About Transylvania Day Trips

My name is Costel - Coco to most of the people I guide - and I am a certified tour guide based in Brașov, in the heart of Transylvania.

I fell in love with the landscapes, stories, and traditions of this region. Over the years, life took me abroad, where I gained experience working with people from all over the world - different backgrounds, different expectations, different ways of seeing things. That time away taught me a great deal. But it also made one thing clear: there is nowhere I would rather be than here.

I came back to Brașov with a simple purpose - to show people the Transylvania I know. Not the version assembled for mass tourism, but the real one: the volcanic lakes and Saxon villages that do not appear on most itineraries, the medieval history that goes far deeper than castle legends, the bear sanctuaries doing genuinely important conservation work, the farm tables where the food has not changed in centuries.

How I work

Every tour I run is private. Your group - up to four people - travels in a comfortable hybrid vehicle with me as your guide and driver from the moment I pick you up from your hotel to the moment I bring you back.

I keep groups small deliberately. A small group moves at a human pace. There is time to stop when something catches your eye, to ask the question you would not ask in a crowd, to sit with an experience rather than rushing through it. I find that the most memorable moments on any tour tend to happen in the spaces between the scheduled stops - and those spaces only exist when there is no pressure to keep forty people moving.

I plan every itinerary with care and am honest about what each destination offers. I will tell you what is worth your time and what is not. I will not oversell an experience, and I will not rush you through one.

My connection to this place

Transylvania is not a backdrop for me - it is home. I know which road through the Bârsa Valley gives you the best view of the Piatra Craiului ridge in the morning light. I know people who have been cooking the same recipes their grandmother taught them. I know why the basalt columns at Racoș stop people mid-sentence, and I know how to give you the space to let that happen.

That familiarity - built over a lifetime, not a season - is what I bring to every tour. It is the difference between visiting a place and being introduced to it.

Supporting local communities

The places we visit are not museum pieces. They are living communities - villages where people still farm the land the same way their great-grandparents did, sanctuaries sustained by conservation work that depends on visitor support, artisans and cooks and local producers keeping traditions alive because someone still values them.

When you travel with Transylvania Day Trips, your visit contributes directly to those communities. Entry fees go to the sanctuaries and heritage sites. Lunch stops are at local family-run gastronomic points. Where possible, I will always point you toward a local producer, a village shop, or a small enterprise over a commercial alternative.

Transylvania deserves to be seen. It also deserves to be treated with care. I take both of those things seriously.

A note on the vehicle

All tours travel in an eco-friendly hybrid vehicle - comfortable, quiet, and chosen with the environment in mind. For small groups exploring destinations that include protected nature reserves and rural landscapes, how you travel matters as much as where you go.

I look forward to showing you Transylvania.
Costel (Coco)