Why Bulgaria
The country holds two mountain ranges and a coast. The Rila and the Pirin, in the south-west, rise to nearly three thousand metres and hold Rila Monastery, a World Heritage site. The Balkan range crosses the country west to east. The Black Sea coast, in the east, is a cheap and very busy summer beach destination.
Sofia sits at the foot of Vitosha, a mountain reached by city transport from the centre — rare for a capital.
May–June and September for hiking and the cities, July–August for the Black Sea, December to March for skiing at Bansko and Borovets, among the cheapest in Europe.
Entry and stay
Bulgaria has been a full member of the Schengen area since 1 January 2025, the date land border controls were lifted. Air and sea controls had gone on 31 March 2024.
An identity card is enough for nationals of the EU, the European Economic Area and Switzerland.
For other nationalities, the European Entry/Exit System (EES) has been in service since 10 April 2026 and digitally records every crossing of a Schengen external border, with or without a visa, against the ninety-days-in-a-hundred-eighty allowance. ETIAS, a twenty-euro authorisation for visa-exempt nationalities, is expected in the final quarter of 2026.
Source: European Commission and Council of the European Union, checked on 22 September 2026.
Getting around
The train is slow and the network ageing; long-distance coaches are faster and more comfortable on most routes, including Sofia–Varna and Sofia–Plovdiv.
In the city, Sofia has a modern métro. Marshrutkas, shared minibuses, serve what the scheduled lines ignore.
A car is useful for the monasteries and the mountains. An electronic vignette is compulsory on the national road network and is bought online or at the border.
Money
The Bulgarian lev. It has been pegged to the euro at a fixed rate for years, which makes mental arithmetic simple, but it is a separate currency.
Cash dominates outside Sofia and the seaside resorts. Changing money in the street should be avoided; official bureaux display their rate and take no hidden commission.
Before you go
Head movements are reversed: a nod up and down means no, a shake from side to side means yes. The habit is fading among younger city dwellers but remains widespread, and it causes genuine misunderstandings.
The alphabet is Cyrillic, including on road signs away from the main axes. Being able to decipher a few letters changes the drive.
It is one of the cheapest countries in the European Union, for accommodation as for eating out, and the gap with Western Europe remains considerable.