Data for Bucharest, Brașov, Sibiu and the Transfăgărășan, installed before you fly. Romania is on the Europe plan and the Balkans plan, so the road can carry on into Bulgaria, Serbia or Türkiye on either one, and into Hungary on the Europe plan. Garlic optional.
The Romania plan covers Romania only.
The same 10 GB in a package that keeps working past Romania.
Europe · 10 GB · 30 daysRomania + 38 countries10.99€$12.99£9.39CHF 10.99+2.40€ vs Romania only+$3.20 vs Romania only+£2.00 vs Romania only+CHF 2.80 vs Romania only
Balkans · 10 GB · 30 daysRomania + 10 countries22.99€$26.99£19.99CHF 21.99+14.40€ vs Romania only+$17.20 vs Romania only+£12.60 vs Romania only+CHF 13.80 vs Romania only38 other countries share the package with Romania. A few of them:
What's included, when it starts, and how to get connected.
Bucharest to Sibiu at a sensible pace: a royal castle, three Saxon towns, a bear or two at a safe distance and the road over the Făgăraș mountains to finish. The line below is an illustration, not a map.
1Start in the capital: the Old Town's bars, the Romanian Athenaeum and a tour of the Palace of the Parliament, by Guinness's count the heaviest building in the world. Then north up the Prahova Valley by train or car; Sinaia is about 125 km away.
2Peleș Castle in Sinaia sells timed tickets on its own website and closes on Mondays, Tuesdays and for most of November. Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni is Wednesday's Nevermore. Then Brașov: the Black Church, Rope Street, the narrowest in Romania, and the cable car up Tâmpa to the Hollywood-style sign.
3A hilltop citadel people still live in, listed by UNESCO in 1999, under a 64-metre clock tower. Vlad III was probably born here, which the souvenir shops mention once or twice. Stay the night: the day-trippers leave by evening and the lanes are yours.
4Sibiu is the town with eyes: the eyebrow dormers on its roofs watch the Large Square. Then the Transfăgărășan, 151 km over the Făgăraș mountains and up to 2,042 m. The high section usually opens in June or July, shuts at night and closes for the snow by the end of October, sometimes sooner.
How the plan fits this route
Romania is on both the Europe plan and the Balkans plan, and either covers this loop end to end. Coverage is good in the towns and along the main roads and thins in the mountains and on the Transfăgărășan's high section, as it does for everyone, so save the route offline in Sibiu. If the trip carries on over a border, the plan matters: see the questions below.
Bran Castle has been sold as 'Dracula's Castle' since 1997, but there is no evidence that Bram Stoker ever went to Transylvania, the novel never mentions Bran, and Vlad III, the prince usually credited with the name, seems only to have passed through the gorge below it. The castle was Queen Marie's favourite home. Vlad's real fortress is Poenari, 1,480 steps up above the southern end of the Transfăgărășan.
Wednesday's first season was shot in Romania in 2021 and 2022: Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni, on the road from Bucharest to Brașov, plays Nevermore, and Jericho was a set at Buftea Studios outside Bucharest. Season two moved to Ireland, so the Romanian Nevermore is frozen in season one. Nosferatu (2024) came too, shooting some exteriors at Corvin Castle in Hunedoara.
An official 2025 study put Romania's brown bears at over 10,000, and some have learned that people mean food: in 2024 one was filmed walking off with a rubbish bin in Brașov. It is funny until it isn't. Feeding them is fined, and in July 2025 a bear killed a motorcyclist on the Transfăgărășan. Stay in the car and keep your distance.
Romania's electronic vignette covers all national roads, the Transfăgărășan included, and is tied to your number plate. Buy it online or at a petrol station before the first main road; from October 2026 the price also depends on the car's emission class, but a short one still costs a few euros. Since January 2025 the Hungarian and Bulgarian borders have no routine passport checks.
Romania pays in lei (RON), and its euro target keeps moving; the latest talk is of the early 2030s. Cards and phone payments work in the cities, at fuel stations and in most restaurants, while village guesthouses, markets and mountain huts often want cash. When a card machine offers to charge you in your home currency, say no: the rate is always worse.
Answers about data, coverage and setup for Romania.
Either covers Romania; the difference is the next border. The Europe plan also covers Hungary, Austria and the rest of the EU, and every country on the Balkans plan except Kosovo; the Balkans plan is the one if the trip includes Kosovo. With an EU SIM you already roam like at home in Romania, so the package earns its keep for visitors from outside the EU and on trips into Serbia, Türkiye or the Western Balkans.
No. Neither Moldova nor Ukraine is on the Europe plan or the Balkans plan, so the eSIM stops working at those borders, and a day trip from Iași to Chișinău needs another way to get data on the Moldovan side. Romania's other neighbours are covered: Hungary on the Europe plan, Bulgaria and Serbia on both.
Yes, on the Europe plan: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Türkiye are all on it, so one package and one allowance cover the whole drive, and each border just hands the phone to a partner network. Romania and Bulgaria have been fully in Schengen since January 2025, so Romania's crossings from Hungary and into Bulgaria have no routine passport checks; Kapıkule still does. Guide: Germany to Türkiye by car
