Village of Elena - Haskovo

HI,

Advice is stay away from villages in Bulgaria.Nothing to do all day

only drink alcohol.

The expats in those places are all weirdos.

@MuddyPuddles

Internet connectivity is pretty good in Bulgaria, so most villages have some form of internet. In the worst case, they'll probably have mobile coverage and you can get it that way. Our little place in the mountains has fibre internet to the house, I was quite shocked.

Buying a plot (and building a house) is quite brave, it would be too much for me. If you go for a plot, it's better if it's "in regulation", and that water/electricity is very near (if it's not already connected).

As @seanoblighe62 says, village life is pretty quiet, so it's not for everybody. While it's not exciting, I'm not sure it will drive you to drink. :-) I had a great experience at our village house during the Pandemic, much to my surprise. No aggravation, no sick people nearby, fresh air and country walks every day. Plenty of work to do on the house and garden, and plenty of TV/movie options via the internet... plus I wandered further afield with my ebike (wonderful addition to my country toolbox) and motorcycle and saw all the local sights.

@seanoblighe62 my dad lives there and doesnt drink we dont drink and want to relax and walk and have animals

This site shows you the providers available in your town/village.

http://kabelna.com/

@seanoblighe62

Do you have a story to share? It sounds as though you have had a bad experience. We enjoy our village life in Bulgaria, and after 10+ years have no regrets about getting off the UK treadmill in our early 40's. Our renovation took some time to complete & kept us busy busy busy!! Now the veg garden & planting / nurturing seeds etc keeps us out of mischief, in a nice way😊. We keep chickens ( delicious eggs ) and have a couple of rescue dogs that we walk for miles. Since we arrived,  there has been a hotel built on  the edge of the  village,with two great pools & an aqua park, bringing many visitors (Bulgarian & other nationalities) during the height of the summer, which is great if you fancy seeing a little bit of "life" now & again, without going into the town. To sit and have a drink overlooking the pool in the sunshine, is a treat well earned after a slog in the garden 😎. 

We also have fibre optic internet here & the company is super efficient to deal with.

I'm sure there are Brits in the towns / villages in the UK who love nothing more than to sit & drink all day, however, this has not been my experience here, and even if it were, it wouldn't mean I'd have to join them!

Thank you everyone for your replies. They've been very helpful and I love hearing all your stories 😊

@seanoblighe62 - I was raised in a tiny village of less than 50 houses with no shops or public transport routes... I absolutely loved it and after living on the edge of a city for 4 years I crave the village life again. I very rarely drink alcohol and have never had any issues finding things to do to keep me entertained/busy.   Are you sure it's the village dwellers who are the weirdos? 😁

@gwynj - I've read a few of your comments about your ebike addition, it sounds like you're having some great adventures with it! I plan to once again have a horse to go exploring the local areas on once the house is finished, perhaps I could invest in an ebike in the meantime as it sounds like fun?!

@PlovdivEd - That's very helpful, thank you. I'll go check it out

@Jules999 - My story sounds like it could be very similar to yours, I too am in my early 40's and am desperate to escape the corporate, concrete rat race of the UK for a simpler, quieter pace of life. I plan to have a vegetable garden and have plenty of animals as I did in my younger years. It's nice to shut yourself off from the world. Yet still be close enough to socialise when you want to. I'm very outdoorsy and go hiking, camping, horse riding and paddle boarding most weekends. I've outgrown my tiny garden and long to have my own open space to do with as I please 🌱💛🪻🐕🐈🐎🐐🐓🥕🍇

@MuddyPuddles

You are, perhaps, a bit on the younger side to retreat to Bulgaria. But it can still be a great option, if you're one of the new generation of digital nomads / remote workers. One of the great positives of Bulgaria is that it is a low-cost country. But the flip side is that it's also a low-wage country. Therefore, it's difficult to recommend it if you want/need to work IRL (especially if you want to live in a village). Remote work gets the best of both worlds: low costs locally, coupled with higher overseas income. My personal experience was teaching in Plovdiv, where most months I barely scraped 400-500 euros. Whereas, online, I can do that with a bit of tutoring in a week (and I can hang out at the house in the middle of nowhere, rather than needing to be in the big city).

Even better, here in Bulgaria there are plenty of lovely village houses with large gardens, that you can fill with veggies and miscellaneous livestock. My village neighbours do an amazing job in their gardens (all manner of fruits, veggies and nuts - which get eaten fresh, or pickled, or turned into various flavours of alcohol). Plus a menagerie of animals (dogs, cats, goats, rabbits, pigeons, geese, hens, terrapins). And the bills (electricity, property tax, wood, etc.) are pretty cheap too, especially compared to the UK. Our house is next to a mountain (Yellow Beach Peak, 1,500m part of the Stara Planina), with 2 national parks within 30 km, and multiple attractions within a 10-20 minutes drive. Try to find something similar on RightMove, near a UK national park (e.g. Snowdonia, Lake District, Yorkshire Moors) and the prices are ridiculous!

My location means outdoors activities are a big deal for me too (and chosen specifically for this reason). There are several mountain regions in Bulgaria (Pirin National Park near Bansko, Rhodopes near Plovdiv, Central Balkan National Park near Karlovo to name just three) where you can do all manner of riding, walking and cycling in spectacular scenery. I have a bunch of trails starting (literally) at my back gate... and, yet, most days, I will not see anyone else walking/cycling on them. Koprinka Reservoir is just 17 km away, where folks sail, fish, and paddleboard.

I am a recent convert to ebikes. As a former triathlete and mountain biker, I was a bit reluctant to get one, as it's not proper biking, is it?! :-) But I'm old and I've got too many aches and pains to enjoy it the way I used to. Getting my mountain bike (or just me, walking) up Yellow Beach Peak these days is a brutal experience. My ebike is a "fat bike" (wide-wheel mountain bike) from China (AliExpress) with a BIG battery and a BIG motor. It has a top speed of 60 kph roughly, and maybe a 60km-70km range, depending on how much I pedal. It can (surprisingly) get me up Yellow Beach Peak if I make a proper effort (but in about 25% of the time). And it makes cruising down to the bakery in Enina, or Lidl in Kazanlak very comfortable (even with a backpack of groceries). It is AWESOME!! :-)

I've driven to Turkey a couple of times, so I've passed near Elena, but not visited it. It's certainly an interesting option being so close to Greece and Turkey. Haskovo and Harmanli are fine, and I think Harmanli (your closest town) has a Lidl, which is a good sign. :-) Personally, I would find Elena/Haskovo region a bit flat, but there are some scenic low hills in this region (Sakar Mountain is about 900m) north-east of Harmanli, while to the south you'd probably have the foothills of the Rhodopes. BulgariaDirect (the pay-monthly guys on Ebay) have a couple of newly listed properties near Harmanli, might be good to compare these with your current options.

wasnt my cup of tea...