Black Sea coast towns

I've heard Sunny Beach is dead in winter and overrun with the 18-30 crowd in summer, so best avoided. Varna is lovely but prices have skyrocketed there.

@pboyles

10 years ago? I reckon you'll have a bit of shock how much it's changed round here... and especially property prices! :-)

I think the best bets on the Black Sea are Varna and Burgas (the two big cities), but property here will be very pricey. Smaller towns worth considering might be Balchik, Pomorie, Sozopol. For me, these small ones are nice to visit, but I'm not sure I'd be happy living there year round.

If you didn't check out Plovdiv before, it's definitely worth a look now. Not on the Black Sea, but in a great central location on the main highway. Easy few hours on the motorway for your summer Black Sea holidays (or head to Greece and the Med, as many Bulgarians do). Very easy 90 minutes drive to Sofia which is extremely convenient when you need a bit of capital city culture, a big hospital, or easy access to cheap Wizzair/Ryanair flights across Europe. We've really enjoyed our new life in Plovdiv, and glad we chose it over Sofia, Varna, and Burgas.

Yes I’ve visited Plovdiv a few times. We considered setting up there 10 years ago. What put us off was that it wasn’t substantially cheaper but was a bit of a treck to Sofia airport, Plovidv airport having only one flight a week back then if I remember correctly.

I believe that I paid 450 euros a month for a studio back 10 years ago in Sofia, walking distance to the centre and brand new.

@pboyles

Yes, compared to living in Sofia, it's a trek. Compared to living on the Black Sea, it's a doddle. For me, 90 minutes door-to-door, motorway almost all the way, is one of the easiest airport drives I've done... and the airport parking is cheap too. Plovdiv is a smaller, easier city, so we're much closer to the centre than we could be in Sofia. I like the city's location in the middle of the country, easy drives both west (to Sofia) and east (to the beaches)... short drives north (to the Balkan Mountains) and south (to the Rodope Mountains).