Living in Prague as a foreign student

Moving to Prague can be challenging, so this article covers some tips that might be useful for your survival.

Prague as a city

Prague is quite safe as a city. There are no dangerous areas per se, but exercise necessary caution and common sense. From 9 PM, there are many drunk people/drug addicts in the streets.

Unfortunately, Prague is a tourist city with many scams. See this list to avoid some of them.

Groceries

Most of you will live at the dormitory named "17. listopadu". The bad news is that there are no grocery stores near that dorm, except for the Minute Shop (previously "kolejní obchůdek"). There is a nice cycle path from the dorm almost all the way to the Libeň Kaufland.

Aside from that, I suggest you shop at supermarkets to be on the safe side. Examples are Albert, Billa, Lidl, Tesco, etc.

You might miss food from home. Here is a list of ethnic shops I’m aware of:

• SAPA center for Asian food. It’s quite far from the city, though, so I suggest you make it a half-day trip on a weekend.

• Kolobok for Russian food.

Eating during the day

During the day, you might want to get lunch. Czech restaurants usually have a lunch menu where meals are cheaper, but the selection is limited. E.g., a normal menu may have 20 dishes at prices >= 250 CZK per dish, but a lunch menu will have about 4 items at ~180 CZK a dish. Here is a list of restaurants near the Mala Strana building.

Also, you can make use of student cafeterias. A dish usually costs around 120 CZK. Usually, you need to top up your student card and pay with it in the cafeterias.

As of May 2025, there is the Malostranska canteen directly in the Mala Strana building (the canteen is located in the basement).

Other canteens near the Mala Strana building are:

• Menza Arnosta z Pardubic,

• Faculty of Law Canteen.

Getting around

Public transportation

Public transportation in Prague is excellent, and I suggest you use it. Excellent means that you can get anywhere using it, transfers are simple, and you usually don't need many of them. I suggest you get a yearly pass from the official website. Apply for a student discount if possible.

The modes of transportation are subway, trams, buses, boats, and a cable car. One thing to note is that public transportation tickets (including the monthly/yearly pass) also apply on trains as long as the stations you are traveling between start with the name "Praha."

Mapy.com is good at pathfinding in Prague, including using MHD. You might also check out Spojenka, which was created by one of the students as a bachelor’s thesis and is quite good.

Shared bicycles

There are some shared bicycle services in Prague. The most prominent examples are Rekola and NextBike. The rental price is quite cheap, but the biggest advantage is that if you purchase a yearly public transportation pass, you get two free 15-minute rentals per day. Meaning that if you register at both Rekola and NextBike with your yearly public transportation pass, then you get four 15-minute rentals per day for free.

Schengen area

One thing to note is that the Czech Republic belongs to the Schengen Area. Countries in the Schengen Area do not patrol borders. (October 2024 With the notable exception of Germany as of right now. If you plan on visiting Germany, make sure that your paperwork is up to snuff.) That means you can visit any of them from the Czech Republic without having to get visas or even show passports at the border. I suggest you use this opportunity to explore Europe. Cross-country travel can be done with buses (e.g., RegioJet or FlixBus), trains, or planes. For trains, finding cheap tickets is quite a challenge, and I don’t know much about it. For flying, try using, e.g., Google Flights, Skyscanner, or Momondo to search for affordable flight tickets. Note that if you use a low-cost carrier such as Ryanair or Eurowings, you’ll need to pay for checked luggage or cabin luggage.