Explore Zakopane by area

Zakopane anchors this hub, and everything else on the site fans out from it across six areas of the Polish Tatras — Zakopane itself sits at 830 to about 1,000 m, in the Lesser Poland voivodeship, home to roughly 27,000 people and known as the winter capital of Poland. Zakopane town covers the town itself: the pedestrian street Krupówki, the funicular up to Gubałówka, the cable-car base at Kuźnice, the Wielka Krokiew ski jump, the wooden villas of the Zakopane style, the old church and the Pęksowy Brzyzek cemetery, the Tatra Museum, and the Atma and Koliba villas.

Tatra National Park groups Morskie Oko, the cable car to Kasprowy Wierch, Giewont with its chains near the top, Rysy, Poland's highest point, the Valley of Five Polish Lakes and Siklawa, the paved Kościeliska valley, the long Chochołowska valley and its April crocuses, Rusinowa Polana, and Nosal. The Podhale villages cover Kościelisko, the wooden village of Chochołów and its Termy Chochołowskie, Poronin and Murzasichle, Szaflary, Nowy Targ and its Thursday market, and Białka Tatrzańska and Bukowina Tatrzańska with their thermal baths. The Pieniny groups Szczawnica, Niedzica castle and Czorsztyn lake, the Dunajec gorge rafted on wooden rafts from Sromowce to Szczawnica, and Trzy Korony.

The Slovak Tatras, 30-60 km away across an open Schengen border, take in Štrbské Pleso, Tatranská Lomnica and the Lomnický štít cable car, the Bachledka treetop walk at Ždiar, Belianska cave, Poprad, Kežmarok and Orava castle. Kraków closes the loop as the gateway, about 110 km by road, roughly 2 hours by bus, with the KRK airport and the day trips sold from there to Zakopane, the thermal baths and the Dunajec — plus Wieliczka and the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial. A rental car is optional for most of these areas, since minibuses cover every trailhead — each destination page below sets out what's actually there rather than a generic description of "Poland".