Romania in 5 Days on a Budget (With Daily Costs)

Romania in 5 Days on a Budget (With Daily Costs)

Five days buys a proper Transylvania loop, not a rushed taste of the whole country: Bucharest, a Peles Castle stopover, two nights in Brasov for Bran Castle, then Sighisoara’s walled citadel and Sibiu, connected by train and bus instead of a rental car. Romania prices everything in the leu, not the euro, and has been a full Schengen member since January 2025. Five days here is Transylvania done properly, still Transylvania only. Shorter trip? See the 4-day itinerary ; more time, the 6-day and 7-day versions build on this same route with a further region added.

Book these before you go:

Day Focus Rough daily RON
Day 1 Bucharest Old Town, Palace of the Parliament, Village Museum 230-300 RON
Day 2 Peles Castle stopover, on to Brasov 260-330 RON
Day 3 Bran Castle day trip, Brasov’s Black Church and Tampa 220-280 RON
Day 4 Sighisoara’s walled citadel and Clock Tower 200-260 RON
Day 5 Sibiu’s old town, onward travel 220-290 RON

Day 1: Bucharest

Land at Henri Coanda Airport (OTP) and take an official taxi rank car, Uber, or Bolt into the centre. Bucharest has a genuine problem with unmarked taxis overcharging visitors and pickpocketing on crowded transit near hotels and exchange offices, so skip the drivers waving you over at the curb and book a ride through an app instead. Romania carries no elevated advisory beyond the standard baseline; check the current guidance at the US State Department’s Romania page or gov.uk’s FCDO advice before you travel.

Spend the morning walking the Old Town and Lipscani, then the Village Museum’s open-air collection of rural wooden houses, a modest entry fee. In the afternoon, book a guided tour of the Palace of the Parliament ahead of time, ID required on the day: it is one of the world’s largest administrative buildings, and the tour is the only way inside. Revolution Square, where Ceausescu gave his final 1989 speech, costs nothing to see on the way back.

Dinner at Caru’ cu Bere, a genuine 19th-century Bucharest institution with live music, runs a fuller bill than a canteen meal but is worth the one splash on Day 1.

If you are arriving from outside the EU, the entry rules are straightforward: Romania has been a full Schengen member since land borders opened on 1 January 2025 (see gov.uk’s entry requirements page ), so travelers coming from another Schengen country face no border check at all. US, UK, Canadian and Australian passport holders get 90 days visa-free in any 180-day period. The EU’s ETIAS pre-travel authorization has been delayed repeatedly and is still not in operation, so do not plan around a specific launch date, just check the official ETIAS site closer to your trip.

Day 1, rough total: 230-300 RON for a budget guesthouse room, meals, metro or bus fares, and the museum entry, not counting the Palace of the Parliament tour.

Day 2: Peles Castle stopover, on to Brasov

Bucharest to Brasov runs on the same rail line that passes directly through Sinaia, so break the trip rather than rushing past. Leave your bag at the station or bring only a day pack, then walk up to Peles Castle, the ornate 19th-century royal residence many visitors rate as more impressive than Bran itself. Interior visits usually require a guided tour and a separate ticket beyond the grounds fee; buy tickets on-site early in high season or expect a wait.

Back on the train to Brasov, check into a guesthouse for two nights, book ahead in summer since this is Transylvania’s most popular base. Council Square and the Black Church anchor the old town; ride the cable car up Mount Tampa for a Carpathian view over the rooftops. If you wander any forest trail above town, keep food sealed away and never approach or feed wildlife: these mountains hold Europe’s largest brown bear population.

Dinner in the old town runs a normal sit-down price; a side street off Council Square is usually cheaper than the tables directly on it.

Day 2, rough total: 260-330 RON, covering the Peles admission, the onward train, the guesthouse, and meals.

Day 3: Bran Castle day trip

A local bus from Brasov’s bus station covers the roughly 30km to Bran; buy the ticket on board and confirm the current timetable before you go, since rural schedules shift.

