nomadder

Hello,

I am planning a trip to Romania in late September to early October. We plan on spending at least 13 days (not including flight days) visiting the Transylvania region, Maramures and Bucovina. We are skipping Bucharest, but it seems like the simplest plan is to fly into Bucharest and take a train to Brasov to start our trip in southern part of Transylvania, then work our way up. Does anyone know if I have to make my way down to Bucharest at the end of the trip for the return flight or are there other airports closer to the North that I can use to get back to the USA. I have done a few searches for flights but cannot find a multicity flight plan when searching with the other intl. airports. Just want to know if anyone has suggestions or if I should just plan to fly in and out of Bucharest?

Michael

I suspect that you will have to make a round trip from Bucharest. We did a similar trip quite a while back but from Budapest. While accommodations have surely changed, the sights are probably the same. You may want to check out my trip report; click on my name to find it.

nomadder

In and out of Bucharest is an option, but would be a shame since we want to skip Bucharest entirely. Flying into Cluj Napoca seems more ideal and more central to where we want to visit. But layovers are longer and ticket prices are a couple of hundred dollars higher. Other option is to get myself to a European city that flies to the other international airports in Romania and then take a budget European airline directly to Cluj, but that would be hard to plan.

Michael

You could start your tour of the Carpathians in Sibiu (nice town), go clockwise and end the tour in Brasov. Sibiu is a 4 hour drive from Bucharest and Brasov a 3 hour drive. With the airport north of the city, you could possibly plan to arrive there on the date of your departure from Romania. You could avoid Bucharest entirely.

rialtogrl

I'm going to Romania next week and found it difficult to get in and out of the more northern airports to and from other European airports, much less the USA. If you allow an extra day or two back end, you could fly Wizz Air or another low cost carrier to London, then pick up your flight home from there. I would not do it on the same day, I'd even allow two days in London. It also breaks up the journey. I don't know where you live but in 2013 I flew Bucharest to San Diego through Amsterdam and Atlanta and it was the longest 24 hours... I think I had jet lag for a month.

If you fly into Bucharest and want to go straight to Brasov, you don't need to go into Bucharest to take the train, there are buses that leave directly from the airport. This is likely what I will do next week so if you'd like I can let know know how that goes.