Moving to a new city can be very challenging, especially when you're not familiarized with the idiom. So here are some tips on how to fulfill your most basic needs when coming to live in Budapest.
The official language is the Hungarian, but some of the people understand English as well. The Hungarian money is the Forint, and 1 euro is equals to more or less 312 forint.
Even though there are many exchange houses around town, nowadays there are some ways to avoid the high exchange rates. For example, I’ve brought a multi-value card called "We Swap”: it means I can have, on the same card, Euro, Forint, Dollars and many other currencies. Their exchange rate is very convenient; around 1% (it suffers slightly variations depending on the number of days you can wait to conclude the transaction). So with this card, when you go withdraw the money at an ATM machine, you’ll be asked you if you’d like it to be charged in euros or in forints. You have to select “in forints”, otherwise you’ll be paying the exchange rate from euros to forints.
I’ve bought my SIM card at an internet provider company called Telenor for around 11 euros, which entitled me to 1 gigabyte of internet and free use of social media, such as Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook. Every time those 1 gigabyte finish, you can recharge it for about 5 euros.
There are many supermarkets and places to eat all around town, and overall it’s a very economical city. You can find a kebab menu that comes with fries and beverage for 1000 forint, pizza slices and ice creams costing between 250 and 350 forints… I’ve been here for over two weeks now and I usually spend less than 1000 forint to have lunch on the street.
Well, it’s all economical here but the rents; a single room usually costs at least 250 euros per month. The best place to try to rent a room is on the Facebook groups, like “Rent a flat / room in Budapest” or “Budapest, Hungary Apartment Rentals”.
The monthly transportation pass includes all means of transportation (tram, buses, metro and boat) and costs about 30 euros; 10, if you’re a student. But be careful because in order to buy a student pass, you should show them your European university card, but if it doesn’t have an expiration date you’ll also need to present an university declaration attesting that you’re a regular student there, with date, stamp and signature. Usually in the Blaha Lujza metro station you can buy it only with your university card even if it doesn’t have the expiration date.
That’s all for now, hope those tips were useful. Enjoy Budapest.
This article was written by Nathalie
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