Surviving the busiest land border crossing in Europe (Bulgaria to Türkiye)
Having crossed through many open borders in Europe on my way to Türkiye, this was my first big border crossing by road, and I was a bit apprehensive about what it would entail as there wasn’t much information I could find online to guide me.
I was coming from Bulgaria and crossed at the Andreevo – Kapkule Kapitan border, which I found out later is the main gateway into Türkiye and the busiest land border in Europe! It’s also the only border between Bulgaria and Türkiye that is open 24 hours a day.
I crossed on the first Saturday in November so it was quieter than I imagine it would be in the summer.
The process seemed to have five main stages although some of the steps were confusing as even those who worked there couldn’t work out where I needed to go next! Hopefully the below will allow others to have a smoother crossing than I did.
Stage one
Bulgarian passport control. They stamped my passport out of Europe and checked my logbook/vehicle registration document, then someone stuck their head in back of the motorhome to see if there was anyone else here (although they didn’t check up on the bed or in the bathroom)
No man’s land
It’s worth stopping here if you need cash for the local insurance (you can only pay in cash) and if you need a local sim card, I recommend Turkcell as I had excellent signal across the whole country, although the data packages are very expensive at the border, I paid 3,000 TL for 100gb and later paid 890 TL for 200gb via their app! But its handy to be able to get the physical sim here if you need one. I used mine in my router with no problem as my Starlink wont work while in Türkiye (It actually went offline just after the Turkish passport control point)
Stage two
The first booth is the Turkish passport control where they stamped my entry into Türkiye, I had to get out of the motorhome and have my photo taken by the camera on the outside of the booth.
Further along the lane in the same section I stopped at the last booth for the Turkish customs control, they didn’t do anything here as I need to buy local traffic insurance as this was not included with my normal insurance policy, so I was sent over to the D3 building, which is where the confusion started for me! All the cars coming through were pulled up after the booth and had their boots checked.
Stage three
I drove over to the D3 building on the righthand side and parked outside (along with many abandoned/parked cars!) I first had to go to the booth on the left where I paid €185 for 3 months compulsory traffic insurance for the motorhome (Or Karavan as they call them), I was given a piece of paper and had to queue for the booth on the right where they processed something on the computer and then gave me another piece of paper that was my insurance confirmation.
From here I was told to drive back towards the oncoming cars coming from the customs checks for my vehicle inspection, this is where the people working here seem to get confused as I was bounced backwards and forwards between the customs inspectors and the hanger to the left of the D3 building until I was on the verge of a breakdown and found someone who looked like they were more senior who apologised and told me to join the queue for the X-ray hanger which was to the left of the insurance booths.
Stage four
After 90 minutes in the queue for the vehicle x-ray (including a break where everything stopped for the afternoon prayers) I was finally next in line, the guy didn’t even come out, he shouted at me from the building window asking for my passport and logbook/vehicle registration document. I was then told to drive the motorhome into the hanger and come out with Echo while it was x-rayed. After it was done, he came with me to the motorhome and checked with a light inside the garage doors (he didn’t make much effort to look as the garage was pretty full), he then came inside and poked around in some cupboards and finally said all was ok.
I drove to the final booth, and they started waving at me to go back, they told me I had to reverse back out and do my final check back at the customs booth where they updated their information with my insurance, they also briefly glanced at Echo’s pet passport and then I was finally free of the confusion!
Stage five
The final booth! I gave them my logbook, and they checked my paperwork over and then I was on my way.
In total the process took me three and a half hours, which seemed a lot compared to the process of leaving the UK, but I did found out later that wait times of between 2-8 hours can be seen as normal at this border so maybe I did get off lightly.
Fuelled by stress and I’m sure a few more grey hairs, I was driving down a long straight road, packed full of lorries, with dust blowing everywhere and the odd cyclist coming down the road the wrong way into the traffic, and I was wondering what I had let myself in for over the next three months!
