Travel tips for family of five from Budapest to Prague to Berlin

Well we can handle the spelunking in Budapest. But you take a real left turn when you head off to Slovenia. http://goo.gl/maps/Kij6h Also, way too much travel for my taste. Why dont you study the Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg region. Or if you are more adventerous Budapest, Slovak High Tatras, Krakow sort of direction. Even braver, head for the Carpathians.

10 days for 4 great cities is simply not enough time, and you might to better to cut Berlin. EuropeanDestinations.com does a good job booking package deals including train tickets. Check them out. 4 days each for Budapest, Vienna and Prague would probably satisfy you. Budapest: Try www.charleshotel.hu for a great location. Vienna: K&T Boardinghouse has a great location and is very reasonably priced. Tina and Kaled are really neat hosts. They're online. Prague: Checkout Rick's Grafitti Wall for Heroic B&B's and see if any names pop out in Prague. You can also find rooms at Hotel.com or Booking.com in every price range.

Thanks for the info. We live in Spain rights now, so have been to Saltzburg a couple of times. Was thinking about overnight train from Budapest to Prague to save a day, and looking to see if there is one. Have noticed some blogs about the stop at Krakow, worth the visit? Kids range from 20 to 8

On your way from Budapest to Prague there is a city of Brno. Nearby are probably the best caves of the Czech Republic called Punkva caves. Half of your excursion is on foot and half is on the boat on the underground river and lake. On your excursion you get to the bottom of the deepest abyss in the C.R. called Macocha (stepmother). There is an interesting story about that name. You can get to the top of the abyss by cable car or walk. The closest real mountains to the places you named are Austrian Alps or High Tatras (Vysoke Tatry) in Slovakia. Lake Bled is indeed beautiful but little bit out of your way. If you decide for High Tatras then Krakow is just a short way behind the border with Poland and it's certainly worth visit.

That sounds great! Thanks so much.

Anyone have any info on whether its best to buy train tickets now, or wait until arrive in Budapest? Also comparing eurorail, but seems to be cheaper just buying one way tickets. Looking at budapest to Brno, to prague. Is CK better to see than Brno?

I have been to Cesky Krumlov and loved it. I havent been to Brno but i have heard nothing but good things about it for years now. Here are some pictures of Cesky Krumlov: http://budapestflat.shutterfly.com/cz2 Here is a link to the caves in Budapest. Doesnt sound as well developed for tourism as the one described in Brno but it does provide the opportunity to actually get off a path and crawl through the caves (with a guide). Havent done it yet but its on my list of things to do: http://cavingtours.caving.hu/ I've been to the High Tatras and enjoyed it enough to want to go back in April this year: http://budapestflat.shutterfly.com/slovakia Not exactly the snow capped Alps but this will be our third trip into Slovakia in as many years. If you really want to see what most people think of when they think of Eastern Europe you need to go to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovkia; Ukraine if you are really brave. You could fly into Sofia where i know a good guide that could show you as much or as little as you are interested in and then hook you up with a Romanian to take you through Romania and into Budapest. We've done a very similar trip and it was a trip of a life time. Because you are dealing with some of the less developed countries the cost of all of this is pretty reasonable. There are photos at that somae web site as above.

Buy ticket to Brno when you get to Budapest and to Prague when you get to Brno. That will be the cheapest. You would probably want to sit together so I would recommend to buy reservation for seats, too. There are plenty of direct trains. You can check schedule on Deutsche Bahn website. Train from Budapest to Brno takes 4 h. 12 min. Train from Brno to Prague about 2 h. 40 min.
Cesky Krumlov is a picturesque almost fairy tale small town with a castle on the hill above the town and river Vltava winding around the center of the town. Disadvantage for you is that C.K. is at least three hours by Yellow bus south of Prague or little bit longer by train with one change in Ceske Budejovice. Brno has feeling of the big city, maybe bigger than it really is (400 thousand). Walk through the downtown, climb the tower of Petrov cathedral for views, visit Spilberk castle on the hill. There is a tourist information center in the Old City Hall.

I would not recommend to do any side trips. 10 days isn't much for these cities. Ideally people should stay at least(!) 2 or 3 days in Budapest, 2 or 3 days in Prague and 5 or 6 days in Berlin (and 4 or 5 in Vienna). Especially Berlin is a huge city which grows on you the longer you stay. Cesky Krumlov is very beautiful, but also out of the way (and way to touristy these days if you ask me). And Brno might be quite interesting, but I think you would waste precious time there. Ditto for the High Tatras. Have you looked on a map? The train from Prague to Berlin crosses (and stops in) Saxon/Bohemian Switzerland. The mountains are very picturesque and kids love them, but also allow at least half a day there. http://www.saechsische-schweiz.de/cgi-bin/click.system?navid=65&sid=c

Thanks everyone for all the great advice! So very helpful. I think the stop in Switzerland on the way to Berlín is perfect. I am assuming traíns have Wifi? Will be coordinating travél with Wifi as husband in middle of Masters program And Will unfortunately be doping work as we travél.

