What should I avoid in Bucharest?

Your first trap sits ten metres past customs at Henri Coandă Airport in Otopeni. Drivers murmur 'taxi, taxi' in the arrivals hall, and their rides to Piața Unirii can run 200 RON or more for a trip that tends to cost 60 to 90 RON on Bolt or Uber. We'd keep walking to the Bolt pickup point. Both apps collect outside the terminal, and the fare is fixed on your phone before the car door shuts. The touchscreen kiosks in arrivals also issue a ticket for a licensed cab with the per-kilometre rate printed on the door, which is fine if your phone is dead. The CFR train to Gara de Nord takes about 25 minutes, but it leaves you at a station with its own crop of touts and a 20-minute drag to most central hotels. Bus 100 to Piața Unirii is the cheap option at a few lei, though after an overnight flight the 45 minutes of stop-start traffic on Șoseaua București-Ploiești feels long.

Centrul Vechi, the pedestrian grid around Strada Lipscani and Strada Smârdan, is where most first-timers lose money. Promoters hand out strip-club flyers on Strada Covaci by 9pm, and a friendly stranger who suggests 'a bar she knows' is likely working for a place that bills 400 RON for two drinks. Decline, and keep moving toward Calea Victoriei. The restaurants with photo menus and a host out on the cobbles charge roughly double for sarmale that taste of the microwave. Eat at Caru' cu Bere on Strada Stavropoleos instead, with a reservation, and order the sarmale (pork-stuffed cabbage rolls with polenta and sour cream) or mici, the skinless grilled sausages that arrive smoky and dripping beside a pool of mustard. To be fair, Caru' cu Bere is touristy too, but the beer hall has been in business since 1879 and the kitchen still cooks. Don't book a hotel on Lipscani either. Bass thuds through these streets until 4am from Thursday to Saturday, and Piața Romană is two metro stops north of Piața Unirii and quiet by midnight.

Money is the second leak in Bucharest. The booths on Lipscani and at the airport that shout "0% commission" make their cut on the rate: with the leu at about 4.77 to the US dollar in mid-October 2026, a board that offers 4.20 is taking 12 percent. Use an ATM attached to a bank branch, such as BCR, BRD or Banca Transilvania, and refuse the machine's offer to charge you in your home currency. The blue-and-yellow Euronet machines around Piața Unirii tend to add the worst fees. One old Bucharest con still turns up near Gara de Nord: a man asks you to change money, then two "police officers" appear and demand your passport and wallet for inspection. Real Romanian police do not check wallets on the street. Offer to walk with them to the nearest Poliția station and the act usually ends.

Don't turn up at the Palace of the Parliament unannounced. Tours need a booking, usually a day ahead, and guards at the visitor entrance on the Izvor Park side will turn you away without a passport or EU identity card. Don't try to circle it on foot for a photo either: the perimeter runs more than 3 kilometres along wind-blown boulevards with almost no shade, so shoot it from Piața Constituției and move on. On a jet-lagged first day, skip the museums and take the M2 metro to Aviatorilor for Herăstrău Park, where the lake path is flat and the air smells of linden blossom in June. Pack a layer in October. It was 12.4°C and overcast at 8pm on the 13th, and the marble halls of the palace feel colder than the street. TTDI rates solo-traveler safety here at 7.2/10 (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), so the realistic risks are to your wallet. The one district to leave off your map is Ferentari, in Sector 5, which has nothing a visitor needs.