Recent "off season :)" trip to Central/Eastern Europe

Try Ireland, Scotland and Greece. We have not encountered hordes of tourists in any of these locations.

Go to Romania or Bulgaria off season. Bosnia (except for Mostar as far as crowds go) is another great place to visit. Even Poland is fine off season (everyone flocks to Krakow, although there are many other towns and cities much less crowded). All of these places will be easy on your wallet.

Thank you Tammy and Agnes !

Head further east.

I hate crowds, too. I found the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) delightfully free of tourist crowds (with the exception of Tallinn, which is understandably quite popular) -- and that was in mid-summer at the height of what one would expect as "peak tourist season." Prices were less than what you expect in much of overly-popular Europe, too.

Also, avoid any place that gets (or is within a couple hours of) cruise ships. That's getting harder and harder, as cruise ships are now nearly everywhere. That, plus going outside peak tourist season, is the combination you seek.

I think Prague is always swamped with crowds now, always. I attempted to get some crowd-free photos of the popular bridge on Sept 30th. Got up at oh-dark-thirty and made my way to the bridge well before dawn -- it was still dark out. To my shock, there were hundreds of people there on the bridge, rank after rank of photographers in lines setting up their tripods with enormous lenses, countless staged wedding photo shoots being set up with bride & groom and wedding party (all Chinese, I believe) in full regalia. It looked like Times Square on New Years Eve - and this was on a cold autumn morning the last day of September at something like 5:30 am. I think there's just no escaping the crowds there, as in other over-touristed places. It is what it is.

Outside their capitals and other tourist hotspots all the countries you mention have lots and lots of most worthwhile and rewarding larger and smaller cities, which have all the amenities you want without the hordes. And within those popular destinations the 90/10 rule applies as well.
In Germany you see only local tourists in places like Wismar and Lübeck on the Baltic coast; the same is in the centre when you go to places like Marburg, Coburg or Fulda. In Poland almost nobody goes beyond Kraków, Warsaw and Gdansk. In Czechia you have the country almost to yourself when you go outside Prague, Cesky Krumlov and Kutna Hora. Even wonderful Telc and nearby Slavonice seem to be out of favour. In Austria the tourist route seems to be Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Hallstatt. Who goes to Graz or does a Baroque monastery trip which brings you at the nicest places?
Get a good guide book. Select the places which appeal to you and don't figure in popular itineraries.

Visit your library and check out a single-country guide book to a place you're interested in. There will be many intriguing places, most of them not heavily visited by foreign tourists. Go to some of those places in addition to (or instead of) the places that rate entire chapters in multi-country guide books. That has worked for me in Italy and France as well as in places like Romania and Bulgaria.

If you go to popular cities (and I'd add Edinburgh, Gdansk, Krakow and L'viv to the problem list, as well as the obvious places like Barcelona), only go to the most popular sights if they truly interest you. Allow yourself time to explore off the well-trodden path.

Do not take trips that allocate only a few days per country, because you'll probably end up feeling you have to spend all of those days in the most important (touristy, crowded) city.

Off season is late January, early February. May not be totally devoid of tourists, but certainly less. Of course there is s weather downside and shorter daylight hours, and flight challenges. Or visit secondary or tertiary towns.

We're currently in south west Ireland and aren't experiencing any crowds at all. Nice days are busier at some of the scenic spots, but we just drove the south part of Ring of Kerry and the Skellig Ring and there were very few people. Yesterday we had Healy Pass on the Beara Penninsula all to ourselves.

Thank all of you for your replies.

I feel like a moron since I consider myself a good traveler and NOT a clueless tourist but I did fall into an expensive trap this time because of presuming it was off-season and that Eastern and Central Europe were less traveled than the more typical countries we visit. Wrong. I will not easily make this mistake again and will try to wipe a lot of the experience from my memory. Mea Culpa !

Just wanted to tell you that we were in Prague a couple years ago in April. We came after a week in Vienna. Prague was much more crowded than Vienna and full of bus loads of Asian tourists. I too was taken back. I had wanted to go to Prague for 30 years but frankly because of the crowds I was disappointed and will not go back.

I had been in Vienna thirty years earlier and I didn’t think it was that much more crowded now than then. And I will return.

We recently were in London and it wasn’t that crowded except in certain spots. It seemed like Chicago or any other large US city. And we were there in June.

So I think there are differences in how touristed places are, even today.

