Hiking in Brasov | Backpacking in Romania

Continuing my month of adventures backpacking in Romania, I made it to the town of Brasov in the region of Transylvania which is a sort of must-go city as it’s one of the first places everyone mentions when in Romania. What not many people mentions though is that you can do a lot of hiking in Brasov!

NOTE: This blog contains affiliate links to pages selling products and/or services, I may get a small commission if you make a purchase through these links at no extra cost for you. There’s no sponsored content on this blog.

This post is for just a short day hike that will take anything between 2-4 hours depending on your pace, keep reading for more details on this 🙂

I spent almost a week in this beautiful town surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains. As it’s centrally located in the country, it works wonderful as a base to explore different places such as Sighisoara, Bran Castle, Peles Castle and you can also go skiing to the nearby resorts by Poiana.

If you plan to visit Dracula’s Castle in Bran make sure to check my post about Hiking in Bran!

How to go to Brasov

Pretty much every place I visited in Romania was well linked by trains and buses, although you need to check timings in advance as the frequency could be of just one train/bus a day depending on where you are.

I made it to Brasov by train after spending a couple of nights in the beautiful little town of Sighisoara. I highly recommend visiting this town which is the birth place of Vlad the Impaler (aka Dracula!), just 1 full day is enough to visit if you’re short in time.

The train from Sighisoara costs 40 Lei. There are also trains from Bucharest at 25 Lei.

Where to stay

On my days backpacking in Brasov I tried 3 (!!) different hostels: Bed Stage, Downtown Hostel and Centrum Hostel, all of them perfect for a low budget trip but I prefer Centrum Hostel as it had a really good breakfast and the dorm was spacious and comfy.

Hiking in Brasov

One of the very first things you will notice when arriving to Brasov is the “Hollywood” sign at the top of Tampa mountain that can be seen from almost everywhere in the city.

The nearby town of Rasnov also has such a namesake sign, I heard they put the signs as the region has been repeatedly used as a film location.

Although in Brasov there’s a cable car to go up there, there’s a well maintained trail to hike up as well.

At the start of the hike there are signs of precaution mentioning that there are wild animals such as bears, lynx, boars, vipers, foxes and wasps…so, be careful!

For this particular hike which does not go far away from town I don’t think there are any problems as the wild animals will be farther away, but always keep an eye for vipers just in case! I didn’t see anything when I was there.

This short hike was about 6 Km long and some 300m of elevation, below is a screenshot taken from maps.me as you can see, there are quite a few trails around so you can make your hike longer or shorter.

Starting right next to the cablecar station, it took me about 50 minutes to get to the Brasov sign, I had a bit of snow that day and parts of the trail were quite slippery, but it’s an ok hike to do with trainers if you don’t have hiking boots.

The twisty way up along the beautiful forest is not steep and it can be a pretty cool workout if you want to go out for a run.

Almost half way up there’s a trail pointing towards Poiana Brasov and says it’s about 3 hours away, so if you want a longer hike that’s a great option there!! (maybe take some pepper spray with you for the bears!)

When you’re at the top you can walk right by the sign as there’s a cool viewpoint there.

They say the best views of Brasov are from the top of Tampa mountain, sadly that was not the case for me as the fog was covering much of the city. It was still a pretty cool sight!

After admiring the views, you could either make your way down with the cablecar, but c’mon! we’re hiking here! so instead keep going and start finding cool spots!

Keep climbing a couple more minutes and you will find some ruins that are over 500 years old. This will take you a little bit downhill and then you will have different trails, going up and down.

It’s good to have an offline maps app for these cases as although the trails are well marked, sometimes it’s not easy not know where do they actually go. I love using maps.me as most of the time it always has all the trails wherever I go.

On my case I was constantly changing trails, they’re all colour marked but I couldn’t tell where each of them was going, so I was just deciding according to what I was seeing on the app.

After arriving to the valley down the hill from the viewpoints, I made my way up crossing the beautiful Transylvanian forest on a relatively flattish trail until I found a little stream that took me back down to town.

All in all it was just 2 hours hiking, including several stops to admire the beauty of this place.

If you’re in town for just a day or two, I recommend you to add this hike as a morning activity and then explore the city in the afternoon.

What makes hiking in Brasov cool is that it’s not so common to be able to go for a hike right from the centre of a city! no need to take any transportation and no special stuff to prepare as it’s a short hike.

This was for sure my favourite thing to do in Brasov! feel free to drop any comments or questions below if you plan to go hiking in Brasov!

Check my post about great places to visit in Romania for more inspiration for your next adventure!

Happy adventures! 🙂