Growing up we didn't have a lot of money and my family didn't have a car, (and a license in Germany is quite expensive, about 1k and it involves a ton of lessons) or vacations, so I basically just bolted to a university town when I was 18 and as a developer in an urban environment, I've never needed one since.
Nowadays as an adult, I think on vacations it might actually be a good thing because I've found just taking trains in foreign countries is actually one of the more fun aspects of travelling.
I've been to Eastern Europe several times over the last few years. In some countries public infrastructure is so-so but that's mostly a function of the countries still not being super wealthy. Overall I had a good experience.
East Europeans need to stop this self-colonizing attitude. The trains are reasonably OK, with great variations from place to place. Is there room for improvement? Sure.
I very much doubt that the average train speed in EE is 35 km/h, and I traveled extensively by train from the baltics through the balkans over several decades.
If you take the average EE train, it is worse than Western Europe or Japan, comparable or better than US, with more extensive coverage.
Nowadays as an adult, I think on vacations it might actually be a good thing because I've found just taking trains in foreign countries is actually one of the more fun aspects of travelling.