Definitely make it to Slovenia to see Lake Bled, it is fantastic.
Maybe try Budapest-Slovenia-Austria etc ending in Berlin. Greg

With 5, it is WAYYYY cheaper to rent a car. We did Vienna-Budapest-Plitvice Lakes-Split-Ljubljana-Salzburg-Vienna in 2011 June. We rented from Avis, $650 for the entire time and the car was a midsize VW Golf. A little small for my 3 kids 21-21-25, but acceptable since we only used it for transit between cities. Probably $900 with gas and autoban vouchers. And convenient! Also forced us to pack light, light, light, since the trunk was not huge.

I would do 2-3 days in Budapest, 2-3 days in Vienna, 2-3 days in Prague, forget Berlin, and enjoy the trips more. Transit between stops is very time-consuming and tiring. Also use the car.

I was reading that going between countries and getting passes was difficult? Also would be picking up car in budapest ad dropping off in another country, so rate much higher. Will rebook at prices though. Thx much

Going across borders and getting freeway passes is not difficult. If your itinerary is Budapest, Brno, Prague, Berlin I would not use car even if it would be little cheaper which I doubt anyway. Your cost would be rental, insurance, gasoline (very expensive in Europe), freeway stickers for each country and Slovakia, parking (it's not cheap in big cities), event. fines and huge drop off fee for renting in Hungary and returning in Germany. Plus hassles of driving in big cities you don't know. I also noticed that many Americans don't know international traffic signs and drive in Europe. If you are lucky you end up just with traffic fine. In the Czech Republic (and I assume in other countries, too) when more people than one travel by train you get a group discount. The more people the better discount. I would rent a car just for visiting sights in rural areas and dropping it at the same place I rented it.

I disagree with Ilja. As to the drop-off fee, we did a round trip, and had no fee. For 2, the car is not cheaper. For 5, I cannot imagine that the train is cheaper, and with kids, it's far more convenient. As I noted, we park in cities and take public transit. Very easy, very easy. In many cities, I parked for free - part of the accomodations. In Budapest, we stayed in a long-term apartment with Maria and Istvan Battagliarini mariaistvan@upcmail.hu (your Hungarian aunt and uncle) and they parked our car for real cheap. But I never drove inside cities - not only are the signs difficult to interpret, but the implications of the signs were hard - is a right turn RIGHT HERE or the next block? But for our trip it made the whole thing very very easy, and convenient. With 5, I'd for sure do the car.

Connie, despite the passion on all sides of the subject there really isn't a right or a wrong way to most things when traveling. The Budapest, Vienna leg of the trip in second class train might cost a little more than 100 euro (USD130) for five people if you purchase the tickets in country a few days in advance; unless the prices have risen markedly in the last year. I would imagine the Vienna Prague leg might be something less than 30% more. If you figure door to door driving your own car might save you a few hours of time but I would imagine the cost is going to be somewhat higher for the rental and drop off in Austria; but again I have never done it so your woudl have to do the research. If you park it for a couple of days you will be paying for unused rental and for the parking costs which despite some folks good luck are generally pretty high in the inner cities. If you stay in the EU then crossing borders is a non event. You will barely notice leaving Hungary and entering Austria, no check, no guard, not much more than a painted line. Yes, most of the good roads are toll roads and you have to know which is which and where to get the tags. Fail to do so and the rental company will send you a pretty massive bill (or so I am told). But it isn't all about money so if you will enjoy the freedom that the car affords then that's would you should do. I will say, that since I know that I will be the one doing the driving that I won't rent a car. I want to look out the window and see the sights. I can't do that effectively and watch the road at the same time so we either take public transportation or hire a car and driver (something less than $280 a day more or less).

Paul, you are right. If you do roundtrip then for 5 people car is cheaper. But doing roundtrip does not seem to be practical solution for Connie and dropping fees in another country (for Connie: Hungary and Germany) are really close to astronomical. Last fall 5 of us were in the Czech Republic (and Russia). We rented a nice car Skoda Superb for 3 days for almost 4000 Kc (crowns). We were returning it at the same place. We were going to see some countryside. We also traveled by train and being five of us we have a substantial discount. I also rent a car almost every time I am in Europe but for long distances between big cities I obviously prefer train even if there are more of us.

I am assuming traíns have Wifi? That's not an assumption I'd be willing to make.

Thank you all for all the advice and ideas. We live in Spain as I am in the military, and we have also lived in Italy so completely understand the difficulty in reading some of these road signs. Will be retiring in May and moving back to USA sometime over the summer so that is why we are trying fit in all these last minute travel requests from my kids and husband. Will be trying expand my trip to accommodate these great plans from you all. Thanks!
Connie