Warsaw - Post Report Question and Answers
What are the particular advantages of living in this city?
Everything is cheaper than the United States, English is widely understood, and the country is generally very open to expats coming to live there. - Oct 2021
It’s family friendly, lots to do, safe, and very cheap! - Jan 2021
Excellent public transit. Safe city. Tons of festivals/museums/things to do. Vibrant restaurant/bar scene. Mild winters (for a Canadian). Affordable. - Sep 2019
Easy to get around. Safe. Affordable. Friendly. Clean. - May 2018
Ease of public transport. Once you figure it out, it's not too bad to navigate. Cheap flights to nearly everywhere in Europe. - Apr 2018
Easy travel and getting the school like ASW paid for (embassy and many companies pay). - Dec 2016
Poland is very affordable at this time. It is also relatively undiscovered by tourists (except for Krakow, which is totally overrun by package tours). As far as day-to-day living, we eat and entertain ourselves very inexpensively. There are lots of cheap flights to other destinations in Europe from Warsaw. - Mar 2016
Living in a safe, developed city with access to good public transportation, culture, history, fabulous travel opportunities in Poland and around Europe, and great shopping, all at extremely reasonable prices. The feel of being somewhere at the beginning of a cultural awakening. Oh, and really, really good bread. - Sep 2015
Poland is a beautiful country with a wide variety of geographic diversity - it's not always as flat and open as popular culture in the U.S. suggests. The Tatra Mountains in the southern part of the country are beautiful and offer many different activities and cultural adventures. The lake district in Mazuria is also beautiful and can be reached by car from Warsaw in just a few hours. The Baltic coast in the north offers many different seaside resorts and beachgoing opportunities. Gdansk is a great city to visit. Poland is loaded with castles, estate homes and many other historical wonders. You could spend your whole time here visiting castles, monasteries, etc. Sadly, it also has a lot of Holocaust sites which are truly worth visiting in order to fully appreciate what happened here. The new Museum of Polish Jewish History (POLIN) is proving to be very popular and is receiving rave reviews. Warsaw is central to so many other parts of Europe so if you want to see the rest of the continent it's readily available at relatively low cost if you fly. The drive to Berlin now takes about 4-5 hours, though you'll get tired of having to stop all the time for the toll booths. The train takes about the same amount of time. The cost of living here is still very low, especially when compared to other European cities. It gets even cheaper when you travel outside of the bigger cities. The weather is generally great three seasons of the year. I've seen long, cold winters, and relatively mild winters here. Every one seems different. You must get used to the short hours of daylight in winter, as it can be pitch black by 4pm at the height of the winter season. Of course, the summers are opposite so it evens out. - Nov 2014
History! If you like history there is tons of it her,e as Poland was a pivotal country during WWII. But the country has a history that trails back 1000 years. The Poles are proud and and fiercely protective of their history and love to showcase it. - Feb 2012
Central to rest of Europe via plane is convenient and pretty cheap. Respect for family life and children (people actually stand up on buses and metro for children to sit down). Lots of history, but most of it is pretty tragic. - Nov 2011
Krakow was very nice. - Aug 2011
Central location in Europe; able to travel east/west easily for sightseeing, lots of history - Aug 2011
Poland is a great, easy place for expats (at least I think so). If you can let go of the irritations (post-communist quirks usually regarding paperwork and customer service), it is a wonderful and safe place to bring a family. It is easy to travel to most of Europe from Warsaw. Groceries are relatively cheap, as is pet care and health care. - Mar 2011
Weather is bad in winter. It gets dark at 3:00 PM -- like it would be 9:00 PM. No money saving in this country. - Jan 2011
Being smack bang in the heart of Europe, with amazing travel opportunities, in a city where there's always something going on. - Dec 2010
Poland has an incredibly interesting history and that history is still completely alive here, particularly in Warsaw. I've never lived anywhere where history is so present. It's been an interesting experience. - Feb 2010
