Bulgaria Road Trip: Motorhome Fails & Great Destinations

Bulgaria Road Trip: Motorhome Fails & Great Destinations

Good day folks. Welcome to uh this week’s video. It’s uh part two of Bulgaria. I’m going to take you in this video to uh Floive Nespar Vana and unfortunately a trip back to Sophia for a little bit of van repairs. Stick around right to the end though cuz there’s even more van repairs. [Music] So to kick off this video, let’s start with where I left off. uh leaving Sophia and heading to Plavdiff. So the the drive itself to uh Plavd was actually fairly picturesque, but it was a very very hot day. Officially the temperature was reported as 38°, but as you drive into Pliff, there was a roadside uh temperature uh sign, one of those um uh digital signs, and it said the temperature was 44°. So that was pretty unpleasant. Now somehow I managed to forget to record video of the campsite in Plative. I did however do a short which I’ll link here just on the right of the screen and you can check out the uh the Ploftive campsite. It was pretty cool campsite. The campsite’s got a bus stop right outside which will get you into the city. The fair is only one bogaran lever. So, that’s a pretty uh good fair payable to the bus driver or they have conductors on the buses that collect fairs as well. Now, as a bit of a pro tip for you, if you’re traveling into the city from the south or the west uh southwest areas, then the bus just before it gets to its terminus will go through a small tunnel that goes under some of the old town. Get off and stop just before the tunnel. That way you can walk to your right and walk straight through into the back of Oldtown. The advantage to doing this is you get to see the residential part of Oldtown, which is still in use today as a residential area, and you get to see some beautiful architecture, and then progressively go up the hill into the touristic area. Just a little bit of a word of warning to you though, along this route, there are quite a few museums in some of these old buildings. And to be honest with you, they charge quite a lot for entry. And unless you haven’t been to a museum and you’re looking for something to see the history, they’re probably not worth going to as a collective. Maybe one or two of them, but once you’ve done one or two, it’s really not worth doing anymore. If you follow the oldtown streets up the hill, you’ll uh eventually come across the archeological reserve of Net Tepp. I think I’ve pronounced that correctly. This is the site that the city was originally founded on and it dates back to about 4,000 BC when it was founded by the Thrians. Neti has a pretty extensive history having been occupied by uh its original founders obviously Philip II of Macedon the Roman Empire just to name a few. Some of the significant elements of the site include things like a hidden tunnel that goes down from the site down to historically down to the river and it’s said to be the path that the Apostle Paul was uh supposed to have walked along to get into the city. There’s also some pretty large and impressive water systems, which kind of gives you a bit of a thought. How on earth did they get the water up this hill into these systems? It’s pretty amazing stuff. Uh the the engineering and the uh the the the way things were done in these times. After a period of time, this area became the defensive citadel which protected the city sitting below it as the city expanded. Another interesting site to see in the city of Pliff is the amphitheater. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get to see much. As you can see, it was actually set up for a rock band. Coincidentally, an Australian rock band who were uh playing in Pliff for the week that I was there. So, modernday Plives’s got quite a uh a vibrant city center. The day I’m walking around in this clip is actually a Sunday, so it’s not as crowded as you would expect, but there’s some really nice walking streets, some uh little bar and restaurant precincts, as well as some pretty nice parks that you can stroll around to enjoy your day. Plavu was probably my favorite city in Bulgaria so far, but I didn’t get to stay there anywhere near as long as I wanted to. I ended up having to leave. Um, I was having so many problems with my solar power system and it was consistently unreliable and I I thought I needed to buy some new batteries and even with the help of the campsite manager, I just couldn’t locate batteries in Pliff. So I had to make uh a decision and I had to head back to Sophia. Okay. So for the second time running, I’m uh I’m leaving Sofia. Uh ended up spending three nights in Sophia. Only really intended to spend two nights or even preferably one, but as I mentioned, had to go up and get some uh well, I thought get some batteries. Turns out I have to get the whole solar system rewired. But now my solar system is running amazingly. It’s uh it’s it’s pumping power. I haven’t needed power for a few days now. So that’s a great thing. Loft of the Valley of Roses to a a camping site there now. Um and uh yeah, we’ll see what happens from there. So, my plan was to get to the Valley of Roses during the Rose Festival, but because I had to go back to Sophia, it’s uh it meant I arrived the week after. But I stayed at this really cool campsite. Uh a little bit of footage here. There’s really nothing