(This is the content from our latest newsletter, which was sent to the PolishOrigins Newsletter subscribers last week.)
Let me start with a few headlines that recently caught my attention and mix it with my personal observations. More than a century ago, when many of your ancestors left Poland, it was a land of hardship — not even marked on the map. Now?
- Poland is one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies and, according to British The Economist, “a remarkable success story.” The articl here
- According to Visegrad24, Poland is drawing in expats from the U.S., UK, and beyond — thanks to its safety, quality of life, and lower cost of living. People are discovering that Poland offers what many Western countries can’t anymore: security, stability, and opportunity.
- Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, I watched Toyotas and Sony Walkmans in movies with awe—Japan felt like another planet. Back then, Lech Wałęsa’s famous promise as president was, “We will build a second Japan here!” So you can imagine it blew my mind when I read that, according to the IMF, Poland is on track to surpass Japan in GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing power parity) by 2026.
- What’s more, Poland has now a booming tech sector and one of the fastest-growing standards of living. More and more people are reaching out to us —not just to travel and discover their roots, but to confirm their Polish citizenship, explore living here, or even invest in Poland. Just two days ago, I met with a man in a village in southeastern Poland (Subcarpathia), helping him trace his family roots. He lives and works in New York City, in the AI division of a global company we all know and use. He is currently applying for Polish citizenship with a serious intention to move and invest here.
Coming back to history — earlier this month, our team member Piotr Zelny gave a talk hosted by the Polish Genealogical Society of America: “Polish Peasants’ Life in the 18th Century – Myths, Stereotypes and Reality.” The recording is available for PGSA members at pgsa.org.
In one of the the next webinars, head of our research services and tour manager Aleksander Zawilski will be answering your questions live during PGSA’s November webinar “Ask a Polish Researcher.” Follow the PGSA website for details if you want to submit your questions and attend the webinar.
2026 already?
Most of the inquiries we are receiving now are about 2026 — and even beyond. That’s unusual for this time of year, when people typically ask about fall travel. Many of these are for large family groups of 10+ people, including family reunions with relatives in Poland, like the one described by our guests on the blog:
- Cousin’s Poland Trip 2024 ,
- Tracing the Obiala and Samelko families. Day 3. What a day!!! , or
- My family’s Polish wedding: vodka shots and midnight cake cutting
Since you are already asking about next year’s tours, we decided to open two group dates for May and September 2026
- North-South Poland Tour. May 2026 Details here.
- Kingdom of Poland Tour. September 2026. Details here.
At the moment we keep the prices in Polish zlotys the same as this year’s editions for those who decide to reserve with a deposit in the coming months.
There are also spots left for this year’s group tours:
- Kingdom of Poland Tour, September 2025 — organized with the Polish Genealogical Society of America. Details here.
- Galicia Tour, fall 2025 — special edition organized with the Polish Genealogical Society of New York State. Details here.
And of course, we are still capable of providing our flagship services: genealogy and private custom tours in the second half of 2025.
The good news is, there are still no tariffs on travel to Europe :-).
I have been rereading one of my favorite Polish writers, Ryszard Kapuściński. In his book Lapidaria, one line about experience stood out to me—it wonderfully captures what we aim to achieve through each of our tours. Here’s the quote (my translated from the original Polish):
“You can share knowledge, but you cannot truly share an experience. An experience has an additional existential dimension against which words are too meager, too helpless.”
Zenon and the Team
P.S. If you want to try to understand Eastern Europe more deeply — maybe even touch the roots of what’s happening in Ukraine today — I highly recommend another book by this author: Imperium. (I just checked on Amazon that it is available in English under the same title imperium (Empire)). In the 1990s Kapuściński traveled throughout the republics of the former Soviet Union, closely observing and masterfully explaining people and whole societies shaped by decades of Soviet domination.