Should you be heading out to Bulgaria this summer? There’s never been a better time to visit Bulgaria than right now. The weather is perfect; beach resorts such as Sunny Beach are packed with foreign tourists, as are hotels in Burgas.

 So if you are looking for a cheap hotel in Bulgaria close to airport, consider Clara Hotel, a popular Irish run establishment in Sarafovo, just a short drive from the Burgas International Airport.

How much does a holiday to Bulgaria cost? Research shows that it does not cost much at all. The country tops many recent cost surveys of popular tourist destinations in Europe and has done so for 4 consecutive years now.

According to a survey carried out by the Post Office, which considered the cost of a basket of holiday essentials such as coffee, beer, an evening meal for two in about 19 beach resorts in Europe, the Bulgarian beach resort of Sunny Beach figured prominently, as the most affordable holiday spot in the continent.

Sunny Beach is a hugely popular summer destination for tourists. It lies on the Black Sea Coast and is favoured by holidaymakers. A basket of holiday essentials costs only £37.33 here.

Compare this to Ibiza in Spain, where the same basket of holiday essentials costs £131.02. That’s a big difference indeed. There are such cost savings to be found across Bulgaria, which is easily the cheapest holiday destination in Europe and a very popular one – after all, 8 million foreign tourists visited Bulgaria in 2016, and that is only the tip of the iceberg. More are expected to visit in 2017.

Bulgaria is not just about Sunny Beach. There are other popular tourist spots in Bulgaria too, such as the enchanting capital of Sofia, the cities of Plovdiv and Burgas, and of course Varna, which is a beautiful beach town not far from Burgas. What’s common among all of these holiday spots is how cheap they are, compared to similar tourist destinations in France, Italy and Greece.

In a recent travelogue in Telegraph Travel, travel writer Adrian Bridge said about Varna in Bulgaria: “It’s cheap and cheerful, with some fairly rough-and-ready communist-era concrete constructions. But there are some nice cafés and restaurants. We drank a couple of beers (£1.30 for the two) and ordered fish fresh from the Black Sea. Over a shopska salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, olives and feta-style cheese), I was introduced to the pleasures of rakia, a fruit-based schnapps.”

You might also want to visit Sozopol, which is a classy resort on the Black Sea Coast, similar to Sunny Beach in a lot of ways, but different in many other ways.

Robert Nurnden, a Briton who lived in Bulgaria in the past says this about Sozopol: “It manages to cater for the young, party-going set from Sofia as well as those seeking something more sedate. The classy old town offers shoreline restaurants and bars where you can watch the sun slide down over Asia. To the south, miles of sandy beaches stretch as far as Turkey. To the north, Sunny Beach pulsates to the beat of 24-hour parties.”

There’s a plenty of fun to be had in Bulgaria, just let your hair loose and enjoy!