Local Bus Tickets

It depends where you are. We always need to make sure we have plenty of change for the local buses.

Most places should let you pay cash on the bus, particularly if you get on in a village rather than a town. In my experience, for small village buses to the nearest town, it's pay cash to the driver, correct money preferred. Small town buses probably also want cash, but if you get on at the town bus station, there will be a ticket office to pay rather than pay on the bus. In major cities, there are machines at main bus stops to buy tickets for travel within the city, or machines on the bus that accept cash or credit cards. Cities will also have a prepay travel card tap in option for those doing a lot of bus travel.

For the main intercity bus lines, one can book and pay online or purchase a ticket at the bus station.

My typical trips:

- village to nearest small town 2.5 leva cash paid to the driver;

- small town to small regional city - 3 leva cash paid at the bus station ticket office;

- small regional city to major regional city - 6 leva cash paid at the bus station ticket office. They might accept cards, but I've never seen anyone use a card there;

- major regional city bus station (Varna) to airport - 2 leva paid by card using the machine on the bus. If you're travelling in Varna, don't use the ticket machine at the bus station to buy a ticket to get to the airport, as those don't work on the airport bus!

If you're in one of the cities (or at least Sofia) and are an Old Codger (68+), you can buy a season ticket which will cover you for journeys within the city limits, which in Sofia go a long way, using trams, buses, trollies and Metro. It costs 10leva a month: there used to be an extra discount if you buy several months at once, but I don't use public transport much since Covid, so I don't know if that still applies.

There's a whole raft of deals, and details of the whole transport system, if anyone's interested: webportal(dot)sofiatraffic(dot)bg(slash)products

The Moovit app also works in Sofia, very handy for info on how to get where.

@janemulberry

thanks so much We will be trabelling from Dobromirka to Sevlievo and back again so will make sure to have plenty of change!

@JimJ

Not yet in old codger territory :-( But getting nearer everyday

Enjoy your journey! That's about the same distance as our village into town.