else I did uh in this location. Only stayed uh two nights and then I headed off again. But this this campsite was apparently absolutely packed during the festival. So, I’m kind of glad I wasn’t there. All righty. So, another travel day. Um, just spent two nights at the uh the campsite in the Valley of the Roses. Uh, I’ll put the name of the the city just here somewhere uh cuz I can’t pronounce it. Um, really nice campsite. Sanitary facilities uh were insufficient for the size of most. You could easily fit probably three dozen campers there and there are only two toilets and two showers. Also, the the showers were um um mineral water, so kind of didn’t smell too good. So, talk about a quick shower. Um but, uh yeah, I’m moving on now to a place near Silvin, uh which uh I don’t know much about. Uh I just wanted to move on to somewhere that might have a better sanitary facilities. The place I was at though, talk about awesome uh Wi-Fi. Um, I was watching high definition uh movies. Um, 172 megabits per second was the speed. Um, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before, but then I’m Australian. We don’t have that kind of speed. All you Europeans are probably laughing at me right now. Anyway, so traveling along to uh uh Silvin. It’s only an hour and a half drive, but got to go to Calfllins’s on the way uh and uh stock up because I am bear in the old cupboard. What do I say? Mother Hwood’s covered bear. I’m not mother hobbit though. So, so yeah, I need to go to Oklands to uh to restock after that. I need to spend a bit of time planning where I’m going cuz I’ve been pretty um bad at planning. And so, I’ve gotten to this point now where I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t even know where I want to go. Um, I don’t know. There’s there’s not a lot that’s inspiring me. The the one city of an old town that I was pretty keen to see has absolutely no good campsites around it. It’s got car parks and stuff and it’s got a couple of um parking spots in the uh the warf area that you’re basically parking on a warf and paying €35 for the privilege. Stuff that. So, um, anyway, I’ll have to work out where the hell I’m going next. So, stay tuned and, uh, see where on earth I end up. I could end up in Romania very quickly because I’m starting to get a little bit uninspired by the rest of Bulgaria so far. That said, that’s because I’ve done no planning. So, Bulgarians that might be watching this channel, I love the country. It’s a really nice country. Um but um yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know where to go. Oh, you can’t see it because camera’s facing me, but all along here there’s these massive nests, stalk nests on the top of uh uh poles. Um I I think it’s actually I don’t think they’re real stalks. I mean, they they never seem to move. But uh but that said, they get a lot of stalks around here. So, opened up my door to my camper uh yesterday morning and right outside my door is this stalk. Um, never seen a stalk before. I don’t think any Aussies out there, feel free to correct me, but I don’t think we have stalks in Australia. Um, anyway, so talk to you when I get to my next campsite. All righty. So, just leaving that uh campsite in uh well, just outside of Silvin. If I can get my gears right. Who said I could drive? Anyway, um I’ll do a little bit of an overview while I’m talking. Uh show a little bit of the campsite. It’s It’s not a bad little campsite. Um it’s just it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. There is a really nice national park area that you can walk through. Um, I didn’t do any of that simply because the one full day I was here, I was I was a bit on the crook side. Uh, must have eaten something a bit on the dodgy side. Also want to give you an update on the solar panel situation because talk about a real u positive outcome. Um, after finally getting the solar problem diagnosed, I sat on that campsite. I could have plugged in on that campsite, but I sat on that campsite for uh 2 and 1/2 days with absolutely no problems with my solar. It’s uh it ran like a charm overnight as well. Obviously, the solar didn’t work overnight, but the battery power was sufficient for overnight. I could easily stay, based on what I’ve experienced, so long as there’s good sun, could easily stay off grid for at least a week. Um, gray and black for the upstanding, of course. So, that’s good. So, a positive outcome. Quick little uh interruption to the content to uh put a bit of an appeal out there to you. If you’re watching this video and you’ve gotten this far through, you must be enjoying it. Please consider clicking like, subscribe if you haven’t already, and what would be really cool is if you uh gave me some thoughts in the comments below. Have you been there? What do you think about the place? Have I uh given you all the information you need? What what sort of information would you like to see in future videos? Don’t forget, comment, like, and definitely uh subscribe if you haven’t already. Cheers, guys. Back to the content. So, my choice of place to go to uh to check out some of the beaches was also influenced by the presence of an old town. So, I went to a place called Nespar. Um a nice enough place. The uh the beaches are nice enough, but the beaches are your typical European style of beach. And that is to say, they’re very crowded and