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Coming To Poland

Do places get much better than this?

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Poland is another European country that it’s difficult for me to believe I hadn’t been to before. I ran through my travel history a couple of times — I had to have gone to Poland at some point??? I hadn’t. This is my eighth bout of travel in Europe, but the first time I’ve come to Poland.

The Polskibus was an hour late showing up to Berlin. In Europe bus ticketing has largely went digital. Only the largest of bus companies maintain offices at the stations. So if you’re bus doesn’t show up there really isn’t anyone to go and ask about it.

So I stood there for an hour with a group of other passengers looking to go to Poland with I-don’t-know looks plastered on our faces. Then a German guy told me the story of how he was once in a similar situation in Ukraine and ended up waiting two nights for his bus.

“I couldn’t sleep or go to get something to eat or even go to the bathroom because the bus could come in two minutes or two days. You just didn’t know when it was coming. So I sat like that for two days and two nights.”

At what point would I have said fuck this and just bought another bus ticket? It’s hard to tell, as each moment you wait for the bus is a moment you’ve invested into it and you logically assume that the longer you wait the higher the probability that it will soon arrive. But two nights?

The ride here from Berlin was equally enjoyable. I got the front seat on the upper deck of the Polskibus and it was like sitting in a theater as we rode through the countryside. The sun glistened over fields of golden rod.

What do I think of the Poland? The place couldn’t be better. The country has that Eastern European cultural edge, that insane recent history, and that greater propensity of engaging socially than many cultures to the west. You really can’t beat a country in Europe where you can get a room for under twenty bucks, a sandwich for a dollar fifty, and walk around all day looking at successive layers of architectural history and randomly chatting with people.

So this is Poland. Country number 64.

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Filed under: Poland, Travel Diary

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3723 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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VBJ is currently in: New York City

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