Lesser-Known Eastern European Cities Worth Visiting
Browse more guides: India travel | Asia destinations Lesser-Known Eastern European Cities Worth Visiting Last updated: April 2026 · 12 min read I've made multiple Eastern Europe trips since 2018. Five separate ones, actually, plus two long Caucasus loops that started in Tbilisi and ended in a wine cellar I can't find on Google Maps. After Prague and Budapest got swallowed by stag parties and €9 spritz menus, I started going east. Then further east. Then south. So the cities below are what I kept coming back to. This is the shortlist: Tallinn, Plovdiv, Sarajevo, Tbilisi, Kotor, Riga, Vilnius, Belgrade. And eight cities, eight countries, all of them cheaper than Western Europe and most of them cheaper than the Czech Republic now. Lviv would normally be on this list , Ukraine is a country I love - but the war makes it irresponsible to recommend casually, so I've covered why separately at the bottom. TL;DR: My top five picks: Tallinn for medieval, Plovdiv for ancient, ...