Romania in 7 Days on a Budget (With Daily Costs)

Romania in 7 Days on a Budget (With Daily Costs)

Seven days is enough to do Transylvania properly and still add one more region without rushing it, not attempt the whole country: Bucharest, a Peles Castle stopover, Brasov as your base for Bran, Sighisoara’s walled citadel and Sibiu’s old town, then two more days southeast to the Danube Delta. That is Romania’s week-plus sweet spot, and it still leaves Bukovina’s painted monasteries, Maramures and the Black Sea coast untouched. Shorter trip? See the 4-day , 5-day or 6-day itinerary ; the 6-day version squeezes the Delta into one long round trip from Bucharest, while this plan gives it a full day of its own.

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 200-260 RON
Day 5 Sibiu’s old town, then the transfer back toward Bucharest 240-310 RON
Day 6 Transfer day, Bucharest to Tulcea, the Danube Delta gateway 220-290 RON
Day 7 A full day on the Danube Delta by boat 280-380 RON

Day 1: Bucharest

Land at Henri Coanda Airport (OTP) and take an official taxi rank car, an Uber, or a Bolt into the centre rather than one of the drivers waving you over at the curb; taxi overcharging near the airport is a real, recurring issue, not a scare story. A budget guesthouse room near the Old Town runs roughly 80-140 RON a night, and everything in this itinerary is priced in Romanian lei, not euros: Romania is not in the eurozone and has no set date to join.

Spend the morning in the Old Town and Lipscani, then the Village Museum’s open-air collection of rural wooden houses for a modest entry fee. Book a guided tour of the Palace of the Parliament ahead of time, one of the world’s largest administrative buildings and the only way to see the interior; carry an actual passport, not a photo of one. Revolution Square, where Ceausescu gave his final 1989 speech, costs nothing.

Dinner at Caru’ cu Bere or Hanul lui Manuc, both genuine 19th-century Bucharest institutions, runs a fuller bill than a canteen meal but is worth the one splash before the budget legs ahead. Petty theft turns up around money exchanges, hotels and crowded transport; check the current gov.uk FCDO safety guidance or the US State Department’s Romania page before you travel.

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

Day 1, rough total: 230-300 RON for the guesthouse, meals, local transport and the museum entry, not counting the Palace of the Parliament tour.

Day 2: Peles Castle, then Brasov

Bucharest to Brasov runs on the same line that passes through Sinaia, so break the trip rather than rushing past. Leave your bag at the station or bring a day pack, then walk up to Peles Castle, the ornate 19th-century royal residence many visitors rate as more impressive than Bran. Interior visits usually need a guided tour and a separate ticket beyond the grounds fee; buy early in high season or expect a wait. Peles is not a UNESCO site, despite the crowds.

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, and the cable car up Mount Tampa gives 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.

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

Day 3: Bran Castle, the honest version

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

Bran Castle is marketed relentlessly as Dracula’s Castle, and it is worth knowing the real story 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 visited Romania. Bran Castle’s own official site says exactly this, and offers a simpler explanation 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 entry fee on its own architecture and history. Like Peles, it is not a UNESCO site.

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 genuine Carpathian foothill country; check the current timetable and buy tickets a day ahead 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 earns its own UNESCO listing, 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’s old town, then the transfer back toward Bucharest

Sighisoara to Sibiu connects by direct train or bus; check the current timetable.

Sibiu’s old town rewards a slow morning: 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. A shorter trip stops here entirely: the 5-day itinerary closes its loop in Sibiu and heads home. This plan keeps one region in reserve, so spend the afternoon on the transfer back toward Bucharest rather than lingering; it is a genuine multi-hour trip by train or car, and tomorrow’s leg to the Danube Delta starts from the capital, not from Sibiu.

Day 5, rough total: 240-310 RON for the guesthouse, meals and the transfer fare.

Day 6: Bucharest to Tulcea, the Danube Delta gateway

This day is a transfer, and it is worth budgeting it as one rather than trying to sightsee on top of it. Tulcea sits roughly 300km east of Bucharest, on the edge of the delta itself; a direct bus or a train-and-bus combination covers it, and current CFR and coach timetables are worth checking before you commit to a departure time, since this route runs less frequently than the Transylvania corridor you have used all week. A rental car covers the same distance with fewer changes if you already picked one up earlier in the trip.

Arrive in Tulcea in the afternoon or evening and use whatever daylight is left for the riverside promenade; the real delta trip starts tomorrow. A guesthouse here runs close to Brasov’s prices, cheaper than central Bucharest.

Day 6, rough total: 220-290 RON for the transfer fare, the guesthouse and meals.

Day 7: a full day on the Danube Delta

This is the payoff for spreading the delta add-on over two days instead of one: a full-day boat trip through the channels, rather than the rushed single-day round trip from Bucharest that the 6-day itinerary has to settle for. The delta is a UNESCO-listed natural site, one of Europe’s largest wetlands, and home to more than 300 bird species; arrange the boat either independently through a Tulcea operator or as a bundled tour, and budget the whole day for it, since the channels take hours to cover properly.

For the return, either fly out of Bucharest the next day, budgeting a further transfer back since Tulcea has no significant international air service of its own, or treat this as the natural end point and plan your flight home from the capital in advance. Either way, seven days in, you have covered Transylvania in depth plus a proper look at the Danube Delta, and Bukovina’s painted monasteries, Maramures and the Black Sea coast are still untouched.

Day 7, rough total: 280-380 RON, the priciest day of the trip since the boat portion is the main cost.

How many days do you need in Romania?

Two days covers Bucharest alone. Four or five buy a Transylvania sampler or a full loop through Brasov, Bran, Peles, Sighisoara and Sibiu. Six adds the Danube Delta as a single rushed day trip from Bucharest; seven, this plan’s length, spreads that same add-on region over two days instead of squeezing it into one, and it is still only two of Romania’s five or six distinct regions done properly. Bukovina’s painted monasteries, Maramures’ wooden churches and the Black Sea coast would each need their own days on top of this; Romania’s official tourism site is a reasonable place to browse what a longer trip would add. If seven days is more than you want to commit, the 4-day , 5-day and 6-day itineraries nest inside this same route and stop earlier.

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. It is a genuine former royal residence worth visiting on its own merits, and Peles Castle nearby is the one most 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?

Not for Days 1 through 5. Bucharest, Sinaia, Brasov, Sighisoara and Sibiu sit on the same rail corridor, and a local bus covers the short Brasov-Bran leg. Days 6 and 7 are different: reaching Tulcea and arranging the delta boat both go more smoothly with an organized tour or your own car than by piecing together local buses, since the boat portion needs a licensed boatman regardless of how you get there. If you do have a car and are traveling roughly June through October, the Transfagarasan mountain road is a well-known detour near the Transylvania leg of this trip, but it is snow-closed the rest of the year, so leave it out entirely outside summer.

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