Next month I will be arriving in Budapest by air from the US; I have heard that the taxis located at the airport for travel into the city are a big scam - with very high, outrageous fares. Does anyone have any advice on how to get into the city. I will be staying at the Budapest Hilton. Also, are ATMs readily available in these countries? And are credit cards widely accepted? ARe traveler's checks a good idea? I will travel by train to Slovakia and Romania - and advice on that is appreciated. Is pickpocketing a serious problem. Thanks for any help you can give.

The reference library of a city near you may have the Thomas Cook European Timetable. Table 5 shows that Repter-Bus have a bus every 10 to 20 minutes from the airport in 22 minutes to Kobanya Kizpest metro station, whence metro trains run to many places.
Inside the airport building you can ask the enquiries point whether Hilton have ac courtesy coach, and also to tell you the right taxi fare and name you a company that will charge that fare.
ATMs are readily available. So long as you take two cards (in case you lose one) ATMs are all you need, in all three countries.
Picking pockets runs at normal levels, and is a concern only in crowded tourist places. In each city I leave passport, tickets and spare cards and money in the hotel manager s safe.
By night trains have travelling thieves. Sleeping compartments have locks and bolts or chains, so you should book beds in advance if you plan to take a night train.
There are note on getting the best from sleepers and couchettes at http://www.geocities.com/rexbickers/tipsnighttrains.htm

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When you are in Romania do not take too much cash out of the ATMs so that you have extra lei when you leave the country. No other country will want to convert it back to hard currency, so it is essentially lost money. When this happened to us, we justified to ourselves that the Romanian economy needed our $150 we had left over much more than we did.

The Budapest Hilton and the whole Castle District are just wonderful. There's a handy ATM in the Hilton. ATMs are all over. In Slovakia, too. Don't know about the pickpocketing but read about it so we decided to rent a car from AutoEurope and drove from Vienna to Budapest, Koscice, Bardejov, and Prague. No problems whatsover.

When we arrived at the Budapest airport, our hotel (the Gellert) had its van pick us up. I'm sure the Hilton can do the same.

Budapest was wonderful!

Byrd

The Hilton sent us a taxi to the airport with the fare already set.

I, too, read about Budapest taxi ripoffs but the fare was quite reasonable as it was the several other times we took a cab there.

We loved the Castle Hill Hilton, the sights of Budapest and the people we met. Have fun!