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Part of the challenge of travelling to less common places is that there are usually limited ways of doing things. After Bulgaria, I planned to head to North Macedonia next and there were some challenges ahead. Before heading to Melnik, my last stop in Bulgaria, I had wrongly assumed that crossing the southern border with public transport would be somewhat straightforward. Not so much.
Between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, there are three border crossings. The main tourist route between the two countries is the northern border crossing that joins the two country’s capitals, Sofia and Skopje. The town of Melnik however, is tucked away in the country’s deep south-west, right by the country’s southern borders with Greece and North Macedonia. I had hoped to take the southern border crossing not far from Melnik but had no idea how difficult it would turn out to be.
Route Outline
After I had done some snooping around on the internet for information and schedules, I thought I had come up with a tenuous plan. It appeared that I could reach the small city of Strumica in North Macedonia from Melnik but I didn’t have much confidence in the information I had found. The unappealing alternative was to head back to Sofia and then across to Skopje but that meant a lot of backtracking. So I decided to take a risk and head for Strumica.
Melnik is not very accessible by public transport with just a few daily buses to the slightly larger town of Sandanski. From Sandanski, there were buses to some border towns but nothing across to North Macedonia. I could have maybe taken a taxi into North Macedonia from the border towns but felt it was too risky. Instead, I could get from Sandanski to Blagoevgrad which had a large regional bus station and a daily bus at 16.30 that went to Strumica. Theoretically.
On that day, I decided to leave Melnik as early as possible to allow time for unforeseen problems. I made my way down to the bus stop a little after 8 am to catch the last morning bus to Sandanski. Mere moments after arriving at the bus stop a friendly local asked if I wanted a ride.
Ride-sharing is quite common in the Balkans so I took him up on it. The drive with the man and his son got me to Sandanski bus station with plenty of time for the 9.40 bus to Blagoevgrad. Soon I was on the bus and by 11 am I was in Blagoevgrad.
Melnik – Sandanski – Blagoevgrad – Strumica
At Blagoevgrad, I looked at the boards and slowly decrypted the Cyrillic letters to figure out the times. While the board said that the bus was at 17.45, I asked the lady at the counter and she scribbled down 16.30 so I went with that. Interestingly, I did notice bus times to the town of Delchevo in North Macedonia which sits on the other side of the middle border crossing. So I guess that is another alternative as well.
After spending hours in Blagoevgrad getting coffee and food, and doing not much else, I returned to the bus station. The minibus departed a bit late full of local Macedonians, myself and one other tourist. In the end, it took me across the southern border to Strumica a little later than planned, but I got there. To read about Strumica, keep an eye out for the upcoming post.
So this is how you can take the southern border crossing from Bulgaria to North Macedonia. Not the most convenient route to take by public transport and just as long as going via Sofia to Skopje. But if you want to try something different and start a visit to North Macedonia in the south, it’s the way to go.
Bus Times as of July 2016 – via Balkan Viator
Melnik – Sandanski: 9:00, 13:10, 17:20
Sandanski – Blagoevgrad: 9:40, 13:00, 13:30, 15:00, 15:30, 16:30, 18:00
Blagoevgrad – Strumica (MK): 16:30
Blagoevgrad – Delchevo (MK): 7:00, 17:00
Have you travelled from Bulgaria to North Macedonia? If you do and use this as a guide, let me know if you find it useful. Please share in the comments below.
2 comments
I just crossed from Bulgaria to Macedonia. Despite my kind hosts calling the Blagoevgrad bus station for details and us going on line, it was still hard to pin this down. The bus station said the bus would leave for Strumica at 16:30 or 17:30. The Internet reported 16:30 or 17:00. No one could tell us where in Sandanski it *might* stop. The local Sandanski bus station said it would stop at “Happy bar” but “Happy bar” said it would stop about 1 km away at an official side of the road stop. So, we stood on the road from 17:15 until 18:15 when the minibus actually zoomed past us (despite three people flagging it down). My host speed like crazy to catch up and pass the minibus. When we did, the nonchalant driver just shrugged saying he only pucks up passengers in Petrich (not in Sandansky). But the calling Petrich bus station had said it does not come to their station. He let me on for 10 BGN. In Petrich we stopped on the side of the road at a bus stop for almost 5 minutes and 3 people got on. Then an easy border crossing and arrived to Strumica bus station about 19:30. It was weird but I made it!
Hi Rachael, thanks so much for sharing your experience here. Hopefully other travellers will find it useful. Planning travel here can be a real nightmare, with conflicting information and often people doing things differently one day to the next. I think Blagoevgrad is the safest place to get the bus but it doesn’t help when the times keep changing. Glad you made it in the end.