ROAD BOOKS

[JFP]

I intend to travel from France to Bulgaria in september 2007 with a Land Rover TD5 and stay 2-3 weeks. I am looking for road books, GPS points, maps... to discover the country and specialy its mountains with a 4X4 outside of the main roads. Can anybody help me ? Thanks.

[BatGeorgeone]

До: ROAD BOOKS

Hello mate,

Sure, we can help.

Just tell us a bit more on what you have as GPS?

If it is Garmin compatible there is a very handy map, best on the market made mainly for Off Road but also contains nearly all roads(tons of nice points and places to visit) in Bulgaria, contact "sabin" for more info.

Road books, you can find a wide selection in any big Petrol station you stop by in Bulgaria. Just a piece of advice, I would prefer OMV, SHELL, Lukoil and if I do not have an option Petrol or any other brands.

Pray to god but just in case you get stuck in an Off Road track(stuck in a mud, car broken down etc.) there is a bunch of guys arround the country who are in some sort of mobile group to help each other, I am positive they will be happy to help. You might need to have at least a few numbers of English speaking chaps who can assist you even via phone just in case you need...

Anything more you need, feel free to ask.

Have a wonderful trip over here!

[Чавдар (V93)]

До: ROAD BOOKS

I am looking for road books, GPS points, maps... to discover the country and specialy its mountains with a 4X4 outside of the main roads. Can anybody help me ? Thanks.

As already mentioned, if you use a Garmin GPS, your best choice is the "Offroad Map of Bulgaria".
It is a commercial product, so it is not available for free, but it is without any doubt the best GPS map one could possibly use for driving offroad.
The map contains information on normal roads and cities (so you can use it when driving on the roads and navigating in cities) as well as a lot of dirt roads in the mountains. What is better, the dirt roads are color-coded, according to the type of vehicle that could use them (e.g. 4x4, ATV, bike).
Information is periodically updated based on feedback from offroaders. With roads in the mountains constantly changing subject to elements' influence it is a very important to have such updates.

Oh yes, and the map is routable.

To get additional information you'll want to contact Sabin Kolarov (send a private message or an E-mail to karta (at) offroad-bulgaria.com


Another choice is to use the free BG Topomaps . It's main advantages are that it is available for free and that it contains information that could be useful for tourists.

The downsides are:
- it is not routable
- information about roads in the mountains is better suited for pedestrians than for people driving a 4x4
- the map has not been updated for more than a year. That's quite a long time if you ask me ...

I would not count on using most available paper maps for navigating while offroading in the mountains. Most maps have information only about main roads. Tourist maps of the mountains are available but generally their scale (often 1:50,000 or more) is not suited for navigating offroad.
Besides, many of these maps are based on outdated information. Many dirt roads in the mountains are either not shown at all or information about them is not always correct.
So, paper maps (other than detailed military topographic maps) are better used for general orientation but not for navigation.