Having travelled from Prague to Warsaw and then on to Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn it was interesting to compare and contrast each country.

The capitals in all three countries are far from shabby and looking around you wouldn't guess they've just been through an economic crisis.

Vilnius is quite pretty but lacks real economic power - even Ryanair lands in the country's second city Kaunas. Riga is the largest and most dynamic city of the three and is a business hub for the region. Tallinn is the most developed, with strong trade links and Scandinavian efficiency. Perhaps with the exception of Riga the major towns and cities have a very sleepy backwater feel to them compared to those in the Czech Republic or Poland.

There is a huge Russian portion of the population in each country, which helps to increase trade but also increase tensions (partly due to historical reasons) especially in Estonia where the languages are so different.

Economically I struggled to see what drives these countries. Sure there are well established industries such as agriculture, fishing, timber and some IT but you certainly couldn't compare them to countries such as Norway (oil and gas) or Switzerland (finance, pharmaceuticals etc) and the like. What will transform these countries into world leaders? I don't know. Yet at the same time due to their relative small size, if positive change were to occur then it would probably not take much for them to boom once again.