they’ve got all those sun beds everywhere and it it just wasn’t an enjoyable beach. I couldn’t do any videoing on it because it’s so crowded and it kind of looks a little bit weird walking along with a camera while you’re walking along a beach. But then of course there’s the Nespar old town. So, when I enjoy an old town, it’s usually because it’s stuck fairly loyally to being an old town. Um, as opposed to a tourist trap, which is pretty much what Nespar is. I mean, it’s it’s an old town. There’s some beautiful architecture. There’s some really interesting things to see, but there’s almost more trinket sellers than there are tourists in Nespar. It’s uh it’s really disappointing to be honest. Um there were some interesting things for sale in Nesbar as well. But for the m for the majority it was um magnets, keyrings, uh fluffy toys that have nothing at all to do with Nesbar. Um just basically landfill waiting to be bought and thrown out. So uh I liked Nesbar, but I really didn’t like the uh overly touristy feel to the place. And that’s not saying I didn’t like the number of tourists. It wasn’t crowded at all, but it was definitely crowded by trinket sellers. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Okay, full driving adventure over. If you were uh just watching that little bit of an adventure, I saw a a reference on Park for Nights for this place up on the bluff just near the sandy beach at NESA. And I thought, yeah, I mean, they say all types of vehicles can get in it. I’ll give it a go. And I got all the way to that last little bit that hopefully the camera captured where there’s a massive dip in the the road. There is no way in hell that um my vehicle with its uh bottomed out um well with its really low um profile is ever going to get through that dip. Um I almost bottomed out when I was reversing back um on a much smaller dip. This the massive disadvantage of this particular era of um Fiat Ducatos is some genius thought 15-in wheels and really low profile uh uh modules would be a good idea. Yeah. No, it’s not. This is going to be interesting. I’ve just got to swerve around a bit of a a dip as well. I’m trying to take the high side. scratching the crap out of the side of the vehicle as I go because it will bottle out there if I don’t. And I didn’t. Well, there you go. So, anyway, um that’s like I say, that’s the big disadvantage of this vehicle. There are so many really cool places that people can take this size vehicle no problem at all if it’s a newer vehicle with 16in wheels and uh maybe uh 75 profile tires. Um, but 75 Pro, I don’t know. I’m terrible with tires, but anyway. Um, but this vehicle is absolutely not getting into those places. There were two really big looking motor homes already down there, which might have meant there wasn’t a lot of space for me anyway, but they got there because they were newer vehicles. So, if I were ever to buy a different motor home in uh Europe, I would absolutely make sure that it was uh I think it’s after 2015 the Ducatos had uh 16in wheels. Um and uh it’s definitely better to go that way because your profile is just too low. I bottom out in car parks. this vehicle is absolutely for its uh low uh clearance. Um I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s it’s the way it is. And had I been a bit more informed um or more to the point, had I informed myself a bit better before I uh bought this thing, I would never have bought it because of that. So, if you’re looking for a motor home in Europe, do not get one that’s got really low profile because even suburban roads and even car parks in some countries in Europe have so many decent bumps in them, you won’t be able to get in or if you do get in, you won’t be able to get out. Um, this is I’m speaking specifically of uh the Balkans in Eastern Europe when I say these things. Western Europe, not a problem in the world. Anyway, um guess I’m going to a paid park up. I’ve just got to pull over somewhere here and change my satnav. Um but the one I’m going to hopefully it’s not for this time of day cuz it is getting a bit late. It’s uh it’s about 3:00 now. Um but I’ll uh I’ll go there and hopefully we’ll be good. still really desperate to find a decent beach because obviously the the the beach at Nesbar wasn’t meeting my needs. I headed up north along the coast and I found a really good beach just south of Varna. Got a little bit of footage but not that that much because I also used the uh 3 or 4 days that I was there just as a little bit of a chill out. No filming, just relaxing. But I got my beach fix and I also uh got my first dip in uh in the Black Sea. So that was cool. [Music] So, Vanna wasn’t actually on my plans. I had planned to go straight from the beach to uh uh to Romania, but things happened and this van, it’s a gift that just keeps on giving. And uh as I’m driving along, it’s uh it became apparent that the surround above me on the on the sunroof was actually starting to literally fall off. I ended up having to uh stick a shoe up in the front part of the cab to hold the uh that front part of the surround on. So clearly I had to find another camper shop with maintenance facilities. Luckily there’s a really good one in Barner. The other thing while I was at that camp shop I also discovered that the uh uh the the roof vent above the bed is actually broken. Um it’s just wear