Getting in and visas for Romania

Getting to Romania is easy from nearly all parts of the world, due to its position, as well as the fact that it is served by an array of transport types and companies. Entry requirements to Romania in the past few years have been liberalized, and consequently, citizens of the European Union, United States of America, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand can stay up to 90 days with no visa. Nationals from Turkey can stay up to 60 days in Romania, while those of most former-Communist Eastern European countries can stay up to 30 days. To make sure, check the official visa information provided by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs mae.ro before you travel. If you do need to obtain a visa from outside your own country, try obtaining it from somewhere else beside Budapest, where it can take 3 to 4 days. From Ljubljana the process can sometimes be done in a day because they are not so busy.

By plane

Romania has 17 civilian airports, out of which currently 10 are served by scheduled international flights. The main international airports are:

• Bucharest's Henri Coanda (Otopeni) Airport [4] is the largest and busiest, it has flights to nearly all the major cities in Europe, to a few Middle Eastern capitals, to all other Romanian cities, but just one direct flight to the USA;
• The Traian Vuia International Airport [5] in Timisoara is the second largest in the country; it has flights to several large cities in Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Ukraine as well as to various cities in Romania;
• Bucharest's Aurel Vlaicu (Baneasa) Airport [6] recently became a major low cost airlines hub;
• Cluj-Napoca International Airport [7], as the largest airport in Transylvania it is served by a growing number of flights from various European destinations;

Other smaller international airports are located in Bacau [8] (with low cost flights to major cities in Italy, plus Barcelona and Paris), Arad [9] (flights to Valencia, Verona, Barcelona, Stuttgart, Milan), Sibiu (flights to Vienna, Munich and Stuttgart), Iasi [10] (flights to Vienna and Milan), Constanta [11] (various seasonal flights, including one Ryanair flight from Pisa) and Targu-Mures [12] (one daily flight from Budapest). There are three important Romanian airlines:

TAROM , the Romanian flag carrier, based in Bucharest Otopeni

Carpatair , based in Timisoara, connects this city with eight Italian and three German destinations, and also has collector/distributor flights to the following Romanian airports: Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest, Constanta, Oradea, Sibiu, Iasi, Suceava, Satu-Mare and Bacau

Blue Air, the only Romanian low-cost airline, based in Bucharest Baneasa

There are several flights a day from Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zurich offered by Austrian, Carpatair, Lufthansa, Swiss and Tarom. Lufthansa opened its flight from Cluj-Napoca to Munich, Germany for only 110 EUR. GermanWings opened also from Cluj-Napoca towards Koln. In recent times Romania became increasingly attractive for low cost carriers. A Romanian low-fare airline Blue Air is serving various destinations in Europe from Bucharest (Aurel Vlaicu Airport), Arad, Targu Mures and Bacau airports. A Hungarian budget airline,Wizz, introduced direct flights from London Luton to Bucharest in January 2007. Several others ( Wind Jet, MyAir, Sky Europe, AlpiEagles, Ryanair, GermanWings, AirBerlin) are already operating flights in Romania and Ryanair will start in spring 2008. Easyjet is operating flights from London, Milan and Madrid.

By train

Romania is relatively well connected with the European rail network. There are daily international trains to Munich, Prague, Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sofia, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Chişinău, Kiev and Moscow. But due to the poor quality of rail infrastructure in the region train travel on long distances takes considerable time. Nonetheless, trains are the ideal way of reaching cities in western and central Romania such as Brasov, Sighisoara, Oradea or Cluj-Napoca coming from Central Europe. International trains to Romania include EuroCity trains which are of a relatively high standard and night trains. Romania is part of the Eurailpass offer.

By bus

Even though Romania has not been traditionally seen as a 'bus country', buses are becoming a more and more popular way to reach the country from overseas, especially from the Balkans and the former USSR, but also from Western Europe, e.g. Germany and Switzerland. Even though trains are still the most popular way of getting to Romania from Central Europe, due to good service, train services to the Balkans and former USSR are of a considerably poorer quality and are less frequent (mainly because railway infrastructure in these countries is a lot poorer than Romania's infrastructure). For this reason, a slew of private bus operators now provide quicker and arguably more comfortable coach services to and from cities such as Chişinău, Kiev, Odessa, Sofia and Istanbul. A general rule of the thumb on whether you should use bus or train is this: if trains are available just as frequently, and at around the same price, and take around the same amount of time, then definitely use them. Otherwise, consider the buses.

By boat

Cruises on Danube are available, very expensive though, starting from Passau or Vienna and having a final destination in Danube Delta. These cruises will stop in every major port along the road, in Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Romania. There you can travel by rapid boats, fisherman's boats on endless channels to watch huge colonies of pelicans, cranes or small migratory birds. You can enjoy a local dish, fishermen's borsch, prepared using different species of fish, but take care, they use the Danube's river water! It is the only way to travel around the Danube Delta, and the only way to get to the city of Sulina. There are ferries across the Danube to/from Bulgaria in several ports: from Calafat to Vidin (runs daily), from Bechet to Oryahovo (daily) and from Zimnicea to Svishtov (only on weekends).

By car

You can easily drive into Romania coming from countries in the West, but when coming from the East you will have to drive through Moldova and you may experience troubles there. There is not a direct border crossing between Ukraine and Romania in the south-eastern corner of Romanian Moldavia (Reni/Galati), you must go via Giurgiulesti, which is in Moldova ( a small stretch of about 500 meters). Moldovan border control officers will ask several times for money (ecological tax, road tax ... up to 20 € in July 2007). Coming from the north (Ukraine), can also be time-consuming, times can vary from 1 to more than 5 hours.