Unless you drink an electric blanket’s worth of its world-famous vodka, Poland is no place to show off your scandalous spring-break bikini. But if you want to steer clear of the masses and explore a culture still largely untouched by American influence, this Eastern European hub offers quite the charismatic bang for your zloty.
Much of Poland is still recovering from a brutal ass-kicking in World War II, so to avoid ending up in some dilapidated town, choose your destination carefully. Gdansk is the country’s main Baltic Sea port, and is a comfortable departure point for many beachy resorts on the north coast. Almost as mesmerizing as the Polish language’s XYZ-ridden alphabet, its Technicolor buildings and tidy streets lay on the charm like Casanova in his hip stage.
The modest Polish lifestyle flies well on a student budget. Pay-by-weight thrift stores shack up next to government-subsidized milk bars, lasting inventions of the 1960s communist regime offering cheap traditional Polish dishes like borsch, a sour beet soup, or pierogi, potato dumplings stuffed with meat or cheese. (A word of caution: When it’s your turn to order, tag behind a gruff Polish man with a hearty appetite and point at his plate ‘mdash; nobody will speak English and milk-bar waitresses are just as unforgiving as you are incoherent.)
While a night train comes with cramped beds and pickpockets ‘mdash; sleep with your passport in your pants ‘mdash; it’s a quick and affordable way to reach the nation’s capital, Warsaw, and see its famous royal castle.
Continue your trek down south to end up in Krakow, Poland’s bustling 20-something hotspot. Home to an ancient Jewish Quarter and a slew of pretty churches, the city offers daily communism tours and is just a two-hour bus ride from Auschwitz, enough to quench your waning college-kid intellectualism before boozing it all away come sundown. Don’t skip out on the drinks ‘mdash; make sure to taste ?ubr’oacute;wka, bison-grass vodka that mixes well with apple juice, and Krupnik, a tasty honey-based liquor. And if you pull up next to a couple locals, order a shot, raise your glass and say, ‘Na zdrowie!’ (‘To your health!’), you’re sure to hook a free guide for day two.