Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chernobyl site in Ukraine, which is upward of $170 USD. A good tour company for Chernobyl is SoloEast
(tourkiev.com/chernobyltour).
Using your ISIC, YHA, or youth card will get you a discount on public attractions like churches and
museums. These passes are widely accepted throughout this region of the world and usually offer a 50 per-
cent discount off the standard adult price for museums. They won't get you a discount on day tours and trips
organized by tour operators though.
Free tours, while not as common as they are in Western Europe, do exist, but instead of being run by big
companies, they tend to be run a lot more by small, local, and often student organizations. Popular walking
tours occur in most of the major cities. Appendix A has a list of the free tours in Eastern Europe. (Note:
These tours also offer the majority of the pub crawls popular with travelers in the cities too.)
More and more free tours sprout up every summer, so if you are going to a destination not mentioned
in the appendix, ask the staff at your hotel/hostel or visit the tourism board. Keep in mind that sometimes
people don't know about these tours and the only way to find them is via Google. I found a free tour in
Bucharest that way, as it was fairly new at the time.
Just like in the west, many Eastern European cities offer tourism cards. In more expensive cities like
Prague, Budapest, or Krakow, these cards offer a good bargain because there are a lot of free attractions,
tours, and public transportation. But this isn't always the case. In Tallinn, Estonia, a beautiful city in the
Baltics, they have a Tallinn city card that costs $30 USD for a twenty-four-hour card, $42 USD for a forty-
eight-hour card, and $56 USD for a seventy-two-hour card. They market the card as a way to save money,
but honestly, if you look at the attractions offered and compare their prices, you aren't really saving any-
thing. You are paying for five different Tallinn history museums and three guard towers and many other
duplicates. If you factor in that most of the museums cost $3 USD to $5 USD to see, and the impossibility
of seeing everything involved, you lose money. It's impossible to see ten museums in one day. Plus, since
the city is so small, getting free public transportation isn't that much of a bonus—you can walk anywhere in
fifteen minutes. I didn't buy this card, as I realized I would spend more for the card than the cost would be
of what I wanted to see.
Be extra careful about making sure the tourist card savings are more than their cost in this region. Like
everything else in Eastern Europe, attractions are quite cheap already.
Scandinavia
Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway
The Scandinavian countries are the most expensive in Europe. Everything here costs a lot of money.
Everything. While this region is one of my favorite places to visit, it is by no way a good budget destination.
It takes a lot more work here to save money, and even then you are still spending a lot. Most travelers speed
through here because of its high costs, but if you have the time and money, stay here longer, as it is one of
the most beautiful regions in the world.
ACCOMMODATIONS
Hostels
Hostels in this region are very sterile. Most hostels in the world have big common rooms, bars, and kitchens,
and they try to organize activities. In this region, hostels have kitchens and other basic amenities, but they
