1) Party!

Polish people really can drink and know how to have a good time. From small and affordable traditional shot bars to craft beer and cocktail bars to rooftop nightclubs, Poland has something to offer to any kind of partier. There’s a plethora of the bars and clubs that will be having NYE themed parties to choose from. If you really can’t decide on a venue or just want to hop around bars and clubs, Warsaw and Gdansk have NYE themed pub crawls for an extremely affordable price.

2) Budget Friendly & Easy On Your Wallet

Poland’s currency is the Polish Zloty. Poland is an extremely affordable destination for many travellers. Combine that with NYE, where pre-fixed menus are usually over-the-top expensive; not in Poland. For example, on the high-end, a nice, pre-fixed NYE meal for two with alcohol will only put you back €45 at most. A standard dinner and drinks will only cost you less than €20 and alcohol is dirt cheap (€1 vodka shots, €2-3 pints of beer, €5 fancy cocktails) and available 24 hours a day. For those of you craving some extravagance but have always been apprehensive due to a budget, you can end 2019 sightseeing and partying around one of Poland’s cities in a limo (starting from €22 per person) or helicopter at a budget-friendly price.

3) Escape The Crowds

We all know that the major European cities like London, Paris, and Berlin are going to be a zoo on New Year’s Eve! Taxis will be nearly impossible to hail and Uber surge prices will be over the roof! Save yourself the aggravation and head over to Poland where most of the crowd are fun-loving locals! To be quite honest, all of the Polish cities are so compact that walking is certainly not out of the question [just remember, no open bottles while walking :)].

4) Christmas Markets

The best thing about Christmas times are definitely Christmas Markets. You can walk around all bundled up, looking at the lights with a mulled wine in hand, munching on delicious Polish goodies such as pierogies, kielbasa, and pączki (donuts). Check out the Christmas Markets in the Old Towns of Krakow, Warsaw and Gdansk- they are absolutely magical!

5) Winter Wonderland in the Mountains

The southern parts of Poland offer various skiing/snowboarding destinations for the active traveler. Unlike the Swiss and Italian Alps, skiing/snowboarding in Poland is quite affordable. For those of you non-ski/snowboarders, never fear. You can still immerse yourself in the mountains and have a wintery, snowy time in the picturesque town of Zakopane. Zakopane is THE Polish go-to for a winter getaway. Grab a hot chocolate or mulled wine and ring in the near year all cosied up by the fire in the wintery wonderland of the Polish mountains.

The most ecologically-minded city in Poland in 2019, according to Forbes, is Katowice. This may come as a surprise given the coal pollution in this mining region, but looks can be deceiving.

Forbes examined the operations undertaken and the money spent on ecological ventures, combating smog, testing air quality and financing a system of urban bicycles.

Katowice, the centre of a huge urban agglomeration, has been investing in green projects for a few years now. In 2018, the city authorities spent nearly PLN 9.8 million on replacing heat sources to reduce smog, and installed 127 air quality meters and 75 urban bicycle stations.

Katowice has been strongly advocating low-emission public transport for a while. In 2016 – 2018, the city added 90 state-of-the-art buses that meet the EURO 6 pollution standards at a cost of PLN 100 million. Keep it going, Katowice!

Geographer Mariusz Potocki was one of the people who participated in the unique expedition to Mount Everest. Their mission was to create the highest weather station in the world and collect the ice core at an altitude that had never been done before.

A team of scientists who climbed the highest peak in the world, led by experts from the National Geographic Society and Tribhuvan University in Nepal, installed two weather monitoring stations at 8430 meters and 7945 meters. The data collected by the transmitters are intended to help researchers better understand how rising global temperatures affect the melting rate of glaciers. The team also collected an ice core sample at an altitude of 8,020 meters, which will help scientists study the characteristics of mountain precipitation and atmospheric composition in pre-industrial times.

The almost two-month expedition involved over 30 scientists from around the world, including seventeen researchers from Nepal and one Pole, Mariusz Potocki.

Potocki is a geographer and glaciologist, i.e. a researcher of glaciers. Since childhood, his passions were geography and chemistry, but after high school he decided to focus on the first one, choosing studies in this field at the University of Warsaw. During his studies, he took part in many expeditions, during which he did a lot of valuable scientific work, but this did not provide him with a place for doctoral studies. His candidacy was rejected because the faculty wanted to focus on developing research in the field of socio-economic geography, not physical, which is Potocki’s domain. That’s when he decided to quit everything and go to … Antarctica, where he was waiting for him to work at the Polish Polar Station Henryk Arctowski.

At the end of his a year and a half stay, the station was visited by CBS television, which was preparing material about glaciers. Fate wanted her to be accompanied by prof. Paul Mayewski from the University of Maine, who, after getting to know Potocki, offered him doctoral studies at his university, which the Pole gladly agreed to. The rest is history – 10 years later Mayewski and Potocki conquered Mount Everest together during an expedition organized by the National Geographic Society

source: National Geographic