themicah

My 16yo may need to get from WAW to Lublin next week. I see there's a cheap direct Flixbus so that might be an option, although mrsmicah may veto that for a kid who speaks no Polish visiting Poland for the first time. Any other suggestions? Uber/Bolt/Freenow all give me quotes that aren't crazy (with Freenow coming in cheapest at the moment). If he takes one of those services the whole way, is the driver likely to be happy with the big fare or pissed about taking such a long one-way ride? (My experience in the US is that Uber drivers are often angry about long one-way rides.)

KLouis

Greek cab drivers absolutely love this kind of ride. But, of course, different strokes for different folks...

Palal

There's a flixbus every 1-3 hrs directly from WAW. Otherwise, he should take a train to the main station and change to a train to Lublin. Time-wise, the bus should be faster, but there are more train options throughout the day.
Not sure how a 16-year-old would not be able to navigate this by him/herself, unless they grew up in a bubble. This is Poland, not China, most young people speak some level of English.

Romanianflyer

If taking the train, I would actually suggest to avoid the main station of Warszawa Centralna, as it's a bit of a confusing underground mess for some first-timers. Plus there is the complicating factor that the airport train doesn't call at Centralna, so you need to get out at Śródmieście and walk 200-300 metres from there to Centralna to connect.

A better alternative would be taking the airport train a few stops further directly to Warsaw's Eastern station (Warszawa Wschodnia) and change there to one of the frequent trains to Lublin, given it's a much easier station to connect through.

themicah

Yeah, I'm pretty confident he'd figure it out, and I actively encourage these things. He lives in NYC and takes all kinds of NYC transit and intercity transportation (planes, trains, buses--including FlixBus US!) by himself. But he's only been to Europe once and never traveled solo internationally, and mrsmicah gets nervous about these things. Also, he would be catching up with a group trip where the organizers are accustomed to very overprotective American parents and insurance consultants, so THEY might object to him arriving via public transit.

Anyway, it's looking like the whole thing will be moot because he's likely going to make the group flight for his trip and not have to catch up with the group late after all.

But thank you all for your input!