Is Kavatsi Camping child friendly?

YES, it accepts children & has a playground View all facilities

Where is the nearest shop to Kavatsi Camping?

There is a shop on site View all facilities

1 Reviews of Kavatsi Camping , Sozopol, Bulgaria Campsite. Review score 7/10

Date of Visit: July 2009

Unit: Tent

Reviewer: Greengael

2 reviews from this member

Positives: Laid-back, safe, friendly, easy going, exceptionally good value for money, good food, well-shaded sites.

Negatives: The basic facilities might be a little too basic for some!

Kavatsi campsite is located a little past Sozopol when you approach from Burgas, leading onto Kavatsi Beach.

This site is a throw-back to the old communist-era days, when Bulgaria was the playground of the Russians. It has been swept up recently with threatened development: potentially becoming yet another soulless concrete appartment block on Bulgaria's beautiful coastline. Fortunately though, this great campsite seems to have escaped the clutches of the developers.

Indeed, it is the fact that it is a little out of the way that is the greatest appeal of this place. About 1km past the outskirts of Sozopol (perhaps 2.5km to the centre of the New Town and about another 1km to the delightful Old Town), this is a site largely for the Bulgarians themselves. Sozopol itself is a beautiful wee town, especially the old part, which barely registers on English travel agents' radar, and this helps keep things very reasonable: 50p-60p for a pint of one of the local beers (which all tend to be delicious and never cause a hang-over despite the quantities drunk!), decent food (everything seems to be organic as Bulgarians rarely can afford pesticide!), etc.

You may find communications a little daunting, as English is spoken less here than in other areas, as you are further away from the English hotspots, but do persevere: I have always found Bulgarians to be extremely friendly, especially if you can pick up a few of their words. Despite the language barrier, with a little patience, you should be able to make yourself understood.

The site itself is huge and is split into a number of areas: there are a good number of decent-sized, hedged sites with plenty of tree cover giving good privacy and plenty of shade, and a fairly large 'overflow area', which is a little more open. The site also has a number of very basic 'chalets', which I suppose are little more than camping-cabins and are proper communist-era: old, a little dilapidated, and not particularly appealing. Finally there is the Kavatsi motel, which is a little more modern and seems to have air-con, but still is not particularly appealing to campers. The main (hedged) sites disappear quickly towards the end of the week, and are almost impossible to come by on the weekend (it is not possible to book, as far as I know), so you may end up in the overflow area for a couple of days, until a nicer site becomes available, usually on Sunday evening. There are plenty of electric hook-ups around the site, but as I have always stayed in a small tent I have never needed to use this, so I couldn't comment on voltages, amps, etc. There were plenty of caravans, motorhomes, etc. But again, I could not comment of waste disposal, I'm afraid.

The site is safe, with plenty of play areas for children (although not having children ourselves, we did not inspect them too closely). It is mostly frequented by Bulgarians and other East Europeans (making up perhaps 65% of the campers there), with the rest made up of North Europeans (your usual mix of Dutch, Germans, a smattering of Swedes.And even occasionally the more intrepid Irish or English traveller). Everyone is so friendly, and we have met so many decent ex-pats, Romanian, Hungarian, German, Dutch, Bulgarian and Swedish people, many of whom we look forward to meeting the next time we go out.

The wash and toilet facilities have been extensively over-hauled between my two visits to this site (the first being in summer 2007, and the second in the summer 2009), with showers and toilets all being extensively 'freshened up' with new tiles, better plumbing and sewage, better hot water for showers, etc. Saying that though, they still have not gotten round to putting shower curtains or cubicle doors into either the gents or the ladies showers. I did not find this off-putting as there is still considerably more privacy than at the rugby club, but my wife found it a little too basic. What she did, was hang her beach towel over the railing where the shower curtain should go/will eventually go, and this was enough to ensure her privacy.

In the gents there are urinals and the flushing toilets are of both types: the traditional sitting-down kind, or the European squatting-down kind: take your pick!

There are a couple of bars on site, and a cafe, but we spent most of our time at the beach bar (called Bar Extreme), approximately 100m from the campsite: turn right onto the beach at the Kavatsi Motel, past the wind-surfing school, and it is the first beach bar.) Across the road there are a couple of basic bars and shops selling all the essentials. In Sozopol there is now a decent-sized supermarket (similar to a TESCO metro), while in Burgas there are two or three huge supermarkets, along with sports stores, etc.

The campsite's greatest attraction must be Kavatsi beach. This is one of the more unspoilt (but developed) beaches in Bulgaria, (if that makes sense!) Looking inland from the beach, you can only see the woods, hills, etc. For most of the length of the beach. The water is warm and very clean. The sand is kept spotless. The climate is perfect: typically high-twenties in the day, low-twenties at night: perfect for sitting out, not too hot to sleep. There are plenty of beach bars along the length of the beach, which attracts young, fun-loving, bohemian-type students, mixed with older, fun-loving, bohemian-types too. It is very family-friendly, and the whole place seems to be extremely safe.

There are also a number of other things to do if you have a car. One of the more unusual things I did was hiking from Malko Tarnovo (a sleepy little village which is the centre of the Strandzha Nature Park) near the Turkish border to the pre-Roman necropolis hill: proper Indiana Jones! Istanbul is about four or fives hours drive away, while there are plenty of pretty walks along the River Ropotama.

In summary then, this is an excellent site for the intrepid traveller who is not afraid to go a little off the beaten track. If this is you, the rewards are obvious: very good value for money, friendly people, fantastic beach, great location, laid-back easy-going pace of life, etc.

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