Transylvania, Romania is a land full of castles, vampire legends, mountains, and citadels. Taking a Transylvania road trip through this area in the summertime is like driving through a fairy tale land. While we will detail a week-long, 7-day road trip, you could easily spend ten to fifteen days here. There are so many sights to see, and as you drive down the roads you can take in the beauty of Romania.
Trip Overview
Destinations
You will be doing a loop around the center of Transylvania. Your main stops on this road trip will be: Brasov, Bran, the Transfagarasan highway, Turda, and Sighisoara.
Duration
On this Transylvania road trip, we’ll just outline what a week would look like. But like we mentioned above, you could easily spend more time in each place if you choose. I would not recommend trying to do the trip itinerary any faster as it will be far too crammed.
Best age for kids
There is much to see outside of the car window, along with history and legends. Our kids were 6, 8, 11, and 13 when we took this trip and they were fantastic ages to take in all that they were seeing and learning. If your kids are good travelers we would suggest that even younger would be fine; however, toddlers and babies have difficulty seeing out of car windows sometimes, so we would not recommend this itinerary for that age.
Total drive time
Approximately 10 hours total on the road. Remember, one destination on this road trip is to the Transfagarasan highway itself. As the destination itself is a drive, it will add to the drive time. So, the more time you spend on this beautiful road, the trip may be more or less than 10 hours.
Best time to visit – This trip needs to be completed during the summer months as the Transfagarasan highway is only open that time of year. You can check their official website for exact dates that it is expected to open this year. If you omit the Transfagarason highway you could do the other part of the road trip anytime of the year, but we can’t speak more highly of the Transfagarason highway so we don’t recommend leaving it out!
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1: Brasov, Romania
Begin your Transylvania road trip in Brasov, the capital city of Transylvania. Brasov is a short 2 ½ hour train ride from Bucharest. The train station connects to other cities around eastern Europe as well.
Main Activities and Highlights: Brasov Cable Car
Our favorite attraction in Brasov was taking the Tampa Cable Car (Telecabina Tampa) to the top of Tampa Mountain. It is there that the Brasov sign looks out over the city of Brasov. There is also a path through the forest up the mountain if your family is up for the hike.
The cable car runs both directions up and down the mountain, but you can choose whether your family wants to take it both ways or if you want to hike one direction. The cost is 20 lei for a one-way trip and 35 lei for a round trip. Hiking up or down is free of charge.
The town of Bran is just 30 kilometers west of Brasov. We recommend driving over to Bran the first night, so that you can get an early start into Bran Castle on Day 2.
Day 2: Bran
Wake up and get over to Bran Castle when it opens at 9 AM. It will probably be the most busy sight you see on your Transylvania road trip due to the high number of tourists that come through. Even though our family loves off the beaten path adventures, we chose to include Bran Castle because it is a castle completely decorated with 19th century furniture, as well as including the full explanation of the legend of Dracula. Our kids loved learning about the Dracula legend.
If you are interested in exploring other castles along your path this week, read our post on three of the different castles we checked out and the pros and cons of seeing castles in different stages of use.
Main Activities and Highlights: Bran Castle
In learning about the legend of Dracula in the Transylvania area, the best place to visit is Bran Castle. Though historians have figured out that Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) was not actually located in Bran Castle, it still holds as the most popular attraction to learn about the history and the legend.
Bran Castle has everything you need in a tourist attraction – the souvenir shops, the cafes, the gardens, and the tours. We recommend taking your time to go through the rooms to learn as much as you can. We had to let several tours pass us by while we were there, so that we could stay for as long as we wanted.
We also found that once we left the castle and began walking around the castle grounds, we were away from the main tourist population and had much of the space to ourselves. The view of the castle from behind is really spectacular.
Accommodation: We recommend staying the night in Bran, as much of the next two days will be driving along the Transfagarasan highway
Day 3-4: Transfagarasan Highway
Leaving Bran, you will drive on flat plains for about 1 ½ hours before beginning your ascent into the Transfagarasan mountains. From the plains, you can see the snow up on the mountains, but it seems so far away. After 1 hour of steep climbing through forests and zigzagging on the mountainside, you will arrive at Lake Balea. Here you will find pockets of snow, trails to hike, market stalls, and views of the mountain and beautiful glacier lake.
Main Activities and Highlights: Transfagarasan Highway and Cable Car
The Transfagarasan highway (7c) is an attraction of its own. We stopped many many times to look at views and take pictures. We also saw a bear on the side of the road at one point! You cross the tree line about halfway up and then you get your first glimpses of the quintessential Transfagarasan highway. Feel free to check out our full blog post on the Visiting the Transfagarasan Highway.
The main stop on the Transfagarasan highway is at Lake Balea. Our favorite adventure once we got to the top, was taking the Lake Balea cable car (Balea Lac – Telecabina). The cable car runs between Balea Lake and Balea Waterfall down the mountain. It costs 100 Ron per person (children are 60 Ron) to take the cable car down and back up. You can check out their prices on their website. You can visit the hotel and restaurant at the bottom, along with souvenir and snack shops and then take your return trip.
