In 2015 a team of ambitious young people created a website for the acquaintance with this country and the city we live in, along with the rediscovery of places well-known via the history and people, related to them. The 50 Spots to Visit in Bulgaria Campaign managed to restore the interest of the Bulgarians, regarding travels within their own country, in order to show them that there are places they have never heard of even a few miles away from their home. The first guide book was born shortly after that with over 9,000 copies sold and the website of the campaign has registered more than 600,000 visits so far. Happy with this success, the authors published a second book and launched a new campaign with 50 challenges for travelling Bulgarians through 2016. We present now charming Maria Angelova, editor-in-chief of the travel website. She has been working on the project for 5 years, as the entire team of the two books explored the country in the course of a whole year, looking for what’s unknown and hidden.

“The idea came from the people around. Many of our friends and online users shared that there were no places to visit in Bulgaria and that was why they preferred foreign destinations. That was why we decided to provoke them with our books. We tried to present various destinations, mountains, towns, museums, Thracian sanctuaries and interesting places, not so rich in history. The town of Dimitrovgrad for instance has a giant bench, where anyone can feel like a liliputian, though the place is dull in any other sense.”

The guide book’s authors have decided to broaden the spectrum of challenges, making people show some initiative, in order to learn something interesting. For instance, on a spot with a fortress they have to learn all old legends about it, the secret places where the events happened, they have to walk around the places where tsars have left their footprints. The guide book also has some interesting proposals for kayak and moto hang gliders’ fans. One can learn where and how clay objects can be created, discovering the artist inside, also where you can sleep in a pre-historic hut or how to move your office into the forest. The team is very ambitious and will try to publish the 2016 guide book in English too, thus presenting to foreign tourists a different view towards Bulgaria. We asked Maria what she felt about Bulgaria.

“I see Bulgaria as an endless travel adventure that never ends. The more I tour this country, the more sidewalks I discover, along with stories untold and legends hidden. People are the most precious thing along my path. They are the actual authors of the guide books because of the stories told and the places they have shown to us,” Maria is proud to say.

If you come upon a bench along your path in the search for what’s unknown, don’t hesitate to sit down. It might help you come upon something interesting.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev