Travel Eastern Europe - 5 Things You Will Love & Hate About East Europe 

gantzisballs Hell naw, I watched the movie Hostel

Probably not a good idea to live your life based on what happens in Eli Roth movies. He isn't exactly known for being very serious.

gantzisballs I recommend hostels no matter what your age. You may want to avoid party hostels if you're older, though, but there are plenty of chill hostels I went to where I met backpackers in their 60s and even 70s.

A hostel in Slovakia, now that's just bad luck...

Dynasty warriors 2!! Great throw back

Wolters World love the videos

Wolters World Lithuania is Northern Europe, not Eastern. Slovakia is central Europe.

Eichhörnchens Curry both countries are considered eastern Europe by the rest of Europe

Definitely agreed. Despite some of the pollution problems inherited from past decades, the east half of Europe has a lot of extremely well preserved natural regions and natural habitats, not to mention a high degree of biodiversity when compared with some of the more densely populated European countries. Sadly, I often get the feeling that people over here don't appreciate it enough, taking it for granted, and are still trying to ape decades-outdated "western" approaches to tourism and treatment of the environment (i.e. building pointless giant resorts, hotels and kitsch attractions everywhere, meddling too much in natural old growth forests, etc.). On the other hand, I think many people have started realising that this is a dumb trend, and we should instead use our well-preserved natural environments as one of our main strenghths when it comes to luring in visitors. If anything, ecotourism/agrotourism and smaller family-friendly attractions are the thing of the future over here, IMHO, not all sorts of megalomaniac ski resorts and whatnot.

how come you dont have videos about lithuania? Since you have been there for so long, you could give a cool insight on how it is over there

Then we had our beautiful forests, nowadays deforestation is the word.

TheJacquesStrap Take a plane next time. You can get there in less than 2 hrs. :) Taking a train from CZ to Bucharest is crazy.

Yes, taking the plane would have been much easier to do, but we just wanted to enjoy the countryside while we were there and explore places that we hadn't been before (well, at least places I hadn't been to before... Ion was born in Romania). It didn't seem like it would be that far... I stand corrected!

+Simas Bazevičius cccp

Ovidiu Florea Intre orasele pe care le recomandă este si Brașovul.

Ukraine real travel Thanks Ukraine real travel. I was sad when I lived in Lithuania that I never got down to Ukraine. I had students from there that wanted me to go but I endedup traveling all over theplace but not there and not I regret missing out.

woltersworld You are curious so I expect that you will visit Ukraine at some point. Ukraine does not get a lot of English speakers and it is difficult to find English speakers. Lviv is the exception, you can get by, it is the most European city in Ukraine. By the way train travel is cheap, you can get a second class sleeper from Kviv to Odessa for less than $100, closer to 60 I think.

+Angela Cummings have a great trip where ever you do end up. I lived in Lithuania for 3.5 years and had a real nice time. Hill of Crosses, Klaipeda/Nida then Vilnius if you want to drive down from riga and do kind of a circle (Vilnius would be the one place you really should check out)

+woltersworld Just arrived in Vilnius. I decided to go for it thanks. I remember a video you made on this earlier this year and I wanted that cheap food. My hotel is $20 a night and it should be ok. Going to Riga again in few days. Sometime I will go to Iceland. I enjoyed that video too

+Angela Cummings yeah it's shit, I'm from Latvia and don't understand why is it so hard to rein in these people, though it's not that hard to understand it... Corruption everywhere. I'd love to think that things are changing. What kind of taxi was it? I work at a Scandinavian bank and all our guests use the red taxis, also the green Baltic taxis should be fine, not doing these things. But I'm not sure... Vilnius is great, it has this local, smaller town feel that I lack in Riga. Although Riga, of course, is not a big city, it's more flashy, it is more cosmopolitan, due to the large Russian and other Soviet ethnicity population, it's less friendly to people and the Old Town is now mostly for the tourists. I like that instead of 5-6 storey Riga Old Town, we have the 3 storey Vilnius Old Town and tons of locals there, more affordable prices and general atmosphere of the place.

+Angela Cummings when you are in Riga, don't take BalticTaxi 'cause they are very expensive (starting from 10-2o Euros) take Panda Taxi, the prices start from 2 Euros ;)

Well said.

True... central Europe was sold to the soviets-comunists in Yalta by... USA and UK

That wasn’t even comunism just socialism..but mostly westerners are to stupid to see difference

zepter00 "can I have romania?"

I have only 50 hectares of Poland. 😂

Rob Reese No man! Because of the exchange rate your penny will make you millionaires here. We have special toilets for you! :)

HunOrwell Yeah but even then its not clear to me. Politically almost all slavic and baltic Countries in Europe belong to the EU/NATO. Culturally they were heavily influenced by the USSR and Yugoslavia. However the "Culture" transitions from east to west very fluently. Czech and Poland are certainly closer to germany and Austria then Russia, same goes for Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia. Were do we draw the line?

Franz Ferdinand For the people in Germany eastern europe starts with poland and the czech republik. The east is seen as a little bit criminal(cars, robbery ..), they are among themselves. The countries seem not very modern, and the people do not have as good lifestandards as we have. You could also call them very conservative. The landscapes are beautiful and definitely worth a visit!

HunOrwell "Allhough lets be honest, most of why these countries are poor because they werent rebuilt by the Marshall plan like West Germany and generally Western Europe, but were forced under Soviet style dictatorships. You can even see it in your country, Eastern Germany wasnt more poor because the people were different there." Are you trying to convince me that Communism did not work? Newsflash: All Communist Countries ended in economical ruin, about 30 years ago.... "Hungary before the wars was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire co-governing with Austria. Allthough that is something very German, when i'd visit the Neitherlands or the Scandiniavian countries they are super open, German still have a superiority complex, but the same time they try to force this tolerant picture of them because the whole country lives with a mental complex since WW2. Little akward to be honest." Ok this is a very difficult sentence. I fail to see the connections here... so Austro-Hungaria was something very German? But the Netherlands and Scandinavian Countries are super Open??? And Germans have a superiority complex? Like what has openess to do with a superiority copmplex? And what has the superiority complex to do with tolerance. I can't see any relations between the statements you make in this sentence. But i can explain you how they are completly unrelated. The Austro-Hungarian Empire central Europe. The Netherlands ans Scandinavian Countries are in Western Europe and Scandinavia. They are not Culturally nor histroically or politically related to each other in any way. The Culture in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was probably similar to the Culture in Austria and Hungary today. Non of which is Germany, while one indeed is "very german". People in the Netherlands are considered to be super open, Amsterdam for instance is the #1 to go place for people on drug and sex trips. Noone expects reserved Conservatives there. For Scandinavians you are wrong. Ive talked to people from Denmark and Finland and both cultures do not appear to be naturally "open" they seem to be more reserved like Germans. Germans having a superiority complex is completly unrelated to the openess of scadninavians and Dutch people. Forcing a tolerant Picture of themselve also has absolutly nothing to do with having a superiority complex. A superiority is a Bogus term that different psychologists use for different things and i don't even know which you mean. However in any case it means either a complete lack of self worth or a belief in someones own superiorty, both of which have nothing to do with tolerance or the leck of tolerance. Someone could think of themselve as superior for his tolerance (like an average swedish person). Germans are in a weird state because of a guilt complex and self loathe, reinforced by 70 years of propaganda which is conflicting with the fact that Germany is the most powerfull Country of Europe.