Budapest is two cities. Pick your side.
Which river cruise actually passes the Parliament lit up. Which thermal bath is worth the tram. What a ruin-bar crawl costs before midnight. Every tour in Budapest, read and ranked by the people who took it.
In Budapest, thirty dollars is a real day out.
Every reviewed tour on the site, sorted by what it costs. The cheap end is not the consolation prize here — the single most-booked thing in Budapest is a $29 boat.
The evening boat with a drink in your hand, entry to the Basilica, the cave tour under Castle Hill, a day ticket to the baths. Most of the city’s best hours cost less than dinner.
Parliament entry, the Opera House, three hours on foot across both banks, the open-top bus, the travel-and-entry card. This is the band a whole day gets built from.
Almost all of it is dinner on the water: four courses and a folk band, candlelight and live music, unlimited drinks as the Parliament slides past. Plus the spa days that come with a meal.
Guides you don’t share and days you don’t rush — private city tours, a vintage-Jeep run around Buda, ten tastings with a local, and the long haul to Vienna and back.
Nobody leaves Budapest without getting on the Danube.
The Parliament floodlit from the water is the photograph everyone takes home. The boats run from a one-hour lap with a welcome drink to four courses with a folk band, and most of the difference between them is what ends up in the glass.
Budapest is built on hot springs. The trick is picking the right bath.
Széchenyi is the mustard-yellow palace in the City Park with the chess boards floating in the outdoor pool. Rudas is Ottoman, octagonal and three and a half centuries older. Lukács is where the locals go and nobody photographs anything.
Every Budapest bath, priced →
Castle Hill, the Basilica dome, and the Parliament from the far bank.
Six addresses that carry most of a first visit — and the least painful way into each one.
What travellers in Budapest actually book.
Every review →Ordered by how many people have been and rated it. No other thumb on the scale.
1
Unlimited Prosecco, Beer and Aperol Spritz Cruise
75-minute Budapest Danube night cruise with panoramic views and unlimited Prosecco, beer, Aperol Spritz, spritzer, and lemonade.
From · $29
Read our review →2
Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional Upgrades
from $51
3
By Night Sightseeing Cruise with Welcome Drink
from $15
4
St. Stephen’s Basilica Entry with Options
from $12
5
1-Hour Evening Sightseeing Cruise with Drink
from $29
6
Evening Cruise including Drink Options
from $21
7
Historic Cruise with Welcome Drink
from $12
8
Buda Castle Cave Tour
from $19
9
Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour by Open-top Bus
from $41
A bar in a condemned courtyard, a cake baked on a stick, and a man standing on two horses.
Three things Hungary made for itself. None of them translate, and all three cost less than you would guess.
The Ruin Bars
In 2002 somebody opened a bar in a condemned courtyard on Kazinczy Street and changed nothing about the building — mismatched chairs, a bathtub for a sofa, ivy coming through the brick. Two decades on, the old Jewish Quarter’s derelict lots are most of the city’s nightlife. Crawls set off around ten with the shots already paid for. Go on a weeknight if you want to hear the person next to you.
- 1Guided Pub Tour to Ruin Bars with Games & 6 Shots★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,641 reviews
- 2Ruin Bar Pub Crawl with Entry Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,028 reviews
- 3Budapest Original Ruin Pub Crawl Including 5 Shots★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 519 reviews
The Chimney Cake
A ribbon of sweet dough wound round a wooden spit, rolled in sugar and turned over coals until the outside sets into a caramel shell. It comes off the spit hollow, which is where the name comes from. The workshops hand you the dough and the spit; the whole thing runs about ninety minutes, eating included.
- 1Hungarian Chimney Cake Workshop in the City Center★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,263 reviews
- 2Traditional Chimney Cake (Kürtőskalács) Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 323 reviews
- 3Chimney Cake Workshop Budapest Downtown – Kürtőskalács Class★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 220 reviews
The Csikós Ride
Two hours east of Budapest the country goes flat and stays flat. The herdsmen there ride standing on the backs of two horses with three more running ahead, which is not a stunt so much as what working a herd on open grass turned into. The day trips add a Lipizzaner carriage, the stables and a long lunch.
- 1Full-Day Puszta Tour with Lunch and Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 180 reviews
- 2Puszta Horse Show and Countryside Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 131 reviews
- 3Budapest Puszta Day Trip to Kecskemet with Horse Show & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 64 reviews
Everything worth leaving Budapest for is back in time for dinner.
All day trips from Budapest →The bend in the river, the wine towns and the plains — all of them a day trip, none of them an overnight.
The Danube Bend
Szentendre
Visegrád
Gödöllő Palace
Eger
Tokaj
Lake Balaton
Vienna
BratislavaHistory and memory
The Jewish Quarter and the communist decades, told straight.
Two threads of Budapest’s twentieth century that a walking guide carries well and a highlights reel cannot. The Dohány Street synagogue and the streets the wartime ghetto was walled into; the secret-police building on Andrássy út, and the statues the city moved out to a field on its southern edge in 1993. The guides on these are usually historians.
What kind of day are you after?
Reviewed in Budapest this week.
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All You Can Drink Pub Crawl Through The Ruin Bars in Budapest
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Monster Bike Sightseeing Tour – City Budapest on Electric Rollers
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Explore Hungary’s great wines in an intimate, casual tasting
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Budapest Private Transfer Airport, Hotel and Cruise Port
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Trash Art Museum: Hungary’s First Scrap Metal Exhibition
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Hungarian Strudel Making Class: Stretch & Fill Two Ways
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Budapest in a Day Private Luxury Sightseeing Tour
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Budapest BeerBus Tour 60 Minutes Private Experience
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Private tour from Budapest to a top hidden treasure region of Europe: Lake Balaton
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Szentendre the Artists Village Half-Day Tour from Budapest
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