Every year, at the onset of the summer holiday season, the majority of Bulgaria’s population gets an itch. As the sun rays warm up, the temperatures soar and the days become longer, they stir up the imagination and make the need to decide where to spend one’s vacation urgent. Some begin to scramble – every day looking through endless tourist agency packages and hotel offers for domestic and faraway destinations. Others avoid all the hoopla and go for the tried and tested – they go camping.

Camping, however, is not for everyone. In Bulgaria, it is even less so. Decades of mismanagement have left the campsites’ infrastructure in ruins. The recent building boom, which is quickly swallowing up all the remaining undeveloped places along the coast, seems to make any investments pointless. That is why – in addition to the usual setbacks and lack of amenities typical of camping grounds, holidaymakers who choose to pitch a tent in Bulgaria have to face bathrooms that have not been renovated for the past couple of decades, inefficient (or entirely lacking) trash collection systems and overcrowded grounds.

Despite all this, every summer thousands of Bulgarians and other Europeans decide to head to Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast and set up camp in one of the several sites located along its length.

The best known one among them is perhaps Gradina, which stretches along the four-kilometre bay between the resort towns of Chernomorets and Sozopol, just south of Burgas.

It has acquired a legendary status for a few generations of Bulgarians – some of them spent summer vacations there with parents in the 70s and 80s, then wild years with girl/boy/friends in the 90s and now frequent it with their spouses and offspring. Upon becoming financially stable, instead of trading Gradina for luxurious hotels or faraway destinations, they only exchange their tent for a trailer, complete with a satellite dish and a wi-fi connection.

Sadly, the Gradina camping grounds are also getting swallowed up by the building boom. The sand dunes and trees that used to lie quietly between the small road and the sea are steadily getting wiped out in favour of unsightly, hastily built, several-story hotels. In turn, investors are hesitant to put any money into maintenance and development of the campsite’s facilities and infrastructure, leaving them to fall apart, and campers – to their own resources.

But despite the holidaymakers’ regular complaints that the campsite is getting worse every year, they keep coming back – each time thinking that this might be the last time they spend their summer there. From June to September, Gradina gets flooded with residents of Sofia who perfect the art of dolce far niente year after year.

And - if you can bear the campsite’s low hygiene conditions and lack of amenities, somehow Gradina’s charms compensate for its many shortcomings. A few days of waking up to spectacular sunrises, spending time in sweet idleness and falling asleep on the sand, to the sound of waves crashing a couple of metres away is all it takes to get over the grimy bathrooms and the pieces of broken glass and toilet paper that dot the sand dunes.

Zen and the Art of Tent Pitching

On the one hand, camping seems (and in a way, is) a cheap and fuss-free alternative to spending several days, weeks or – if one’s job allows it, months, vacationing by the sea. All you really need is a tent, a sleeping bag and a mat (or an air mattress, if you insist on luxury) and very little money.

In reality, however, hard-core campers tend to make some serious investments. Placing a trailer on the first row of the beach for the whole summer season costs around 1,600 euro – money one could use to fly half-way around the world and spend a couple of weeks in a five-star hotel.

In addition, as any seasoned camper will tell you, while the above list may cover the bare necessitates for a weekend of camping, it doesn’t even begin to get close to the complete inventory that is normally checked off before heading to the seaside. Whether sleeping in a tent or a trailer, going camping is more reminiscent of a house move than jetting off to a vacation.

Fold-out tables and chairs, cups, plates and eating utensils, gas lanterns, boom box and speakers, and even a fridge are must-haves if you want to have a fun experience bordering on comfort. Required personal amenities – in addition to the usual toiletries like sun screen, swimsuit and towels, are a headlamp and a Swiss army knife. Pillows and sheets, although not mandatory, are highly recommended.



Pitching the tent is actually the easiest part of setting up camp. Hard-core “gardeners” often build temporary structures out of wood bought from the nearby port city of Burgas. These structures, resembling an open-air living room, usually consist of poles that hold up a reed-made roof to protect against sun and rain. Bar tops, on which one can sit and enjoy the view of the sea while having a cold beer, are also widespread. In short – everything is made to ensure that pleasure is within arm’s reach, so that leaving the camp is never really necessary.

