Most of Poland is a day trip out of Kraków.
Which Auschwitz-Birkenau tour leaves early enough to get in before the coaches. What the salt mine costs once the transfer is counted. Whether Zakopane is worth eleven hours of a short week. Reviews of every tour you can book in Poland.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the salt mine, the Tatras, the enamel factory.
The four bookings a first trip to Poland is built around, what each one costs, and what the people who went say about it.
01The morning that mattersAuschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel PickupEntry runs on timed slots and the late ones fill with coach groups. Take the first departure out of Kraków.
02A hundred metres downWieliczka Salt Mine TourChapels, chandeliers and a brine lake cut out of rock salt. Three hours, almost all of it underground.
03The mountain dayCable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & VodkaCable car to the ridge, oscypek on Krupówki, then the thermal pools at Chochołów on the way back.
04The enamel factoryOskar Schindler’s Factory Entry Ticket & Guided TourOskar Schindler’s works, now the museum of the occupation of Kraków. The walk-up queue is long; book the slot.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the enamel factory, the Kraków ghetto.
Almost everyone who stays in Kraków gives a day to the occupation and the camps. What separates these tours is the departure time, whether the entry ticket is included and how long you are actually on site. Prices below are per person.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel Pickup
Auschwitz-BirkenauGuided entry with transport from Kraków. Allow the whole day.
Schindler’s FactoryThe enamel works and the occupation museum inside it.
Kazimierz and the ghettoOn foot through the Jewish quarter and over the river to Podgórze.
Other camps and memorialsStutthof, Treblinka, Majdanek, Gross-Rosen and the Wolf’s Lair.
All 119 memorial and occupation tours →
Kraków for the day trips, Gdańsk for the water, Warsaw for the rest.
Four cities carry almost everything bookable in Poland, and two small places earn a day of their own. The best thing to book in each.
Wieliczka is a cathedral cut out of salt, nine floors down.
Miners have been working this seam since the thirteenth century and carved chapels as they went, the largest of them lit by chandeliers of salt crystal. It holds 14 degrees all year. There is a second underground under the market square in Kraków: the medieval street level below the Cloth Hall.
The tours more people book than anything else in Poland.
Every Polish tour we have reviewed →The days that carry the most travellers, and what each one costs before you add lunch and the ride back.
1
Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel Pickup
Travel from Krakow to Oświęcim for a 3.5-hour guided visit to Auschwitz I and Birkenau. You’ll see the Arbeit Macht Frei gate, barracks, gas chambers, prisoner belongings, and railway platforms. Guides such as Nicholas and Ziggy are praised for clear, respectful explanations. Expect a long, emotional day with changing pickup times.
From · $21
Read the review →
2
Auschwitz Guided Tour with Optional Hotel Pickup
from $69
3
Cable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & Vodka
from $54
4
Wieliczka Salt Mine Tour
from $33
5
Wieliczka Salt Mine Guided Tour with Transport
from $55
6
Evening or Night River Cruise
from $24
7
Zakopane Tour with Chocholow Hot Baths and Cable Car
from $51
8
Oskar Schindler’s Factory Entry Ticket & Guided Tour
from $35
The Tatras before lunch, thermal water by four.
The standard Zakopane day runs the same way whoever sells it: the Gubalówka funicular or the Kasprowy cable car, a plate of smoked oscypek on Krupówki, then an hour in the hot pools at Chochołów or Bukowina before the minibus turns back north.
- 1Cable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & Vodkafrom $54
- 2Zakopane Tour with Chocholow Hot Baths and Cable Carfrom $51
- 3Zakopane, Thermal Springs, Cable Car, Local Tastingfrom $16
What a day in Poland actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Poland is one of the last places in Europe where the headline sight still comes in under fifty dollars.
Old-town walks, museum entries, the salt mine and most of the Auschwitz-Birkenau departures.
Full days: Zakopane and the hot pools, Malbork out of Gdańsk, the Dunajec raft, the cooking classes.
Private guides, the Wolf’s Lair from Warsaw, and the long cross-border runs to Prague and Berlin.
Four old towns, and only one of them is the original.
Kraków came through the war with its market square standing. Warsaw, Gdańsk and Wrocław were rebuilt from paintings, photographs and rubble, gable by gable, and the guides on these walks will show you which wall is which.
- 1City Sightseeing Tour by Electric Golf Cartfrom $13
- 2City Cruise on Historical Polish Boatfrom $22
- 3Chopin Concert in the Old Townfrom $26
Three Polish evenings that do not travel.
A Chopin recital in the city he left at twenty and never saw again, a highland band playing to a room of pierogi, and a vodka flight poured in the country that still argues it invented the stuff.
The candlelit recital
Chopin left Warsaw at twenty, a month before the November Uprising, and never came back. His heart did: it is sealed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmieście, and the rest of him is in Paris. The recitals run nightly in both cities, an hour of solo piano in a small hall, and they are among the cheapest tickets in the country.
- 1Chopin Piano Recital at Chopin Concert Hall★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,330 reviews
- 2Chopin Concert in the Old Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,287 reviews
- 3Warsaw Concert: Chopin – Painted by Candlelights with Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,442 reviews
The folk show and the long table
The góralski bands come down from the Podhale with fiddles, a bass and the high shouted singing that goes with them. The commercial version in Kraków pairs it with an all-you-can-eat table of pierogi, bigos and cabbage rolls. It is unashamedly staged, the dancing is genuinely good, and the highlanders playing it are from the villages the songs name.
- 1Polish Folk Show with All-You-Can-Eat Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,593 reviews
- 2Folk Show & 3-Course Dinner at Jama Michalika Café★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 698 reviews
- 3Polish Folk Show with 3 course dinner in Krakow legendary restaurant★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 112 reviews
A vodka flight, and something to line it
Poland argues the case for inventing vodka and has the documents to make it interesting. A tasting runs four to six pours: rye, potato, the honey żubrówka with the bison-grass blade in the bottle, and usually a cherry nalewka at the end. Everything is served cold, neat and with bread, herring or lard on rye alongside.
- 1Cable Car, Chocholow Baths, Cheese & Vodka★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 10,720 reviews
- 2Zakopane Cable Car, Vodka, Cheese & Hot Springs Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,832 reviews
- 3The Kraków Vodka Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 862 reviews
Four Polish bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over a beer on the square. These four run on timed entry slots and fixed departures that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour & Hotel PickupEntry runs on timed slots with a cap on each one. Between ten and three you can only go in with a guide, and those are the slots that go first.
- 02Wieliczka Salt Mine TourThe mine admits groups on the hour, by language. The English-language tours are the first to fill through the summer.
- 03Oskar Schindler’s Factory Entry Ticket & Guided TourThe museum caps the number of people inside and the walk-up queue regularly runs past an hour.
- 04Tour of the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s HQ by CarIt is four hours each way from Warsaw and almost nothing runs daily. Check the calendar before you fix the date.
When it is dark in Kraków by half past three.
Polish winter is no reason to stay in, but it does shorten the day. The light goes early, standing outside at an open site gets hard, and the Zakopane road slows to a crawl when the snow comes down. The answer is always one of three things: go underground, go indoors, or go where the water is hot.
By kind of day
Kraków, Oświęcim, Wieliczka, Zakopane, then the train north.
WieliczkaThe newest Polish tour reviews.
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Tour from Warsaw: Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s HQ Zones I and II
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ZALIPIE – painted village, unique PRIVATE tour from Krakow
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Gdansk Sopot and Gdynia 3 Cities Private Full-Day Tour
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Highlights of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot 1-day Private Tour
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