Vienna or Poland? (Krakow/Warsaw)

It's your trip, and just because Budapest, Vienna, Prague is a common threesome does not mean you have to do it that way. If you don't have much interest in Vienna, then skip it and substitute Poland (either Krakow or Warsaw or both). It seems that you have 13 nights on the ground so you could do all four on a 4-3-3-3 night stay. If you haven't bought your airfare yet, I would fly into one city and home from a different one. You could fly into Budapest, then to Prague, Krakow, and home from Warsaw, or the other way around. Research the travel options between cities to see what works best. I didn't get to Warsaw but I really enjoyed Krakow and I would highly recommend it.

I have been to both Vienna and Krakow and I would definitely go back to Krakow. You can visit the nearby salt mine and take a day trip to Auschwitz if you are interested. I didn't enjoy Vienna as much, but I know from reading posts on this forum that many people love Vienna.

We haven't been to Budapest but we did do Prague- Vienna -Poland. I have to say we liked Poland the best and hope to go back someday. We only made it to Krakow but spent 3 days there, and could have stayed longer. Vienna was great too- but if it doesn't interest you much then I would bypass it. Infact we've been to Austria a couple times and I did enjoy Vienna but I liked the Salzburg and Hallstatt area more.

Another advantage of dropping Vienna is that is by far the most expensive of the cities listed. Make sure you check out Olomouc too. It's on the way between Prague and Krakow.

Thank you for the suggestions!

14 Days?
I have a 17 day trip coming up soon. Its
US to Yerevan (about a week including travel) to Kyiv (2 nights after an early 1 hour flight) to Budapest (another week) to US. Kyiv is a return trip and just two nights and is mainly to take advantage of low cost flights to get to Budapest (and because I love Kyiv).

More conventional would be:
1 Depart US
2 Arrive Prague
3 Prague
4. Prague
5. Prague to Cesky Krumlov by shuttle (I think about 3 hours)
6 Cesky Krumlov to Vienna by shuttle (I think about 3 hours)
7 Vienna
8 Vienna (not my favorite city either but worth seeing as everyone is different and you just might enjoy it - millions do)
9 Vienna to Gyor by train (1.5 hours) - Pannonhalma Archabby day trip.
10 Gyor to Budapest by train (1.5 hours)
11 Budapest
12 Budapest
13 Budapest
14 Budapest home.

When we did the trip above I hired a driver to Cesky K. so we could visit a couple of castles on the way. If you do that then add a night to the stay in Cesky K. Remember too, that two weeks is 16 days, not 14.

Another option is fly into Prague then Czech Airlines has cheap flights to Budapest. What you want to do is match up cheap flights to make a trip. Hence my upcoming itinerary above. Budapest is great because its Wizzair's hub and you can get to a lot of Europe for under $100 and 2 hours.

I just look to minimize travel time. Airports do take some time, but that 1.5hour advance check in is usually the time I eat breakfast so lost time is only about 45 minutes. For me the $75 short haul nonstop flights have opened a whole new world.

Unless you are very interested in music, I am not sure there is that much to do in Vienna. I agree with other posters that Krakow was very enjoyable. I also visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and it is something to see, especially Birkenau, which is much more compelling in my opinion.

I've been to Warsaw, Krakow, Prague and Vienna and enjoyed the Polish cities more than the others. They are lively, pretty and very interesting, in my opinion. I didn't care too much for Vienna, I thought it rather staid and almost boring. I thought it might have been just me but see that others on this post feel that there are more compelling places to visit.