Bran Castle is marketed relentlessly as Dracula’s Castle, and the honest version is worth knowing before you buy a ticket. The historical link to Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler, is tenuous at best; he never lived here, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula is fiction, written by a man who never once visited Romania. The official Bran Castle site says exactly this, and makes a simpler practical claim instead: Bran is the one Transylvanian castle that roughly matches Stoker’s fictional description, which is why the marketing name stuck decades later. Treat it as what it actually is, a real former royal residence of Queen Marie, worth the visit on its own architecture and history rather than as a literal Dracula stop. It is not a UNESCO site, unlike Sighisoara tomorrow.

Back in Brasov for the evening, a second dinner in the old town and an early night before tomorrow’s travel day.

Day 3, rough total: 220-280 RON for the Bran entry, the bus fare, the guesthouse, and meals.

Day 4: Sighisoara’s walled citadel

The train from Brasov to Sighisoara covers a genuine stretch of Carpathian foothill country; check the current timetable and buy tickets a day ahead if traveling in July or August.

Sighisoara’s walled citadel costs nothing to walk: cobbled lanes, the Covered Staircase, and burgher houses in Saxon colours. Climb the Clock Tower museum for a modest fee and the best rooftop view over the old town. This is the genuine Vlad III connection, born here in 1431, a real historical link rather than Bran’s marketing one, and the citadel is UNESCO-listed in its own right, the Historic Centre of Sighisoara, inscribed in 1999 (check the current UNESCO World Heritage list for Romania).

A guesthouse inside or just outside the citadel walls, and dinner at one of the small citadel restaurants, keep the evening simple.

Day 4, rough total: 200-260 RON, the cheapest full day of the trip since the citadel itself is free to walk.

Day 5: Sibiu, then onward

Sighisoara to Sibiu connects by direct train or bus; check the current timetable, since this leg is shorter than yesterday’s.

Sibiu’s old town rewards a slow afternoon: the Small and Large Squares, the Council Tower for a view over the sculpted attic roof windows locals call the city’s eyes, and the Brukenthal Museum’s collection if you have not hit museum fatigue by Day 5.

For onward travel, there are two honest options. Sibiu keeps a small international airport with a handful of seasonal European routes, worth checking if it matches your route home. Otherwise, budget half a day for the return train or bus to Bucharest for a flight out of OTP. Do not try to bolt on a sixth region on the way back: Bukovina’s painted monasteries, Maramures’ wooden churches, and the Danube Delta are each a further multi-hour haul in the opposite direction and belong in a longer trip, not squeezed onto a departure day.

Day 5, rough total: 220-290 RON for the guesthouse, meals, and the connecting fare to Sibiu.

How many days do you need in Romania?

Two days covers Bucharest alone; five, this plan’s length, buys one region done right, a Transylvania loop through Brasov, Bran, Peles, Sighisoara and Sibiu, and still leaves out Bukovina’s painted monasteries, Maramures’ wooden churches, and the Danube Delta entirely. Add a day or two and this same route extends rather than restarts: the 6-day itinerary adds the Saxon fortified-church villages around Viscri, and the 7-day version tacks on one further region. Romania rewards a week or more; even a full week covers only 2-3 of its distinct regions well.

Is Bran really Dracula’s castle?

No, not in any historical sense, and the castle’s own official website says so. The link to Vlad III is thin, he never lived at Bran, and Bram Stoker wrote Dracula as fiction without ever visiting Romania or seeing the building; Bran simply resembles Stoker’s fictional description closely enough that the marketing name stuck decades later. Bran is a genuine former royal residence worth visiting on its own merits, and Peles Castle nearby is the one many visitors rate as more impressive. Sighisoara, where Vlad III was actually born, is the honest historical stop if that connection matters to you.

Do you need a car for this itinerary?

No, not for this specific five-day loop. Bucharest, Sinaia, Brasov, Sighisoara and Sibiu all sit on the same rail corridor, and a local bus covers the short Brasov-Bran leg. A car becomes genuinely useful, close to necessary, the moment you add the Saxon fortified-church villages like Viscri, which the 6-day version includes, or venture into Maramures or Bukovina, where public transport thins out fast. Skipping the rental on this route is also the bigger budget win: fuel, tolls and old-town parking cost more over five days than the combined train and bus fares.

Buy your Brasov-to-Sighisoara and Sighisoara-to-Sibiu tickets a day ahead if traveling in July or August. Transylvania’s peak-summer trains and the Bran bus fill by mid-morning, and a sold-out seat is the one cost a rough daily budget cannot absorb.