Cheapest (but still good) city break

[christmas2022]

Inspired by the city break threads and where would you go threads I'd love to take one of these city breaks for myself.

My budget does not stretch for so I am looking for somewhere that tends to be cheaper to fly to, book hotels and food and drinks.

Can anyone suggest somewhere?

I'm thinking maybe Edinburgh as it's still in the UK, but if I were to go further. Where should I be searching??

Riga has some beautiful architecture and a lot of history

In the UK, Liverpool. Stayed in cheap chain hotel, every museum bar one was free and there was loads to do. Loads of reasonable but nice places to eat. Holiday was so cheap we started to feel awkward about it.

Amsterdam or anywhere in the Netherlands. OK accomodation is not cheap in Amsterdam, but you can travel everywhere by affordable train, and a museum pass for 60Euro gets you in absolutely everywhere for a year.

Compared to Florence where we had to buy entry for everything separately and all those tickets really added up.

@NCTDN I'm disappointed that prices in Budapest have gone up so much.
We went before lockdown and were genuinely surprised at how good value everything was.

Lisbon. Or it used to be.

Ljubljana. Slovenia is a beautiful country.

@Lalliella is it a good place for 3 or 4 nights?

I’d say a day in Ljubljana would be enough. It a small, compact city. But you could a a day trip up to Lake Bled, which is very pretty, or to the Postojna Caves. It’s a small country. I’m sure you’d find tours from the city.

A day or two in Llublijana would be enough, though you can take a lovely train trip to Zagreb, capital of Croatia from there. Zagreb is another gorgeous little city, and we found prices there much cheaper than the places on the coast.

Are the places mentioned generally near to the airport so not a long transfer and easy enough to do by public transport to hotel?

we did a weekend to Rhodes and stayed at Oktober downtown rooms last month and had a fab time, it wasn’t too expensive either.

We LOVED Warsaw! Super cheap (cheaper than flying to Krakow), accomodation was cheap, and plentiful (we stayed in the financial district opposite the tower of science and culture but was only a 2 minute ride on the subway to the historic centre.) And the food was delicious and....cheap! So many things to see and do, lots of museums, we took an old car tour of the ex-communist areas etc etc. Great couple of days.

I loved Warsaw too! Thought it was better than Krakow.

Absolutely second the recommendation of using skyscanner to find cheap flights. I tend to use uk and the everywhere for a month and then narrow it down. There are far more cheap flights from the southeast- it depends how far you are happy to travel to the airport. We are in the north but do have family near close to the London airports so have combined a family visit and left the car!

Central and Eastern Europe have amazing cities which are very good value when there. I love Budapest and Hungary in general but it is certainly not the cheap destination it used to be when I first visited in early 2000s. Popular visitor attractions can cost a lot and we can no longer take advantage of discounts as EU visitors. However public transport remains cheap and you can eat out cheaply if you avoid tourist traps.

Poland is good value and has loads of cheap flights to various cities. Gdansk, Wroclaw, Warsaw and Krakow are all worth visiting and trains between cities are cheap. Romania is a stunning country and you can often find cheap flights to Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Oradea etc. All have lots to offer and it is cheap and easy to travel into the countryside. We discovered it by accident having booked £18 return flights one February half term. We ended up in Brasov and DC skied cheaply in a small ski resort for a few days, but stopped of at some amazing towns with stunning castles etc. on route. We have been back a few time since and always found lots to do and have then got the train over to Hungary and in happier times Ukraine.

Other great (and good value places when there if you can find a flight) are Skopje and Ohrid in Macedonia and Nis or Belgrade in Serbia. Bulgaria- Sofia is great and then easy access to the mountains, Slovakia the same. Slovenia is also nice- you do not need long in Ljubljana and you can visit Bled and thermal resort towns easily.

Outside the former Communist Bloc, Greece can be very cheap, Spain has low taxes on flights and there are often cheap flights to Italy and France. Unfortunately it is not particularly cheap to eat out in either France or Italy but it is possible to do cheaply if you self-cater.

Download the Lucky Trip app it's skyscanner that gives you lots of breaks filtered by budget.

Just to add- We love to travel but it has to be on a budget. The UK is no longer an option, I find it much cheaper to go abroad for eating out and also because of the weather. It is so much easier to spend less money when the sun is out and you can just wander around pretty towns and villages in the sun or go to the beach or pool. We never book a package and use local transport happily (so much better in Europe).

Liverpool has something for all budgets
www.donthibernate.co.uk

istanbul fabulous city and would still
be nice weather.
we stayed in a hotel that overlooked the blue mosque for around 30 £ a night and the exchange rate is v good at the moment