Many stag parties are travelling to Eastern Europe for a truly exceptional experience: the Trabant trek is the ultimate road-trip while combining the chance to travel in a classic of Eastern European engineering.

With a name taken from the German word for ‘satellite’, the Trabant is an East German-built car originally made as a motorbike. The once-popular car is made of a steel frame; the body is made of Duroplast, a plasticised cotton waste. It has a 600cc engine and 26 hp. One of the beauties of the car is that it is so easy to fix: a good mechanic can replace the engine in fifteen minutes! With a top speed of just over 50mph these cherished relics are becoming an ever-popular car to drive, with stag parties coming from all over Europe to drive the classic motors.

The car was so popular around 3 million cars were made up before production ceased in 1991. Many of the cars were exported and were favourites of many communist countries, being spacious for all of the family it was small, compact and very lightweight. Nicknamed Trabbi or Trabi, where were many versions, namely the Trabant 500, Trabant P 50 and the Tranbant 601. Now, the Tranbant has become a collector’s item with people all over the world and it has been used in many popular films.

Many people love the car for its nostalgic qualities, with collectors all over the world. Its bodywork made of recycled materials was the result of extensive research into alternative materials. Made of a resin, which is reinforced with cotton fibres, Duroplast is very similar to fibreglass (the latter was more widely accepted in the UK, as communist production was not very popular in other countries.)

The Trabant trek is a fantastic opportunity to take one of these enigmatic cars around the Eastern European countryside. With a couple of cars and the blokes in the back, you can have your own version of The Italian Job, or just take in the sights, while driving around at a leisurely pace. The Trabant trek is becoming a widely popular craze with people travelling all over the world in these little plastic cars. Take a picnic, or taste the local delights in the heart of the Hungarian hills.

The hottties go crazy over this little car and driving one will make you the envy of other motorists – at least in theory. You can get cosy in the back or pose with cute local girls on the bonnet. You can take part in the Trabant trek both in summer and winter; both are memorable for different reasons!

Take a soft top in the summer so you can get a closer look at the landscape or challenge your mates to a drive in the snow. The car’s two-stroke engine and dashboard gear-stick will only be the first part of the challenge. Whenever you decide to take on the Trabant trek be sure to allow the day, as you never know where this classic little car will take you.

Prague has become one of the most popular destinations for British stag parties in recent years, earning titles such as “Stag Capital of Europe” and “Amsterdam of the East”. But with all the excitement the city has to offer, it’s certainly no surprise.

As one of Europe’s most beautiful and charming cities, Prague has some incredible architecture for history fans, including Gothic spires, ancient coffee houses and medieval streets. However, it’s the city’s beautiful female inhabitants, wide range of strip bars and night clubs, top class restaurants and beer costing as little as 50p a pint that makes Prague the real winner among British stag groups.

By day, Prague caters to stag groups by offering a huge range of activities which the lads can enjoy together. Whatever your level of love for the outdoors, you’ll be able to find an activity of interest – ranging from bobsleighing to bowling, paintballing to parachuting, clay pigeon shooting to a Czech football match. Or, how about a mini grand-prix race on the go-kart track followed by a tour of a local brewery? Those seeking a real jet fuelled experience can even get strapped into the Czech-made L-29 military plane, where they’ll climb at 4000ft per minute and fly through Czech airspace at over 700km per hour!

By night, Prague’s numerous bars and night clubs pulsate with activity. One of the most famous night spots is the multi-venue Acropolis which hosts a number of live gigs, theatre performances, cafés, club nights, bars and beer halls, making it one of the most well frequented night spots in the city. Eating out in Prague is great value and the perfect way to sample some hearty Czech cuisine, such as pork or beef stew with dumplings and delicious apple strudel for dessert, all washed down with a pivo (beer), for which the Czech Republic is world famous. There are also many western style and fast food restaurants, so there’s something to suit all palettes.

With so many established companies offering fully organised stag weekends to Prague, arranging your trip is simple. Most companies have stag weekend package deals to suit all budgets, which include transfers, accommodation and offer plenty of additional options to cater to the tastes of any group. And the fact that there are so many flights to Prague from London and throughout the UK, which take only two hours to reach the Czech Republic, means the city is easily accessible from the UK at a low price.

So, if you’re looking for a place to hold a stag weekend you’ll find no better city than Prague – the European stag capital!

chinese mail order brides

In a time when football stars don alice bands to offset their fresh blonde highlights and rockers turn to macrobiotics and prune juice rather than whiskey and hookers, the stag weekend may well be the last bastion of old school masculinity. Amalia Illgner takes a look at the modern incarnation of this rite of passage and discovers there’s a lot more to the modern stag weekend than just a boozy night of bonding and bristols.

