Crazy Tourist | Crazytourist.com
  • Home
  • Travel
    • Los Angeles
    • International
    • What I Packed and What I Wore
  • Knitting
    • Free Patterns
    • Hats
  • Navelgazing
    • Tips & Tricks
    • Sewing
    • Crafting
    • Food
    • My Crazy Household
    • Neurotica
    • Right Now I Am …
  • These Cats Speak French
  • About Me

Crazy Tourist | Crazytourist.com

The true life diary of a wanderer

  • Home
  • Travel
    • Los Angeles
    • International
    • What I Packed and What I Wore
  • Knitting
    • Free Patterns
    • Hats
  • Navelgazing
    • Tips & Tricks
    • Sewing
    • Crafting
    • Food
    • My Crazy Household
    • Neurotica
    • Right Now I Am …
  • These Cats Speak French
  • About Me

Hello From Bucharest, Romania

October 29, 2017

The first thing you should know is that I love it here. I wasn’t expecting all of THIS.

We arrived just past midnight and the whole airport was alive and abuzz with people everywhere. I had pre-booked us a car service to the hotel (https://www.rideways.com/). This is a luxury I can’t afford in Los Angeles but here the roundtrip black Mercedes private car/driver experience was a grand total of $54 USD. Yes. That is $54 including both the ride from the airport to the hotel, and it also covers the roundtrip ride back to the airport on our day of departure. This is your first indication that Romania is an absolute bargain for travelers and it only gets better from here.

We got off the plane on the tarmac and took a bus to the airport. There we lined up for customs (the lady who helped me spoke perfect English) and then we made our way past the luggage carousels and through a crowded knot of folks waiting for their friends and family to get off the plane. I wasn’t expecting the whole midnight vibe of the airport to be a party, but welcome to Bucharest on a Friday!

We found an ATM in this area and took out some cash (400 Romanian Lei = about $27 USD) and then we found our driver, who was holding up his phone with my name printed out on the screen.

Our driver was breezily chatty and he threw in a lot of colorful commentary along with a quick drive around town to see the Parliamentary Building all lit up at night. I learned that he used to be a stuntman, that he thinks Steven Seagal is a great actor, he gave us a brief history lesson on why the Romanian President is German and he had a few choice words about the current politics of the United States (something I have discovered everyone EVERYWHERE has an opinion about!)

We arrived at our hotel and checked in with no problems. It’s the top picture of this post and one of the nicest hotels in Bucharest (Epoque Hotel, Intrarea Aurora 17C, București 010213). We got our room for a steal, about $240 for the whole trip (and that was with a room upgrade, too.) The room rate includes free wifi and a free breakfast spread of Scandinavian proportions.

I had done a little research before the trip (read: “checked Instagram” and “looked up the hotel on Google street view”) so I wasn’t totally shocked the next morning as we walked from the hotel to the old town and passed streets and sidewalks covered in graffiti. I thought maybe it was just our hotel’s neighborhood, but it’s all throughout the city. There’s something about this city that visually intoxicated me: it’s beautiful, it’s crumbling, it’s in a phase of growth and revitalization, and it’s full of (gothic, beautiful, decrepit) teardowns next to Soviet-era architecture next to glassy new buildings. The whole city is a juxtaposition of styles and I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The vibe of the city is surprisingly safe (even if the streets sometimes look like they’d be sketchy as all get out.) Violent crime is low, homelessness is extremely low, and I regularly see more drug use and depressing human activity at the 7-11 in Studio City than I did anywhere in Bucharest. And another thing — this whole town feels like a place on the upswing, to quote the great philosophers Fat Joe and Remy Ma, this town is going ALL THE WAY UP. The economy is good, unemployment is extremely low, and the whole city is alive all night long with some of the best nightlife in all of Europe. It’s hard to believe that just 25 years ago or so they were living under the iron curtain of communism and blocked from the western world. Today, Romania is alive with an entrepreneurial vibe and the doors are wide open to tourists.

For the first few nights here I kept wondering to myself if I would feel safe here alone. Traveling as a single woman alone in a country is very different from walking around with a male companion. I’m not the bravest traveler, I definitely prioritize safety and comfort over adventure. So I am not sure I would have braved Bucharest on my own, and once we were here I definitely had my doubts about walking the dark, quiet, creepy-looking streets from the hotel to the old town. But after a few days I have revised my thinking.

If you are traveling alone and feel comfortable with some level of adventure this could be a wonderful destination for you. If I were solo I would stay much closer to the old town center and I probably wouldn’t be out walking at midnight like the Captain and I did, but it’s a beautiful, interesting city with a lot to offer (and at an incredible price!) Keep your wits about you as always and don’t get sloppy drunk out alone and I think you’d be fine. The real reason to travel here though is to get outside the city. Next up I’ll tell you all about our daytrip up to the Carpathian Mountains and to the castles of Transylvania. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before and it was worth the whole trip!

