Beers and Biking in Bulgaria

Snowmobiling in February might not be sensible, but snowmobiling in Bulgaria at minus fifteen degrees might just rewrite how we think about winter travel, writes Evan England.

A few odd things happened in Bulgaria.

The first was my arrival.

In Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, the Europcar guy insisted on driving me to the bus station because I was running late and he “knew the fastest way.” Somehow, I made it to Sofia. Turns out, he wasn’t wrong.

Within hours, then within the following days, I’d been invited to a Mexican party, met Italians in an Irish bar, almost missed a tour to a monastery because the Russian organiser gave me the wrong time (it wasn’t me, I swear), bumped into an old uni friend from Canberra, Australia in a coffee shop who was on his way skiing and ended up dancing salsa in a “nightclub” with a Bulgarian woman in her 50s. All of this in four days, wrapped in a brutal winter chill.

It was February and minus fifteen degrees (Celsius). So how exactly do you embrace winter in a place like that?

My answer?

Snowmobiling.

It seemed like the cheapest, most ridiculous way to lean into the cold. After a quick call to my friend Vlad, his wife swung by and picked me up for what turned out to be an accidental private snowmobile tour about an hour outside Sofia.

I ride motorbikes and like to think of myself as coordinated, but I was not prepared.
Vlad’s first question was, “Do you have a neck warmer? You’re at serious risk of frostbite today.”
Great.
We were heading into the backcountry, just the three of us, and having come off a motorbike in Ecuador only a month earlier, I was already questioning my decision. The “safety briefing” consisted mostly of Vlad telling me how someone had fallen off the previous month and broken her leg. Then we set off.

It was a bluebird day to start, but as we climbed higher, visibility shrank and the conditions changed. The first thing you learn about snowmobiling is that you actually have to be mobile, as the name suggests. You’re constantly shifting your weight from side to side, sometimes swinging both legs over to one side like you’re pushing a bike you’ve already stepped off and letting it glide to a stop. At least it keeps you warm. The second thing is just how powerful the machines are: instant throttle, heavy steering, and a way of making trees feel much closer and larger than they really are.

After about twenty minutes, I was just starting to get the hang of it when Vlad pointed at the slope ahead and said it was a good place to practice a ‘whip turn.’ As a lifelong surfer, I knew exactly what he was referring to, but I also had vivid images of one tonne of a snowmobile rolling over me.

Naturally, as a relatively young ego-driven male, I tried it anyway. To my surprise, it worked. Confidence was just about all I had going for me at that point.

As we wound back down the mountain toward a wood‑fired lunch featuring a Bulgarian animal delicacy I won’t name here, I found myself thinking about how different the seasons are in this part of the world. It feels, perhaps unfairly, like the post‑Soviet countries are defined by the cold - not just because of Cold War metaphors, but because the cities feel hardened and the people, tough. Snowmobiling doesn’t quite fit that narrative, nor does the beauty of those frozen forests, but maybe the challenge and my own lack of ability were exactly what connected me to Bulgaria in a season that feels so foreign to me.

One more thing: that night I nearly got into a bar fight with a very large Bulgarian man after I accidentally knocked over his drink. As I said—tough people.

My singular story aside, Bulgaria is like so many of it’s Eastern European counterparts. It’s somewhere in another decade’s time, people will speak about casually, the incredible sites, amazing landscapes and yes at least in the Summer, coastal options the way we do now about Hungary and Poland (amongst others). Whether you’re looking to embrace Winter or Summer, what you can be guaranteed in Bulgaria is genuine and relatively untouched, exploration, experience and adventure.

Oh, and did I mention it’s super cheap and they have great beers?

Words by Evan England.