Dolce Far Niente, or Gradina’s Sweet Idleness

After a couple of days of organisation and logistics – finding a suitable place for the camp, building the various structures, connecting electricity cables and water hoses, all the work is done and campers move on to doing what they came here to do – idly watching the sea, playing cards or backgammon in the shade, reading a book stretched out in a hammock.



Slipping into sweet idleness, however, may take a few days, as – to really enjoy Gradina, one needs at least that much to acclimate. At the beginning, the hassles can be overwhelming. This is how your day typically begins: you wake up - mattress deflated, sand in your sheets, and are forced our of your tent at 8:30 am because the unrelenting sun has made the temperatures inside unbearable; you come out, tripping over a passed-out body or some leftover bottles from the night, only to find somebody’s dog sleeping on your towel; you are then forced to make a decision on whether to use the nearby bushes or the sea or walk the 500 metres to the bathrooms, you try to brush your teeth but end up splashing water from the hose all over yourself; finally, you sit down to have your morning coffee and realise you’ve already burned from all the running around.

But then – in a few days’ time, you get used to the routine (and start applying sun screen upon exiting your tent). Clean hair, teeth, or sheets start to seem like unimportant, easily ignored whims. Waking up early is awarded by the first thing you see when you open your eyes – the bright blue, shimmering sea. Your chief responsibilities for the day are to decide whether to read sitting on a chair or lying in a hammock, to pick a partner for a game of belote and make up your mind about whether to have your afternoon beer/coffee at the camp, under the neighbours’ tent or at the nearby beach bar….

Ironically, because camping means they’re spending virtually all their time on the beach – including when they eat and sleep, campers don’t really “go to the beach.” The actual space on the sand between the tents and the sea is usually occupied by the towels and umbrellas of residents of Burgas who have come for the day or tourists from nearby Sozopol who have escaped the town’s two unbearably crowded beaches.

For the campers, going for a swim is usually done in the morning – to wake up and/or get rid of last night’s hangover and sporadically during the day, mostly to cool off or take a break from the cards/book/beer.

In reality, campers don’t ever have to leave the site if they don’t want to. The makeshift bars and restaurants along the beach, which serve drinks, sandwiches, fried sprat, grilled meat and fries, albeit not of the best quality, are enough for a quick mid-day snack or dinner; at the campsite’s centre, there’s a convenience shop that sells food, drinks, basic cosmetics and newspapers, as well as a little bookshop, post office and a beachwear store.

Ways to Fight the Restlessness

But if Gradina’s charm – based precisely on the fact that there isn’t much to do there, gets to be a bit much, the campsite itself and the surrounding area provide enough opportunities to alternate every day of doing nothing with some kind of activity.

There are a few surf schools on the beach, where the athletically-inclined can rent equipment and get lessons in wind and kite surfing. Those whose idea of fun is not constant falling into the water or getting one’s arms pulled out of their sockets could rent a paddle boat or a jet ski for a leisurely ride on the sea.

For a quick change of scenery, where you could substitute Gradina’s fine sand for some dramatic rocks is a short car drive away from the campsite, in the direction of both Chernomorets and Sozopol. Beside jumping into the sea from the rocks, it is quite pleasant to snorkel-dive around them.



In some spots, it is possible for those who don’t mind having their hands cut to collect black mussels, to be taken back to Gradina and baked on a tin sheet over a fire. The Black Sea mussels may not be as spectacularly big as the ones one would eat in Belguim, for instance, but their taste – fresh out of the sea, fully compensates the size.



While the town of Chernomorets isn’t particularly attractive or interesting, Sozopol is one the oldest settlements on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, and boasts ancient buildings and a beautiful old part with traditional fishermen’s houses. Quenching the camper’s occasional thirst for civilisation, it makes a nice spot for a short getaway from the sand in the day or the evening.