Hello From Bucharest, Romania was last modified: October 29th, 2017 by Laurie Perry
RomaniaTips & Tricks
6 comments
10
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
previous post
All Packed Up and Ready for Romania!
next post
Turning the past into the present

More CrazyTourist Hijinks

Copenhagen, Here We Come (in Eleventeen Hours) and...

All Packed Up and Ready for Romania!

I Ate All The Fish & Chips In...

I Can Haz Boarding Pass Please?

Tips For Short Trips: Get In, Vacation Hard...

And So It Begins

Have I ever been this cold? I think...

Dinner on the Seine

Did Hell Freeze Over? Because I’m Already Packed...

Skirted Leggings Are My Lifeline, Floral Nikes All...

Search CrazyTourist.com

Browse the Archives

March 2021
S M T W T F S
« Feb    
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  

Most Recent Posts

  • The Clothes Are Laminated And The Suitcase Zips!

    February 13, 2019
  • This Day Is Crazy And So Am I

    February 12, 2019
  • All Dressed Up & No Place To Snow

    February 8, 2019
  • I Made Leggings That Are 1/7th Of My Allotted Carryon Luggage Weight

    February 7, 2019
  • Everything Is Wet And People Are Angry + Something About Strap-ons (For Shoes! Really!)

    February 5, 2019

Famous Last Words

"Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?"

Right now I am …

Starting to take some of the improvements from the guest room and add them to my bedroom, like this cool power outlet for the bedside table. I’m hoping it helps with the constant problem of needing to charge all devices simultaneously.


Still obsessing over Sew Over It and Lisa Comfort, the lady boss behind it all. Here is her site, YouTube vlog, and Insta. I bought pretty much every pattern they have during the recent 30% off sale.


Currently reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. I need this book to help me but I don’t have enough time to read this book because I’m working nonstop, so…


Interested in these silica gel packets for my yarn stash. Does anyone out there add these to ziplock baggies of yarn?


Listening to lovely Carla Bruni singing “Quelqu’un m’a dit.”


 Trying some cedar oil in my oil diffuser to ward off summer pests



Read past lists >

Also on the twitter dot com

laurie perryFollow

laurie perry
Retweet on Twitterlaurie perry Retweeted
BStulbergBrad Stulberg@BStulberg·
January 25, 2021

Find and follow your passion is a load of crap.

Expecting to find something where everything clicks from the get go and is all good from there on out is a surefire way to never be happy.

Pursue your interests. Stay curious. Hone a craft. Passion emerges over years, not seconds.

Reply on TwitterRetweet on Twitter48Like on Twitter536Twitter
crazyauntpurllaurie perry@crazyauntpurl·
January 24, 2021

Snow in Wales this morning!!!!! #tregare #monmouthshire #wales

Reply on TwitterRetweet on TwitterLike on Twitter38Twitter
crazyauntpurllaurie perry@crazyauntpurl·
January 24, 2021

The barn cats came out to investigate the snow with us at 5 am!
#tregare #monmouthshire #wales

Reply on TwitterRetweet on TwitterLike on Twitter38Twitter
Retweet on Twitterlaurie perry Retweeted
GianmarcoSoresigianmarco@GianmarcoSoresi·
January 21, 2021

A reminder that there’s no such thing as crisis actors bc there’s no such thing as an actor who booked a job and kept it a secret

Reply on TwitterRetweet on Twitter2825Like on Twitter31699Twitter
Retweet on Twitterlaurie perry Retweeted
jimsciuttoJim Sciutto@jimsciutto·
January 21, 2021

“What we’re inheriting from the Trump administration -- what we're inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined, and you know, we are committed to being transparent and honest with American people,” Jeff Zients, WH Covid Coordinator.

Reply on TwitterRetweet on Twitter6384Like on Twitter24131Twitter
Load More...

instagram @crazyauntpurl

  • Ive been sick  really really sick  for about
  • Its in the 60s in losangeles so that qualifies as
  • Traffic sucks but the view is losangeles
  • Ladybugs!!! This is the seamworkmag Neenah pattern Its a turtleneck
  • Grey morning in the hollywoodhills
  • The scenery at work improved dramatically this week  aquaman
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • Bloglovin
Footer Logo

TM & © 2017 Laurie Perry
NOTE: I am not paid to endorse or use any products.
Not that I would mind, so if you have a Boeing Dreamliner you need me to ride in for a first-class seat review, call me. Hi!
Any links that are here are for things I genuinely like and recommend, and they are the standard amazon/retailer affiliate links. Here is the standard Amazon Affiliate statement:
Laurie Perry (crazytourist.com) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.


Back To Top