Taxi Bulgaria

All you need to know about taking a taxi in Bulgaria.

"Did you like the trip? "Sometimes you get taken along, in every way. I am honest: When Rand and I first came to Bulgaria, I was a little scared. Bulgaria? In the second that we crossed the Sofia International Airports checkpoint, we were full of men who spoke in highly accentuated English and offered to take a taxi.

Edge immediately went past them to a small booth where the taxis were standing. So we jumped into one, and the guy took us to our motel. All in all, the cost was about $10 U.S. for a nearly 20-minute drive. Bulgaria seemed ludicrously cheap in comparison to the cost of London.

Later we went from our guesthouse to the city centre - it was about 20 minutes walking in icy conditions, but since we had never been to Sofia before, we thought a stroll would do us good. Having wandered around the city ( and had a terribly cheap lunch), Rand called a taxi to take us back to the hospital.

"There' no counter," I whispered to Edge. "I sizzled again, but there's no counter." "It' like a $10 taxi ride," Randman remembered me. After all, the taxi journey from the airports to the hotels was much longer and had only costed so much.

It would have been possible to go back to our motel twice in that period. Eventually, when we reached our goal and he gave us the last ticket price (visible to him on his secret meter), I almost suffocated. We' ve been taken on a trip. Unnecessary to say that it is not the best first experience Bulgaria could get from me.

In Bulgaria most taxi's are quite inexpensive. You even use a logotype that looks noticeably similar to inexpensive taxi cars. Governments have tried to enforce rules (including an upper limit for taxi fares), but there are enough holes to keep the criminal high tariffs going. One recent paper noted that 6 out of 7 Bulgarian taxi companies charged their overseas clients excessive prices (although I don't know how exactly that is - another site I found said that only about 10% are fraud cases).

Edge twitched his shoulders. Knowing that knowing is powerful and all that jazzy, I learnt here how to take a taxi and call in Bulgaria. Ask either the owner in your eatery, the receptionist of your accommodation, or the personnel of the museum/theatre you are going to visit to get you a taxi (otherwise ask a locals you know and trust).

Taxis are legally obliged to publish their tariffs at the taxi doors (in our case the last tariff was crossed out quickly with a code - this was the tariff we were calculated and it was tenfold what it should have been). Check all tariffs, and make sure that they are all below the set of 1 level.

Request a quote in advance - many locations will give you an idea of how many taxi charges to apply so you have a base line. Some of their fraudulent rivals (with remarkable similar looking reputations - like O.K. Express or C.K.) had prices 10x higher.

Use caution when someone tries to take you to a taxi from densely settled areas (e.g. tourist areas or near the airport). It' determined to be a very, very expensive taxi trip. I know how long the trip should take. Some research can tell you whether a place is a 10-minute taxi drive or a 40-minute drive away.