Vidin

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<map lat="44.002651343303" lng="22.877105712331" zoom="13" view="0" float="right" />

Vidin (Bulgarian: Видин) is a city in north-western Bulgaria on the bank of the Danube. It has a population of 47,138 inhabitants. North from the town there's a bridge border crossing with Romania. Licence plate for the Vidin county cars is BH.

Where to sleep

If you need a place to spend the night, you can comfortably find a place to camp in the park around the castle (located on the banks of the danube). It’s suitable for hangmock-based camping aswell as for tents. The castle wall protects you from cold winds and and the cold from the river. There are also abandoned houses nearby and vending machines with food/hot drinks. It may be a touristic place during summer time (i don’t know, i was there in december).

Hitchhiking out

North towards Calafat, Romania, Hungary, Crossing the Danube

From mid 2013 it is much easier and faster on the new Vidin-Calafat Bridge than it was before by ferry.

Walk across the border and start asking truck drivers as they're passing the control or stopping behind it. A sign is useful, but due to the huge amount of Turkish drivers here, it is useful to also know the Turkish name of the place you're going to (i.e. Hungary is Muceristan). You can get rides here late at night too and probably camp close to it as long as you ask or hide from the guards.

I got offered food and drinks a lot by drivers stopping for the night and eventually got a ride going all the way to Budapest. It feels safe and is a reliable hitchhiking spot. - Rebew (16/08/2021)

South towards Sofia

Hitchhiking towards Sofia is somewhat difficult from Vidin. There is a fairly big gas station on the road leading around it with many trucks, but they are highly skeptical of hitchhikers. I would probably suggest the border crossing again.