Crowds and weekend revelers from the U.K. are good reasons to avoid Prague.
We just go to Budapest instead. and we feel much more comfortable there.

We visited Prague for the first time two years ago and found many ways during our week there to avoid the crowds. For one thing, we stayed in the 7th district (across the river; easily accessible by tram). Then, we spent a great deal of time in the outdoors in various areas. Sure, we spent some time in the touristed areas to see certain sights - but not the majority of our time. We loved Prague and would visit again in a heartbeat.

ruggles321, I loved Bulgaria! Beautiful country, very friendly people. Interesting and historical sites, but not “world famous”. Very affordable prices. Very few tourists, even in the “on” season, except for Sunny Beach (resort primarily for Russian visitors), and I would definitely recommend avoiding Sunny Beach. Even if you have no interest in an organized tour, take a look at the itinerary of the RS Best of Bulgaria tour, which is truly a winner.

I am so sorry that you had a difficult time with crowds in Europe this month. We found the Scandinavian countries, plus London and Leiden, NL not very crowded at all in August. We traveled around the Netherlands from Leiden to many other small cities and towns by train, and again, did not deal with crowds.
Florence, Italy was grid locked in October and pleasant and uncrowded in late June. A puzzlement for sure. Last October we were in Puglia and Sicily in October and they were not crowded. Delightful.
Get out to smaller, less touristed cities at those times of year. Wasn't Oslo wonderful?
Other than Berlin, I didn't really care for the cities you visited. Prague was mobbed many years ago in May and I have no desire to return. It is a crap shoot but I've offered places and times where we didn't deal with crowds and hope this helps somewhat.

Klodzko, in Polish Sudentenland, coincidentally nicknamed "Little Prague" had literally 0% foreign tourists when I went there in Sept 2017, had a 17th century Prussian Star Fortress all to myself to explore! It's also one of the oldest towns in Poland and suffered no damage during WWII.

Interesting post. Thank you

Thank you all for your input. This is a great forum for real-time information. I will not travel again without checking in with the community to verify what we are all seeking, a genuine travel experience. With Baby Boomers traveling, a strong dollar
and rising Chinese middle class it is becoming difficult to have a great travel experience. There's simply too many of us seeking the world's treasures. There is absolutely no place that is not made miserable by too many people.

Ruggles, on our recent trip we certainly saw crowds, and the section of Prague from the Castle to Old Town Square was practically a parody of over tourism.
However, there were times on our trip when we saw far fewer tourists, such as a beautiful walk north of the Hradcany castle area around Stomovoka Park, or visiting Bambergs Residenz when it seemed that myself, my wife and 10 random German tourists were practically the only tourists in a site ranked number 2 for the whole city, a city hardly off the beaten path by the way. Or beautiful villa districts Bogenhausen in Munich and Zehlendorf in Berlin where again we were the only tourists it seemed in areas full of beautiful parks and historic buildings.
Good formula for us seems to be look for "secondary" cities to visit and in front line top level cities seek out less known sites.

As others have mentioned, avoiding crowds is easy, it's just a matter of geography and not timing. My advice would be to read what Rick Steves recommends and then go somewhere else. There are many places worth visiting that does not see many visitors, but non-European tourists seem to focus on a few places. Understandable in some way, but it leads to a lot of overtourism in some places. There are tens of thousands of megalithic monuments in Europe, but you all have to go to Stonehenge. There are several beautiful small towns in Europe, but you all have to go to Hallstadt, Český Krumlov and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. And so on.

So my advice is simply, go somewhere else. There are several good examples in the thread. I especially like the one about avoiding the cruise ships, cruise ship schedules can be found online so you can plan your trip. Also, spend a night in the typical "day trip-towns", after all the day trippers have gone it will be something different. Find other places to visit. The Baltics is also a great example, Tallinn is starting to see a tourist boom, but it is still not as overrun as Prague and Barcelona. Could be a reason to go there before it gets popular. And Riga is also worth a visit. Sweden and Denmark outside Stockholm and Copenhagen does not see a lot of tourists. And that is not because there is nothing to see.

Go to Visby, not as well known as Dubrovnik but apart from a couple of weeks in the summer not so full of people. Or make a stop in Ansbach, not as famuos as Rothenburg ob der Tauber, but the risk of being overrun by a tour group is a lot smaller. Want to go to the Netherlands? Avoid Amsterdam and stay in Haarlem, Utrecht or Groningen instead. And there are hundreds if not thousands of other examples.

