I recently traveled to Bulgaria, Sunny Beach resort, for my honeymoon and as I always like to do, I made notes about my experience there so I can share it with all of you and maybe be of help to the ones planning to see this beautiful country. This will be a series of articles about my experiences in Bulgaria, Sunny Beach, some good, some not so good, but as always, I will try and keep it objective and to the point. For all of you complainers out there, please keep in mind that I am not advertising this as an absolute truth, I am merely putting my personal experiences and opinions on virtual paper. I would also like to note that although most of the things I will write about in these articles are related to the Sunny Beach resort, a lot of the information is general and can be applied to other Bulgarian seaside resorts. So, here we go....
Exchanging currency in Bulgaria, Sunny Beach Most of the people nowadays use credit cards in their travels, but now and then you will find yourself with some cash you would like to exchange to the local currency. It happened the same to us and we had to learn the hard way what to do and what not to do when exchanging money in Bulgarian resorts. So here are a few guidelines that will help you safely exchange your currency and avoid scammers: Ideally, you should exchange enough currency while still home
That's the best practice in my opinion although even I forgot about it and then I just procrastinated and left it for when I reach Bulgaria. Needles to say that until we got at the hotel we had no money to pay for drinks or food or even taxi and we ended up paying in euros at double the price ( the taxi driver didn't want to take euros so we had to negotiate). Learn from my mistakes. Use the local banks
The safest way to exchange currency in Bulgaria is to go to a local bank. If you can't find one, just ask at the reception clerks, they will guide you to the closest bank agency. Another plus is that the banks have the best exchange rate, well, they did in Sunny Beach anyways. Use your hotel exchange office
Sometimes you just find out you need more money in the evening before going out and the banks are closed. So what can you do? Easy, use your hotel's exchange desk, it's just as safe as the banks are and the rates are not bad at all. If your hotel doesn't have one you can go to other hotels, we found out that all 4 & 5 stars hotels have an exchange office. Never exchange currency at the people in the street
Not so often you will see people, mostly men, waiting at the corner street advertising currency exchange. This is a BIG no no, no matter in which country you are, 99.9% of the time you will find you were scammed and there is nothing you can do about it. You've been warned... Avoid the yellow exchange cabins found at every corner
Almost at every crossroad you will see these yellow cabins with an exchange panel outside stating the currency rate, not two like you're used to at the bank, one for selling and one for buying, just one, written in big print. You'll also see that the rates are way more than what you will get at the bank. But wait! Look closer...can you see that written in very small print it says that they are buying the currency at those rates and not selling it? Well not everybody sees that and falls for the big exchange rate and when you get the money and notice that it's less than you thought you will get there is nothing you can do. The won't give you the money back and one tourist told me that they even ask the police nearby to intervene and got no reaction. My advise to you is to just pass by and ignore the yellow exchange cabins. Only the major currencies are exchanged and sometimes the neighborhood countries' currency
Like in any country, the exchange offices will only exchange the major currencies. I would have expected for them to exchange the neighboring countries' currency as well, like Romanian currency, but i was surprised to find out not all of them did, well most of them didn't actually. Luckily we had some euros left we could exchange.
I hope this was helpful to you, safe travels.
Labels: money, travel |
Hi,
It's been a long time. Thanks again for the informations about your country.
Do you intent to return to the cruise life, now that you are maried ? Or it's over ?
Well thanks again. Have a nice day.
Beetho.