Part 5 of our Eastern Europe series. Why we won’t go back to Budapest, Hungary anytime soon.
💌 SAVE and share for your next trip to Hungary!
⚠️ Budapest’s metro system is designed to fine as many people as possible. The way it’s supposed to work is you need to buy a ticket on the Budapest Go app and you need to scan and validate it before you get on the subway.
🚊 Now that sounds normal, but their scanning validation machines are usually small and easily missed when it’s crowded. It’s not like most countries where there is a turnstile or gate that prevents you from entering without a validated ticket.
🎟️ What speaks even more to their system is that they have locals roaming the stations to actively check if people have validated tickets, so they can fine you.
😡 If you forget or don’t know how, there is no sympathy as they have incentives catch as many people as possible. We learned from our tour guide that they are allowed to fine you even as soon as you pass their validation machines, even if you don’t get on the subway! That’s ridiculous.
😤 Most locals don’t have to deal with this because they have monthly passes, so you can’t even check to see how they do their validation.
‼️ A single ticket costs 450 HUF (~$1.25), but if you get fined, that will cost you 12,000 HUF (~$33.40)!
Tips from our tour guide:
🏠 Tell them to send the invoice to your home address. Most times, they will let you off the hook when you say that, because the work to send an invoice to another country is not worth their time when they can spend it trying to catch another person.
🚓 They may threaten to call the police on you, but they actually aren’t allowed to do that.
👉 FOLLOW @minjunandkevin for more travel sabbatical adventures around the world and country tips!
❓What’s the worst experience you’ve had while traveling?
#budapest #hungary #budapesthungary #budapestgram #budapesttravel #budapest🇭🇺 #budapestlife #metro #subway #publictransit #scammers #travelscam #travelshorts #travelcouple #travelcouplelife #travellife #sabbatical