and tear this time. So, I can’t blame poor maintenance for this one, but um it’s just wear and tear. Sort of thing you’d probably check when you were buying a vehicle and say, “No, fix that before I pay for it.” But I didn’t. I was in too much of a hurry. That’s my problem. Um luckily, the camper shop in in VA had a couple. They had a brand new one. Um and they had a secondhand one which was about half the price. I went for the secondhand one to try and manage my expenses a little bit because it’s starting to cost way too much on repairs. So, I’ve got a functioning vent again. Problem is, it doesn’t quite cover where the old vent uh was. And so, as a result, you can see the uh the ratty ends of the roof lining. So, I’m still going to have to buy another uh new one at some point. But, it it’s going to cover me for the next 6 months or so. All righty. Hopefully, there’s not too much traffic noise. I haven’t got my proper microphone with me. But uh after all the hassles of uh sorting out repairs to the godforsaken camper, I came to came to Vano partly for that and partly to see VA. But I’ve now got half a day left um cuz I need to leave tomorrow and head into uh Romania. So, several hundred later, I’ve got two new windows. Well, one new window surround and one new window. Um, so let’s see what else breaks. So far, I’m thinking uh this is actually costing me more than the old days uh using um flights and uh Airbnb. So, I’m actually thinking something’s got to go right soon. Otherwise, I’m just throwing good money after bad at the moment. I always feel weird walking around the streets with people watching me talk. So, anyway, I’m just strolling around VA. If there’s anything worth filming, I will. So far, nothing much. But then, I’ve just got off at a random bus stop. I have no clue where I am. So, we’ll see what happens. [Music] [Music] So, this is my last day in Bulgaria. Uh, tomorrow morning I’ll go across the border. um staying, as you can see, basically in a truck stop. That’s it’s actually only my second free camp in Bulgaria. I um and to be honest, it’s the fourth one I’ve looked at today, and that’s the last last one I’ve basically gone, it’ll do the job. It’s perfectly fine for an overnight stop. The others were a little bit sketchy, to be honest. It drives me nuts on Park for Nights. People make uh posts on Park for Nights and rate them five out of 10. Five out of five. Five out of 10. five out of five. And uh my god, they’re sketchy some of these places. So, it’s almost as bad as ratings on Airbnb. You just can’t trust what people actually say about the place. But um anyway, I digress. So, this is my last day. Um it’s been uh it’s been a good time actually. I’ve really enjoyed Bulgaria. Um what I’m going to do now is I’ll step inside so that uh we don’t have any wind in it and I’ll run through the costs and uh all of that sort of stuff. But before I do, I just wanted to show a couple of things. So, if I’m going to park up, that’s a free park up. You’ll notice I reverse up onto my uh ramps. Um tonight, I’ll instead of putting the uh the screens around the windows, I’ll actually just use the little curtain. Um and I’ll make sure everything’s locked. The gas there is unlocked at the moment cuz I got to turn it on for the fridge, but then I’ll turn it off. Um basically, you never know. It It is a free park up. There’s no security or anything. And so, um, if I need to, I can make a bolt for it. And, uh, all I have to do is spin the wheels a little bit so that I don’t take the rear wheels over those ramps cuz I might get stuck on them. Um, and the worst I’ve got is having to buy a couple of new ramps. But, um, it’s just a little safety tip. Uh, if if you’re going to stand a free park up, consider reversing up on your ramps. Don’t drive up onto them. Um, I have heard of people driving up onto their ramps and then when they’ve driven off, the ramps have flipped and got stuck in between the wheels and the the wheel arch, so don’t do that. But other than that, I’ve got a little bit of a streak from the sun on me. Other than that, it’s a pretty uh pretty easy thing really. Um, and of course being a free park up, no beer because uh well, I’ll have an alcohol-free beer. I’ve got a couple of those, but uh no beer because both Romania and Bulgaria have got zero alcohol limit driving uh requirements. Fair enough. Probably a little bit draconian, but uh I get it. And uh I’m always going to be happy to obey the local laws. Anyway, let’s shoot inside and talk costs. So, this month was a bit of an expensive month, but um overall, not too bad. $1,10 for living expenses with most of that taken up with the accommodation. No great surprise there. Vehicle related was way off the show because of the all the repairs. It were $1,043 worth of repairs. Otherwise would have been pretty comfortable with vehicle related costs. Living expenses was slightly inflated because I bought the new chair and a couple of other things. So overall, not too bad. Total monthly costs was $4,310, which is still actually under my budget. Um, by about $1,000, so that’s a good thing. Uh, worked out to about $154 for the uh per day. So, overall, not terrible, but could have been a lot better if it wasn’t for all those vehicle repairs. Okay, thanks for watching. Hope you got something out of this, and I’ll see you next time. [Music]