You can stay at one of the hotels along the road or try your hand at camping for the night of Day 3.
On Day 4, you can see the rest of the Transfagarasan highway and then continue on your way to the town of Turda.
This is your longest drive day with Turda being about 3 hours drive away from Lake Balea. We recommend getting to Turda and staying the night there, so you have a full day to spend at the salt mine in Turda.
Day 5: Turda
Turda is a city mostly known for its industrial use, so the city center is not something we recommend spending a long time in unless you just want to view daily life in the city. However, there are two attractions that are worth spending time at – Turda Gorge (Cheile Turzii), a natural attraction, and Salina Turda, a salt mine. Turda Gorge (Cheile Turzii) is a limestone canyon that is very scenic and offers some beautiful hikes. Our family was very curious to visit the salt mine and learn about that as we’ve not gotten an opportunity in a place like that before. We highly recommend a visit!
Main Activities and Highlights: Salina Turda Salt Mine
(Read our full Salina Turda Salt Mine guide here)
The salt mine was a great destination for the whole family! There are two sections in the salt mine. An educational section and an entertainment section. We first visited the educational section which took us through the history of the mine and how they excavated the salt out of the mine from the past. There were signs explaining the process. We especially enjoyed learning how they used to use horses in the mine.
After learning the history and process of the salt mining, we went into the largest cavern. This cavern is 13 stories high and is the entertainment section of Salina Turda. You can take a boat in the water at the base of the cavern, or ride a ferris wheel in the center of the cave. There are various other activities to try out – something for all age kids!
It was also very cold in the salt mine, which our kids enjoyed. They loved seeing the salt patterns on the walls of the caves. An unexpected fascination some of us had was in the regrowth of the salt around the salt mine. You can see evidence that the salt is continually growing over time by how it is growing onto and over the signs, stairs, and artifacts all around the mine.
One thing to note about going into the mine with kids – there is only one elevator which takes you up and down the 13 floors. It is very crowded with a long line. We preferred to walk the stairs, but there are A LOT of stairs! Very narrow stairs.
After finishing at Salina Turda Salt Mine, you should continue on your Transylvania road trip to your next destination. Drive about 2 hours to Sighisoara, so you are ready to explore on Day 6.
Day 6: Sighisoara
(Read our full Sighisoara citadel guide here)
Main Activities and Highlights: Sighisoara Citadel
Sighisoara is one of our family’s favorite places in Eastern Europe! We highly recommend you spend time exploring this town and specifically the citadel, which is a walled area in the city.
The citadel is built up on a hill. It has all the makings of a town straight out of a fairy tale – cobblestone streets, watch towers, gardens, and wooden shuttered pastel houses. It costs nothing to enter and walk through.
It is easy to spend a day exploring. There are signs around town marking the names of towers, churches, and famous buildings. There are little restaurants and souvenir shops to explore. The back alleys were our favorite, as people still lived real life there with beautiful flower gardens and working shops, while still having the quaint village look of a time gone by.
We recommend staying in the town of Sighisoara one more night before finishing your Transylvania road trip tomorrow.
Day 7: Back to Brasov
It is a quick return trip to Bran – about 120 kilometers which should take you less than two hours to drive. Brasov has some lovely parks to check out – we played for a long time at Parcul Aerotec, a playground inside the European Council Square in downtown Brasov.
You can also swing by the Black Church, a gothic church that got its name from a fire that burned through it in the 1600’s. It is quite unique and worth a visit, but will cost 25 Ron for adults and 15 Ron for students (free for children under 7).
Top Highlights for Families
Favorite kid-approved attractions
We loved exploring attractions that were so different from places we had been before. The salt mine was a great learning experience for all of us as we had never seen a salt mine before.
We loved trying snacks along the way. Our favorite was definitely the deep-fried dough called Langos, which comes with different toppings.
For meals, we found that the cheapest and easiest meals were the Kaufland Supermarket Grill. Kaufland Supermarket is a supermarket chain around Europe and many of the towns around Transylvania have at least one supermarket in their area. We could get some fruits and veggies from inside the supermarket and then buy meat from the grill. There are tables and stools where you can eat next to the grill.
Parent Pro-Tips
Packing for this Transylvania road trip would need to include a few warmer pieces of clothing as you not only enjoy the summer temperatures of Transylvania, but you also enter the mountains and see snow, as well as the cold of the salt mine.
Final Thoughts
If you want to experience much of what Transylvania has to offer, this is the way to do it. You can really flex your itinerary by having your own wheels instead of choosing the combination of trains + walking. As a family that usually chooses public transport over rental cars, we were really glad to have chosen the car for this area of Eastern Europe. We would not have gotten to see nearly as much without renting a vehicle.