Back when Michael Caine was a sex symbol, Michael Jackson still black, and Chicken Tikka was considered the height of culinary chic; the perfect stag night simply consisted of a case of beer, your best mates, a fully loaded Polaroid, and an amateur stripper named Bambi. How times have changed…

According to the office for national statistics we’re now far less likely to get married in the first place and if we do get dragged down the aisle it’s far later than ever before. In fact for men the average age has crept up to an all time high of 30 and a half years, so there’s little wonder that it’s not just a small cause for celebration when two people in this Bridget Jones world manage to step away from their work stations, microwave-meals-for-one and eBay auctions and actually commit to each another.

What this means for the stag weekend is that generally couples have more money to spend on their respective hen and stag weekends and what that means is that the stag weekends are getting more elaborate, adventurous and action packed. In other words the ante is being upped along with the expectations. Forget sitting on your rear and ordering the seafood special at your local, the typical 21st century stag weekend consists of action packed days filled with paintball army combat style, canyoning, quad biking, Munich beer halls, Estonian feasts and coasteering. For those of you who think crossing Piccadilly Circus during peak hour is about as rugged terrain as you’ve ever seen, coasteering is the fine art of scrambling around a coastline and leaping off cliffs into wave lapped coves below. It’s about as close to becoming Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as anyone who works in an office is going to get. Ever. And the guys are loving it. In fact, coasteering – as well as the trusty faithfulls like paintball and quad biking – is fast becoming the new black when it comes to planning the ultimate stag weekend. There truly is nothing like getting a bunch of lads together adding a strong element of fear, the smell of competition and the threat of ritual humiliation to bring out the dormant Evil Knieval within.

And it seems this chest beating machismo and daring even stretches into the cultural realm as scores of quintessential British stags are downloading Google earth, thumbing through a phrase book and heading off shore to experience far flung destinations for their weekend of freedom. The foreign office released a detailed survey at the end of last year and found that a staggering 70 per cent of young Brits “now prefer to travel abroad for hen and stag parties”. That sure is a giant leap from our parents’ night out in Bournemouth. And perched at the top of the destination pack is undeniable the cool of Eastern Europe. Riga. Vilnius. Tallinn. Bratislava. Moscow. They’re so cool they’re hot. The Iron Curtain is cool and the Eastern Bloc is rocking. This is principally from the recent expansion of the European Union making costly and irritating visas at thing of the past and the fact that flights are now cheaper than a ticket to see Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits tour at Wembley. And let’s not forget the exchange rate. Ah the sweet exchange rate, where often one humble quid will be enough to buy more than one pint of quality local brew. This point is often argument enough to entice punters from expensive metro poles like London (where one quid may buy you a copy of The Sun and half a mars bar).

So 21st Century Stags unite! The options are as endless as your imagination. That really is the easy part. Now it’s just a matter of convincing her to marry you…

If there’s one city in the world that knows how to party, it’s Manchester. This isn’t exactly news to the hip and the cool – Manchester has been the center of hip for decades now. Trendy music, classic style, the original Pub crawl capital of the world and home to the Curry Mile – not to mention the Hard Rock Cafe – what more could you ask from a city if you’re planning a stag do? Stag parties were made for Manchester – or should that be the other way around?

But there’s more to Manchester than night life. By day, the cheeky city boasts some of the best sporting and active pursuits any man would be proud to admit to indulging. Stag parties in Manchester tend to run to full stag weekends of non-stop rousing and Arousing fun. Whether it’s a spot of paintball (or a whole lot of paintball spots!), a round of golf, a jaunt around the course in an armored tank or a walk on the wild side in Manchester’s hottest nightclubs, a Manchester stag weekend can boast something for everyone.

So you’re the bloke that gets to plan a stag party in Manchester? Here’s a handful of helpful tips to make sure you send your mate off on his wedding day with a photo album full of memories. (And you can’t blame us if they’re the sort he’ll pay to keep hidden!)

Start with a THEME. In a city full of college pranksters and swaggering Mancunians, you’ll need a way to make the Stag stand out from the crowd. Who could miss him strutting down the street in the midst of a dozen toga-clad Senators? Or if togas are a bit too Greek for your lot, why not hit the clubs wearing pith helmets and monocles for a jolly old night on the town?

Don’t forget the PRANK – the lynchpin of any stag party in Manchester or anywhere else. The best we’ve heard is a direct steal from MAS*H – get your guest of honor totally soused… then encase him from neck to knees in a plaster cast. All right – that one might be a touch rough to pull off, but it’s a bit more imaginative than hiding all his trousers and leaving him nothing to wear but a pair of boxers stamped with bright pink ribbons.

Even if you decide to do away with the theme and the prank, you’ll still find a lot of benefit in some advance planning for your Manchester stag weekend. In fact, say many professional tour operators, you’d do best to start making your plans and reservations as much as six months in advance, especially if you want to include popular activities like quad bikes, five a side football or hovercraft racing. If you’re feeling especially organized, you might even arrange a full weekend of spy games to entertain the man of the hour in his final hours.

A stag weekend in Manchester is just one example of the unique stag parties that a professional tour operator can help you arrange. If you’re looking for more unique ideas for stag parties in Manchester or any other city, contact a tour operator that specialises in unique and unusual stag nights, bachelor parties and stag weekends.

Ghost Hunters