Moving around in Bucharest

If you just landed in Bucharest (local time GMT+02:00), and you must go to the city (20 km away), your best choice is getting a taxi. If you do that keep in mind not to be fooled by the mob of (unauthorized) taxi drivers waiting at the end of the terminal. SImply get outside of the airport terminal where  you will likely see a long yellow line of Peugeot cabs from Fly Taxi company, whcih is the only one auhorized to enter the airport area. One trip to the center is around 50 lei or 15-20 euro.

Alternatively you could also use the express bus line 783, with the station located also outside the airport building. The bus goes downtown of the city, at Unirii Square, and a fare is about 0.5 euro.

If you need to reach a different city by train, you need to get at the central railway station (Gara de Nord - North Railway Station). Gara de Nord is best reachable by taxi and a fare from the airport would probably be again in the range of 20 euro.

As a general rule, whenever you use the taxi within the city please keep in mind that the taxi fare is around 1.5 lei per km, though at night some companies would charge a slightly higher rate. Be aware though that there *are* taxi drivers that use a higher rate (8-9 lei per km) which is legal. The law obloges them to post their fares on the car so before deciding upon one double check the fare. Those guys not that many though and usually can be spotted on the crowded places from downtown. And by the way, in case you were wondering, one euro is about 3.5 lei and and that means that taking a taxi is quite cheap in Bucharest.

If you plan to be in Bucharest for a longer while and don't want to use the taxi on a daily basis, you can wlso use the public transportation: bus, tram, trolley or underground metro. They are decent and at times more recommended during the day when the traffic gets to be horrible in the city. As a general rule, in psite of being decent the public transportation is regarded as a lower thing to do by some of the Romanians.

For ground transportation, you need to buy tickets (1,1 lei/ trip - be careful to punch/stamp it in the devices inside the bus etc.). If you change the bus, you need to use a different ticket every time, so plan your trip carefully and stack up your wallet with plenty of tickets. More conveniently you can buy an all-day pass for 7 lei - from the ticket booths in (almost) every bus stop. A monthly pass for all public ground transportation is 40 lei.

The subway is a whole lot faster (not less crowded, though) - one return card/ticket (2 trips) is 2 lei. (subway map here - wiki link)

For what is worth, starting with January 1, 2007, the City Hall experiments with an unique card for all the transportation means -- right now there's a pilot project running on some buses.