Bulgaria offers tourist attractions all around the year. Most popular are summer seaside resorts, along the entire Black Sea coastline. In winter numerous ski resorts are there to attract tourists. There are many spa, treking and historical destinations that offer incredibly rich variety of experiences. Cave tourism is also attracting many fans.

Bulgarian is a southern Slavic language, related to Serbian and Russian, so if you know either of these(or another Slavic language), you shouldn't have much problem getting by.Some words or/and phrases might even be understood by Westerners since Bulgarian has a number of loans from other languages(most notably French, German, Russian, Turkish, Italian and increasingly English).
Modern Bulgarian is difficult to Westerners, especially English-speakers, as it has three genders, no infinitive, and articles are appended to the end of either the noun (if no attribute is present) or the first attribute.
It is also important to remember the fact that Bulgarians - contrary to most nationalities - shake their head for Yes and nod for No! It is better to rely on the words da for yes and nay for no than on head movements.

There are more than six hundred mineral water springs around the country, so this is something you'd better taste and drink. Ayrian and boza are two traditional Balkan non-alcoholic beverages.

A powerful (40% vol), clear grape brandy, rakia (Ракия) is the Bulgarian national drink and is served neat, usually at the beginning of a meal with salads. Especially in the smaller cities, families still distill their rakia at home; it is then usually much stronger (>50% vol). Perhaps at this point it's worth noting that the Bulgarian way of doing things is, at least in terms of drinks, the opposite of the conventional Western method. Bulgarian start off on the heavy stuff, such as Rakia and then move on to wine.

Another quite popular drink is Mastika (Мастика) (47% vol), a drink closely related to Greek Ouzo and Turkish Raki. It is usually drink with ice, with water in a 1:1 mixture or with peppermint liqueur, called Oblak (cloud).

Bulgaria has several well known local wine varietals. These include Melnik, Mavrud, Pamid, Gamza (Гъмза) (red dry), Kadarka (red sweet) and Keratsuda (white dry).