Driving ourselves in Bulgaria

We recently crossed from Bulgaria into Romania on our tour bus. The wait time to go through that border crossing was about 25 minutes.

During that 25 minutes - and then after we crossed into Romania, as we drove into the country, we were able to get a look at the immigration line of cars that wanted to cross from Romania into Bulgaria.

Mostly what we saw was trucks. I can’t recall where the cars were in the situation but it was awful. It was about 10 kilometers of stopped traffic, all heading to cross into Bulgaria. Our tour guide said that it typically took 12 - 18 hours for the trucks to make it through the crossing. A car will certainly be quicker - but it’s a really busy crossing at Ruse.

Here’s a picture of what we saw. If you look, you can see the cars going through faster in the inside lane but I don’t know what their wait was as I could not take my eyes of that line of trucks!!
https://www.bta.bg/upload/533826/unnamed.jpg?l=1000&original=

Be sure to allow some time to see Plovdiv itself. It's a very nice town. As is Veliko Tarnovo, but my wallet was lifted in VT by a pair of professionals, so don't let your guard down.

I drove in several parts of Bulgaria, but we crossed into Romania by train, and didn’t drive once we reached Bucharest. Bulgarian roads are littered with random deep potholes. Where there’s not a hole or crater, the road surface is in great condition, which makes the presence of unfilled potholes surprising.

Drive in the daytime, and you’ll be able to scan the road ahead for damage. I’d avoid driving at night, if possible.

The signs on main roads will be in both Latin characters and Cyrillic. Near smaller towns, I saw many road signs that were in Cyrillic only.

So, for example, you'd want to recognize "центер" on roundabout signs to find your way to the town "Center."

Petrol stations on the main Bulgarian highways and roads made very nice rest stops, with clean, free facilities, snacks and hot and cold drinks.

I admire the RS Experienced Travelers. I am little more than screw up basic economy tourist and I know it. The one time out of the US that I attempted to drive ended badly for my car and several others, so never again.

I've been to Bulgaria twice and would love to return again. My last trip I hired a guide with a car and we drove from Sofia to Istanbul. Took a week, and it was one of my best trips ever. That guide is still in business if you are interested. The cost was about the same as the difference in cost between a Western European hotel room and an equal Bulgarian hotel room.

We returned from our trip last week, and it was PHENOMENAL! Thank you all for the information and tips you shared. Very helpful!

We flew in to Bucharest, Romania (OTP) and rented a car through Enterprise at the airport. (We frequently use Enterprise in the US and it gave us some level of comfort that we were renting through a reputable rental company.) The car we had was a new Renault station wagon (automatic drive!) -- super easy to drive and comfortably fit 2 adult-sized humans, plus luggage. We drove from the airport into Bucharest and stayed for 3 days. We then drove to Sighisoara for a night, to Brasov for 2 nights, then crossed the border into Bulgaria on our way to Veliko Tarnovo for 1 night, then Plovdiv for 5 nights. Driving in Romania was terrific. The roads were well maintained and easy to drive. We used the navigation app, Waze, to find our way. The most difficult part of using Waze in a country where we did not speak the language was mastering the art of how to input the address of our destination, but we figured it out. And Waze virtually always got us where we wanted to go with ease. Crossing the border at Giorgiu/Ruse was relatively easy, once we figured out that we did not need to join the long line of commercial tractor trailers at the crossing (see the photo in the discussion thread posted by another traveler). Once in Bulgaria, there was definitely a change in the driving experience. The roads were 2 lanes, for the most part, and we traversed many mountains (and many switchbacks) between Veliko Tarnovo and Plovdiv. The roads, while not as pristine as those in the US or even in Romania, were maintained and we came across few potholes. (The only exception to this was when we detoured off the main route to view the Buzludzha Monument, an abandoned communist building, and the 10 KM road to it was also abandoned and not maintained). We felt safe parking the car on the streets outside of our apartments in both Bulgaria and Romania. Having a car gave us freedom to travel on our own schedule, and I recommend it to anyone who is able to use Waze.

Thank you for coming back to share about a less visited area. We are moving towards longer , slower travel and definitely want to spend time in these 2 countries.

Thanks for reporting back! I appreciate the report of your experience since I plan to do the same in the near future.

Glad the trip was so good, and the roads not too bad. Thanks for the report!

Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip and managed the driving easily enough!