How do I get around Budapest?

BKK runs every metro, tram, bus, trolleybus, and river ferry in Budapest on one unified ticket system. A single ride costs around 450 HUF (about $1.50), but the 72-hour travel card at 5,500 HUF (under $18) pays for itself by lunch on day one. Buy it from the purple ticket machines at any metro station. They accept contactless Visa and Mastercard and have an English toggle. The Budapest GO app sells mobile tickets too, though it tends to be finicky on older Android phones. Mind you, plain-clothes BKK inspectors patrol metro entrances and tram cars, and the on-the-spot fine for riding without a validated ticket is 16,000 HUF (about $52). They do not accept confusion as an excuse. Validate paper tickets in the orange boxes before you board. The 72-hour card needs validating only once, at first use.

Four metro lines cross the city. M1, the yellow line, runs under Andrássy Avenue from Vörösmarty tér to Hősök tere (Heroes' Square, built in 1896) and out to City Park. The line itself opened that same year for the Millennium celebrations, and the small tile-walled stations still smell of damp concrete and old brake dust. M2 (red) connects Déli pályaudvar in Buda to Keleti station in Pest. This is the line you'll likely use from the main train stations. M3 (blue) runs north-south through Pest. M4 (green), completed in 2014, links southern Buda with Keleti and has the most modern stations. Trams are the real workhorses, though. Tram 2 runs along the Pest embankment between Jászai Mari tér and Közvágóhíd, with the Parliament and Buda Castle lit up across the water after dark. It replaces any paid sightseeing cruise at a fraction of the cost. Trams 4 and 6 loop the Nagykörút (Grand Boulevard) 24 hours a day, which matters when the metro shuts down around 23:30.

Bolt is the default ride-hailing app. Download it before you land at Liszt Ferenc Airport. A ride from District V to Buda Castle runs about 1,500-2,000 HUF ($5-7), and airport to downtown is typically 8,000-10,000 HUF ($26-33). Uber also operates in Budapest, but Bolt tends to have more drivers and shorter wait times at the moment. Do not accept rides from drivers who approach you at Keleti station or the airport arrivals hall. Those are the fixed-price-negotiation traps that end at 3x the metered rate. For the airport specifically, the 100E express bus departs every 10-20 minutes to Deák Ferenc tér in central Pest for 2,200 HUF ($7). It is often faster than a car during rush hour on the M1-M3 motorway. Deák Ferenc tér is the main transit hub where M1, M2, and M3 converge, so from there you can reach any neighborhood in under 15 minutes.

The Pest side is flat. District V (Belváros), District VI (Terézváros), and District VII (Erzsébetváros, the Jewish Quarter) connect on foot within 15-20 minutes of each other. The sidewalks are wide, and the shade from chestnut trees along Andrássy Avenue makes summer walks bearable even when temperatures reach 34°C as they have this week. Buda is a different story. Castle Hill involves a steep climb from the river unless you take the Budavári Sikló funicular (around 1,800 HUF one way) or bus 16 from Deák tér. Gellért Hill is a 20-minute uphill scramble from the Liberty Bridge, with no shortcut. Worth it for the Citadella panorama, but wear proper shoes on the loose gravel paths. Margaret Island sits in the Danube between Margit híd and Árpád híd. The island is 2.5 km long, car-free, and flat, with a running track that loops the perimeter past the 1919 water tower.