Romania : Part 12 - Summary of the Romanian Drive (Route and Expenses)

The reason you are reading this post is probably of 2 reasons:

1) You have been diligently reading all my posts on my Romanian road trip and has reached here
2) You happen to google on Romania and this is what you got.

For either reasons, you have reached to the summary of my 16-day holiday in Romania. In my previous 11 posts, I have broken down my itinerary into each place and its respective routes with some descriptions. I am not very good in illustrating places and hence has posted a lot of photos for you to decide if the place is worth a visit.

The Route

Here, I present to you the map of our drive. From Stockholm to Romania and back to Stockholm again. In total, this took up 7,478km spanned across 15 days. Google Map puts it 6,618km but I suppose we have used longer routes because we avoided the toll roads as much as possible and we also detoured within Germany to see Bastei and Denmark to see Hvide Sande. I am not entirely sure of the route Prof Sweet Tooth used but the map below is the gist of it. I started the trip from Stockholm because I travelled with Prof Sweet Tooth who is from Sweden. He is not keen on flying. Our first road trip we did together was in 2015 to Pyrenees. 

From Day 1 to Day 3, we drove from Stockholm to Tara Hategului, the entry into Romania. My posts are broken down into below:

Day 1 - Stockholm -- Denmark -- Germany
Day 2 - Germany -- Czech Republic -- Slovakia (same link as Day 1)
Day 3 - Slovakia -- Nagylak, Hungary (exit Hungary) -- Tara Hategului, Romania (same link as Day 1)

From Day 4 to Day 12, we drove in half of Romania as you can see from the first map. We entered Romania from Nagylak at the border of Hungary. From Day 4 to 10, we were driving along the center of Romania. My posts are broken down into below:

Day 4 - Sarmizegetusa Regia

Day 5 - Horezu Monastery

Day 6 - Sibiu (spent 3 nights here) - Astra National Museum

Day 7 - Sibiu - Walk to Holy Trinity Cathedral and Brukenthal Museum

Day 8 - Fortified Church of Biertan, Sighisoara Clock Tower

Day 9 - National Park Piatra Craiului

Day 10 - Bran (Dracula) Castle in Brasov

We took 2 days to drive up north and exit Romania. We had limited days for the road trip and had to select the places to visit. It was a tough choice.

Day 11 - Neamt Citadel, Voronet Monastery

Day 12 - Wooden Church Ieud and Poienil, Barsana Monastery, Merry Cemetery, -- brief stop at Romania - Ukraine border -- exit Romania -- drive to Zahorie, Slovakia

On Day 13, we were on our way back to Stockholm and reached Stockholm on Day 16 at 10pm.

Day 13 - Zahorie, Slovakia -- Czech Republic -- Bad Schandau, Germany

Day 14 - Bad Schandau, Germany (visit Bastei) -- Brandenburg -- Flensburg (same link as Day 13)

Day 15 - Flensburg, Germany -- Hvide Sande, Denmark -- Malmo, Sweden (same link as Day 13)

Day 16 - Malmo -- Ullared (for shopping detour) -- Stockholm (same link as Day 13)

The Expenses

I have listed down all my expenses in each post. But for total and different category of expenses, I will sum it here.  

1) Petrol - EUR518.10 (shared cost therefore EUR259.05 per person). We stopped for petrol filling 10 times. The more persons in the trip, this cost per person will be cheaper. 

2) Food - EUR164.48 (my share). Most of the time we shared food but we did have our own portions too but the cost does not differ much. In total, it was EUR317.71.

3) Toll - EUR111.86 per person (highway toll is a shared cost)

4) Entrance fees - EUR32.27 per person 

5) Accommodation - EUR46.59 per person. We stayed in 2 different places and the rest of the nights were in the car.

6) Miscellaneous (such as personal items) - EUR5.10 (my share) 

7) Souvenirs - EUR136.24 (my expenses)

8) Grocery - EUR14.17 (food)

Total Cost for me = EUR769.76 = RM3,194.50 (exchange rate of RM4.15:EUR1 when I purchased the currency). The highest expenses for me are petrol and food.

Total Cost for him = EUR828.65  

Since this is a combined trip with Tanzania, the flight ticket price will not reflect the correct price, as I flew from Tanzania to Sweden and from Sweden to Malaysia. RM3,194.50 does seem affordable as it excludes the flight ticket. 

Was the holiday tiring? 'Definitely'.

Was the holiday expensive? 'Not at all, as Romanian currency is almost at the same exchange rate of Malaysia LEI1 = RM1.04.'

Will I enjoy it if I don't like cultural stuff? 'Sure. There are so many different things to see and experience - Nature, Food, Shopping. Maybe you can limit the cultural places to the famous ones.' 

Will I recommend this place to visit? 'Each time anyone asked me how is my trip, I tell them that you have to go to see it for yourself. Romania is a beautiful country.'

Actually, this is not a holiday. This is a road trip. I needed a holiday after this road trip!