This trip through Bulgaria was one for the books – for better and for worse. From exploring the historic streets of Plovdiv, soaking in the beauty of the Valley of the Roses, and wandering the ancient seaside towns of Nessebar and Varna, I got to see some of the most beautiful parts of the country. I also finally got to take a dip in the Black Sea.

But… vanlife isn’t always smooth sailing. This journey was packed with motorhome problems, including a major solar system failure due to poor installation. That meant unexpected stops, expensive repairs, and a whole lot of frustration on the road.

Despite the challenges, I loved Bulgaria with its scenery, culture, and kind people. If you’re planning to travel Bulgaria in a camper or motorhome, this video will give you the full picture – the good, the bad, and the stunningly beautiful.

Places featured:
• Plovdiv
• Valley of the Roses (Kazanlak)
• Silvan
• Nessebar
• Varna

Issues I faced:
• Solar power system failure
• Improper solar panel installation
• Emergency motorhome repairs

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your own Bulgaria travel tips or vanlife stories in the comments!

00:00 Intro
00:27 Plovdiv
01:29 Plovdiv Old Town
02:48 Nebet Tepe
04:23 Plovdiv City Walk
05:17 Leaving Sofia (Again)
05:59 Valley of Roses
08:01 Where am I Going?
10:03 Silvan
10:43 Solar Update
12:04 Nessebar
13:51 Off Road Camper
18:30 Beach Camp
19:03 Varna – More Repairs
20:50 Varna City Walk
22:47 Leaving Bulgaria
25:28 Costs

Looking for a fast reliable internet connection when travelling (personal view – not a sponsorship), check out https://www.airalo.com, I use them and they have been great. If you sign up I would be grateful if you use my referral code DALE6504 (you get $5 off your first purchase)

Solar Panel Photo by Nazrin Babashova on Unsplash

If you want to know more check me out on the following links:
https://www.instagram.com/gottabtrippin/
https://medium.com/@dge1967
https://x.com/DaleGEdwards