Flying into Sofia

If you look on a map there really isnt much that would be less than a long train ride. You could look at Wizz and Ryan as they both go to Sofia and then see if they connect to anyplace of interest. Most likely 1.5 hours and under $100.

Here is another way of looking at it.

I got invited to visit frineds in Sydney in a few weeks. The airfare is less than desirable and the travel time to Sydney, because of a lack of good connections is horrible.

So i got curious and started looking at intermediate stops on the way over. I discovered that I can go to Tokyo and then to Sydney and the flight time of each leg is pretty good. The ticket will cost $125 more. For $125 I get to see Tokyo. So now my horrible flight cost is to see Sydney and Tokyo. Value for the money spent just doubled.

Log into Wizz an Ryan and do a search Sofia to ____________ all the options will show up. Now you know where you can lay over. See if any of those locations are interesting and are cheaper to reach, or at least no more expensive

That's in line with what I paid in November, 2022 for the same tour in May, 2023. I paid $1437 for regular Economy on United, round trip from Denver to Sofia.

On the positive side, Sofia is cheap compared to some European cities. The metro from the Sofia airport costs about 1.6 BGN ($0.88) and gets you to a station within 300m of one of the hotels the tour uses, a bit further from the other, but still walking distance.

The railroads in the eastern Balkans are underdeveloped. I spent a fair amount of time in Bulgaria and Romania in 2015, and I figured I covered about 30 mph whether I was on a train or a bus. I suspect you won't find a substantially cheaper city to fly into from which you'd be happy to take a Balkan train to Sofia, assuming you have limited time for this trip. (I'm retired and go to a lot of secondary cities, so the slow trains didn't really affect me so much.)

I think your only option would be to look at the least expensive European gateways from your home airport and see whether you'd save enough vs. $1400 to buy separate airline tickets from one of those gateways to Sofia plus pay for at least one hotel night (for the return trip). And, since you'd be traveling on two separate tickets, you'd still be at a slight risk of missing your transatlantic flight back to the US and having to buy last-minute, replacement tickets at a probably-exorbitant price. If you've been dying to see London, Dublin, or some other city with cheap flights from the US and can build in a lot of time on both ends of the tour, the risk would be really negligible, and you'd add a lot of variety to your vacation; that would be a fine idea. Or if you plan to buy trip insurance that will cover you for the costs related to a missed connection, that would reduce the financial risk.

I would look into flying into Athens and then taking a cheap flight to Sofia. May or may not save you a little bit of money. But Athens is a cool city to check out if you end up making it a stop over.

I fly to London all the time, spend a few days getting over jet lag and seeing shows and fabulous museums then take wizz or easyjet.. great to work with. I buy the upgraded ticket to check luggage and it also gives you fast track and priority boarding. Luton is an easy airport. I stay at the Thistle which is no frills but a 15 minute cab and about 50 pounds a night. Right in the center. Great Italian restaurant down the road called Basile…. You can take an Uber to Luton of stay the night depending what time your flight is.

You could also fly into Frankfurt and take Lufthansa
To Sofia.

I took this tour a few years ago (fabulous!) I booked a RT to Amsterdam (non-stop) from Minneapolis, spent a couple days there, and then flew on Air Bulgaria to/from Sofia (with another long layover on my return.). This was less expensive than booking a flight all the way from Minneapolis to Sofia on one ticket. Plus I saw Amsterdam!