When moving out of the war zone in Donezk, Ukraine to Fethiye, Turkey I traveled with 4 different…read morebus operators UkrBus - from Donezk to Odessa Maximovtours - from Odessa to Varna, Bulgarian Nisikli - from Varna to Istanbul, Turkey KamilKoc - from Istanbul to Fethiye, Turkey Out of these 4 bus travel operators Nisikli was the best by far. UkrBus and Maximovtours are Ukrainian owned business and do not compare to the level of service, quality of the bus and fairness of procedures with the two Turkish companies - Nisikli and KamilKoc. KamilKoc fleeced me by charging extra for luggage and had a low quality service. At Nisikli everything was just perfect: No extra charge for my suitcase and 8 bags, a very friendly bus crew, constant servings of water and snacks. Moreover, since I did not have a prior reservation out of Varna, Bulgaria, Nisikli's competitor MetroTour's didn't take on the bus. I even could see them leaving with an half empty bus. Very strange. At Nisikli I got a ride on the day I arrived in Varna and had the most exquisite ride. I from now on I only ride with Nisikli when this is possible. Thank you, Nisikli.

My husband and I got attacked on a 9 hour Istanbul-Varna night bus by elderly Turkish Bulgarians…read more(Bulgarian Turks?) for having our seats inclined! 2 hours into the trip we got got off on a stop in some village and lots of new passengers got on while we were stretching. By the time we got back to our seats 4or more people started shouting in Turkish and when we sat down an elderly man (70+) started hitting my seat and my head (he missed!) ! Later they switched to Bulgarian, so we understood that they wanted the seats up (strange since they were shorter than me (5'5) and not too overweight, so there was plenty of seats), nonetheless the driver told us (yelled to be precise) to pull up the seats accusing of having no respect for elderly! This all is in Bulgarian, which I don't understand well (I am Russian so I understand some words) and was explained later, no one could speak English of course. It was scary, considering it was during late hours in the middle of nowhere with the entire bus (almost ) looking at you with anger! The incident was brought up to the driver, the manager at a Nisikli location, the boarder patrol and resulted in nothing. I was going to dispute the credit card charges, but the fair was sop low and there was one nice young man working. If you are a blond young female, be sure to bring a bodyguard on that trip!