I suggest Wroclaw and Poznan in Poland. Both are nice and not expensive. There are tourists but not hordes. Great restaurant scene too. Lviv in Ukraine is supposed to be very nice and affordable, but I haven't been there.

I was in Vienna this August, it was very crowded. I didn't bother lingering in the central ring area for long.

Prague is always a mess. Budapest can be okay in October (I just returned) if you stay out of District V on the weekends. And there is no better weather than October.

But to avoid the crowds altogether, head East. So much that is way under appreciated and misunderstood, so many unexpected cultures to explore.

The area around the central square in L'viv was extremely touristy when I was there in early June 2018. Definitely not as packed as the core of Prague, but no one should go there expecting a non-touristy gem; that way lies disappointment. However, it has fewer well-known tourist sites than Prague (and Krakow), so it's easier to escape the throngs.

Wroclaw had a lot more foreign visitors than I was expecting to see during my July 2018 visit; I think it's the dwarves. I'd suggest going there sooner rather than later.

Poznan was more like what I expected Wroclaw to be, in terms of (no) crowds. But I had a good bit of rain in Poznan, which may have kept more folks indoors.

The best way to get away from the crowds is to drive. If you would prefer not to; travel with an eager driver or small custom tour; a friend of mine is on a small lead tour "Photography Workshop in Ireland". She went on a similar one in Scotland last year. Her photos are fabulous. We drove all over the UK a couple of times and had the best time visiting the places at the end of the road. Of course we darn Baby Boomers are every where now, as well as our Asian friends. For example I won't go to Artist Point with it's fabulous views on the end of the road on Mt Baker again (no Buses but every Gray Haired persons Day Out), or Downtown Vancouver ( We used Amtrak and elevated rail) ever again, too many tall buildings and there isn't any room on the sidewalks! We're probably just going to tour our home territory in the Pacific Northwest.

I don' t accept this notion that a great travel experience cannot be had, even in the summer, which is what I prefer anyway, for a number of reasons given the plus and minus scale.

I have been traveling in Germany for the last 16 days and it's just plain crowded on the trains. The next big planned trip will be in the summer of 2020, earmarked for mid-May at the earliest. Summer is the better trade-off.

It all depends on where you go in Central/Eastern Europe. Two Schlösser in Potsdam deeply connected to Prussian history I visited a couple days ago were totally empty of visitors, except for me and one German family in one of them. Of course, the weather didn't help, overcast and gray.

My recommendations are Czechia, especially east of Prague and Moravia and also Poland, the southwest and the northeast, try Masuria, the lower Vistula area...lovely small towns there

Okay, lets start with October is not "off season". There are high, low and shoulder. Its shoulder.

Next, if someone has only one trip a year, to waste it on Europe in February is nuts.

Next, there is a reason people go to the most visited tourist sites. Miss them and you will miss something you might never get a chance to experience again. Or, dont imagine Paris in the spring. Go to Haversack instead.

Next, you can sure improve your enjoyment if you dont stay 30 feet off Old Town Square. Sure, you gotta see it if you are in Prague but that doesnt mean you have to stay in the middle of it. Same with a place like Budapest. If you were in Budapest last week and you thought there were too many tourists then you didnt see the best of Budapest ... or you just spent a weekend. Weekends can be a bit more crowded. How do I know? Well I was there about the same time. Sure, Andrassy ut was a mess when they closed it for the food truck show, musicians, crafts, singing, etc..... It was a bit crowded. You know the most frequent language I heard? Hungarian by 10 to 1. So, yup, crowded, but crowded with Hungarians. I call that a cultural experience. But other than that, typical sort of shoulder season week. Actually old town in Sarajevo was a heck of a lot more crowded. Most frequent language? Arabic.

Ugh, sober reading as I have a week in Prague scheduled for March, first visit. Maybe this will be really off season? Fortunately not staying in Old Town or between the river and the castle.

There is no low season in Prague...okay, maybe 2 weeks in February.

@ James....Going to Europe in Feb is extremely unlikely, ie one out of a million chances. If I were ever, ever to do that, that trip would be to northeast Poland in early Feb. Other than that it's back to summer travel.

I've been in Hungary once in February for a festival https://youtu.be/dVW4_NEV7_M and an event at the Opera.

And yes, it was a bit nippy.

Great input, all of you.

Steve, the original poster.