Just an hour away from Budapest you can experience what I like to call "Balaton Light". Go jump in a lake, scarf down some fried fish and take a hike around Hungary's Lake Venice.

If you're on a low budget but want a totally relaxing, low-tech long weekend in the Hungarian countryside Blaise Trailer and I say check out the village of Bakonybél. It's so quiet and a wonderful place to hike in the woods.

Croatia is getting more and more popular for spending a week or two sunbathing on the majestic Adriatic Sea, but sometimes the country's developing tourism industry offers some goofy surprises.

Words and pictures by Izabella Csordás

If one came decades ago to Sic (Szék in Hungarian), a Hungarian village in Romania near Cluj, they could see many more people wearing folk dress and experience even more folk traditions - but this unique place is not immune to globalization - thankfully the traditions are only slowly disappearing.

Bored with city life and holiday celebrations, we went north in search of the (hopefully) snowy mountains of Slovakia for a New Year's Eve adventure.
The trip to the region called literally 'Slovak Paradise' took us 5 hours from where we set off from in northern Hungary. There's no highway, although roads are of good quality but the speed limit is rarely above 90 km/h and we got a late start.

Here's a digest of what we talk about in our "Spectacular Slovenia" podcast. With its high peaks, pristine lakes, caves, a seashore, Slovenia is a disgustingly lucky - and beautiful - country.