spend some time on the Deutsche Bahn website, exploring train schedules. That will give you a sense of how long it takes to move from place to place, especially when you are changing countries. That can eat up a lot of time. Since you don't want to simply hop from capital city to capital city, you may also end up using a lot of buses. Googling "bus City A to City B" will often turn up information about the travel time and frequency of buses. I suspect you will find that seeing some of the smaller, less touristy towns will take additional transportation time and lead to a reduction in the number of countries you can visit even though you'll have 80 days.

I spent quite a bit of time in the Balkans in 2015 but have no experience traveling in the central and northern countries you propose to visit. For my itinerary, I figured my average speed on buses and trains at about 30 mph (50 kph).

Thanks for the Advice Fred, I have getting more information about the Visa requirements for various countries. I have decided to not take the Euro Rail pass and buy the Train tickets on the go, what do you suggest regarding that ?

By Crazy, I meant in a good way Agnes. I was simply mesmerized by the downtown area. I have considered them, just not able to finalize, there are so many countries, really need help to finalize the itinerary.

Thanks for the advice, Acramen. I will surely do that. I know I cannot go everywhere and visit every places. My whole reason for trip is to be alone and I don't know what will be realized. Really need to finalize the itinerary, not able to decide where to go and not go.

Rick has TV shows on some of the countries on your list. You can watch them right on this website.

Although the places he focuses on tend to be among the most touristy in their respective countries, they are mostly not touristy in the same sense as cities in countries like Italy and France.

Hi,

On the validity of a East Europe Pass: it's a trade-off, depending upon what you value more...savings or flexiibility, without locking yourself to a specific train departure and train #. Often times in east Europe there the bus lines, some extensive. I would not preclude that option, I did it once in Poland as a day trip going from Torun to Chelmno, another small town (historical) in the lower Vistula area. In Poland and the Czech Republic I always bought point to point tickets, never used a Pass, never discount tickets, even on train rides taking over 9.5 hours.

With 90 days, I would not skip Romania and Bulgaria. You could probably do a quick run through the Balkans as well.

My suggestion would be to go from Croatia to Bosnia or Serbia, make your way to Bulgaria, go up through Romania to get to Hungary. If you like walkable cities, you'll love Sofia and Bucharest.