Post 39. Year 3, September 2025

In September 2025, my plan is to continue to explore Eastern Europe with visits to three countries and one autonomous region, that I have not been to before. My starting point will be Chişinău, the capital of Moldova (shaded grey on map), where I will spend 4 nights. 

From there I will make a day trip to Tiraspol (A on map),  the capital of a breakaway region of Moldova called Transnistria (or Pridniestrovie in Russian), which is a narrow strip of land between Moldova and Ukraine.  

The remaining cities are as follows: 

Iași, Romania - 2 nights

Braşov, Romania - 2 nights

Bucharest, Romania - 4 nights

Sofia, Bulgaria - 4 nights

I will fly into Chişinău, the capital of Moldova, on a direct late night Hi-Sky flight from Dublin, arriving at 5am. Hi-Sky is a budget airline from Romania, that I had never even heard of before researching this trip. My wife Patricia will join me for my last four nights in Sofia, Bulgaria, before we fly back to Dublin on a direct early morning Ryanair flight. 

Where possible, I intend to travel between each city by train and in cases where this is not feasible or too slow, I will travel by coach. I did not purchase an Interrail pass this year as it worked out much cheaper to purchase the tickets individually, either online in advance or in person in the train stations. My total travel costs in the three countries will be well under €150. 

The places I am staying in on this trip are all HomeExchange apartments. They are all located in city centres or easily accessible to the city centres. 

For those who are not familiar with home exchanges, I do not pay the hosts any money to stay in their homes, instead I use online GuestPoints accumulated by us on the HomeExchange (HE) platform by guests who have stayed in our converted garage in our back garden. Here is a link to the property we use to generate GuestPoints for free travel  - Wild Atlantie Mews, it is listed on the HE website, but that listing is only accessible to HE menbers.