Individual hiking tour in Carpathian Mountains

On virtual tourist forum Dina is asking about easy to moderate hiking trails, to do in about 7-10 days, using mountain huts as accommodation. They don't want a guide and are asking about books (how easy/difficult) it would be to find good books.

Here is my answer:

Hi there Dina


I'll try to help you, as you might have already seen in my profile I co-run a business aiming to present the beautiful Carpathian Mountains to foreigners. Therefore I dare to say I know a little bit about the Romanian mountains.

Here we go: - You have some time for the hike, therefore you can choose practically any of the mountains. I was about to recommend Fagaras Mountains, that are the highest of the Romanian Carpathians, however it'll be pretty difficult to accommodate in Mountain Huts EVERY night. Our guides usually carry a lightweight tent even when they hike for themselves.
Considering the fact that you'd like to stay in Mt Huts....Piatra Craiului Mountains would be an idea. You can hike up to Curmatura hut and from there do three or four day hikes, taking only the necessary for a day. After that you can go to Plaiul Foii chalet (yes, I said chalet even if I noticed you don't want something like this - In fact Plaiul Foii is a mountain hut that enjoyed modernization work, therefore I'd rather consider it a chalet). For ideas about hiking trails in Piatra Craiului please refer to our site at this hiking tour in Piatra Craiului Mountains.

Considering the amount of time you have I would even say you can first go to Bucegi Mountains, starting in Sinaia, hiking up to Miorita, then to Piatra Arsa and from here to Caraiman hut (Piatra Arsa is considered a hotel, even if it is placed at 2000 m height). From Caraiman you can do a day hike descending to Pestera (visit the cave and the small church here - right at the enter to the cave) than overnight again in Caraiman. From Caraiman hut yoiu can continue going to Omu hut, the highest mountain hut at it's 2505 masl. From Omu, if you feel like you can try the long cross to Piatra Craiului, in fact you can descend (att. is a long one this one) in Bran Area, overnight here (in a guest-house that's it) and then hike to Curmatura, again a long day.
Or, easier descend from Omu on Valea Cerbului to Busteni or over Bucsoiu, go to Predeal and take the train from here to Zarnesti (there is no direct train, you'll have to change the train in Brasov City).
From Zarnesti you'll reach Curmatura hut in about three hours, from here refer to my above details. In Bucharest Airport the probability to find a good hiking book is very small, you'll only find general books about Romania, some of them "touching" also the mountains area. If you don't want to leave all this to a guide's care, you could choose an area by now, then take some time to buy a book in the town where you start your hike. (In Sinaia or Busteni, for example, you can find a map and with a little bit of luck even a book at the cable-car station, but also in the bookshops). Once you have chosen area, collect info about transfers (trains than how to reach the hiking starting point itself), accommodation, etc.

a tent will give you more possibilities to explore the mountains, even the ridge of Fagaras Mountains. (By the way, you might wish to better document about Fagaras -you can even have a look on our site for the trails there - Trekking in Carpathians or Hiking Carpathian Mountains and do a hut-to-hut itinerary, however the problem there is the huts are not on the ridge, therefore you have to descend and hike back to the ridge the next day).

this helps, let me know if you need more info !

All best,
Radu