When it rains, Sozopol is the number one choice for campers, who zip up their tents and head to the town’s restaurants and bars until the rain stops. The town is a pleasant place to stroll around, despite the hoards of tourists and endless stalls of souvenir kitsch that have flooded it in recent years. And the best part is that, just when they get overwhelming, you could escape back to Gradina’s peacefulness in just 10 minutes.

Another possible activity for the restless is scuba diving. Instructors and equipment are available in Sozopol. In the last several decades, underwater archaeologists have found sunken ships, ancient pottery and even animal bone remains from six million years ago in the town’s surrounding waters. In addition, there are plans to sink a ship between the old town’s peninsula and the nearby island soon, thus creating an artificial reef ideal for diving.

If that seems like too much work, another alternative is going for a boat ride to the island of St. Ivan, which lies about a kilometre away from Sozopol’s old part, just across Gradina’s bay. As the largest of the five Bulgarian islands in the Black Sea, it boasts a lighthouse and the remains from different periods, including those of Thracian sanctuary from the seventh century BC and from a monastery – built up and destroyed a few times between the sixth and the seventeenth centuries.

A Russian military hospital was constructed in the south-western part of the island during the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-29. St. Ivan, which houses more than 70 bird species, was declared a protected territory in the 1990s.

Another idea for a diversion, but of the culinary type, is the fishermen’s village restaurant on the way from Gradina to Burgas. This no-fuss eatery, right on the coast, provides for a welcome change if you get sick of the food offerings at Gradina (consistently pretty bad) and the fancier, but not always good, restaurants in Sozopol.



Finding it could prove to be a bit of a challenge due to the confusing and misleading road signs, but you should be able to reach it after a few wrong turns and some asking for directions. Ask for the fresh catch of the day and don’t miss the always delicious roe-spread.

And Finally, Here Comes the Sun

Perhaps the most spectacular thing you could witness while camping in Gradina is the sunrise from a cliff on the nearby slopes of the Strandzha Mountain, whose eastern part practically ends in the Black Sea.



Waking up at an ungodly hour and the 30-minute drive to the spot are a very small price to pay for the stunning view of the valley below, encompassing Gradina’s whole bay, the peninsulas of Chernomorets and Sozopol and beyond, while the sun slowly comes up over the shimmering sea.

Not much can be said here about it, it simply has to be witnessed.

Getting to the cliff is a little tricky, but not impossible with some luck and preparation ahead of time. On the main road from Gradina to Burgas, take the exit to the village of Atia. After passing through it, start following the blue road signs that read Landfall (leftover from a film production). As a rule of thumb, always keep to the left, except when reaching a fork in the road, where you should take the middle part. Leave your car when you get to the military base (don’t let the barking dogs scare you; they are on the other side of the fence), walk around its right side, follow the footpath and you should find yourself on the cliff. Be sure to check the exact time of sunrise and leave Gradina at least 40 minutes before it.

Practical information:

How to get there: Gradina is located between the towns of Chernomorets and Sozopol, at about 430 kilometres west of Sofia and about 30 kilometres south of Burgas. Driving time is approximately 5 to 6 hours from Sofia and about 30 minutes from Burgas.

Prices: The price to have your trailer for the entire summer season is around 1,600 euro for first row and 1,300 euro for second row.

On a day-to-day basis, the price for a 10 by 10 metre spot (where one trailer or one tent can be placed, with four occupants) is 20 euro for first row, 11.5 euro for second row and 10 euro for third row. Bear in mind that first row spots are usually reserved well ahead of time for the entire season. Reservations and inquiries can be made at ++359-550-22-524.

Gradina also has bungalows available, though the more decent ones are hard to come by and conditions in most of them are deplorable and sleeping in a tent is far more pleasant. Prices range between 15 and 38 euro, depending on whether they have a bathroom and the number of beds.

Read more about Bulgaria on BalkanTravellers.com
Use BalkanTravellers.com's tips to organize your trip to Bulgaria