Buzău Land: UNESCO geopark in Eastern Romania opens additional visiting sites

Buzău Land UNESCO International Geopark announced the opening of additional destinations that can be visited this summer season, namely the Oil Seeps in Beciu, Odăile Mushrooms, and the Living Fire in Lopătari.

The initiative is part of the geopark's strategy to diversify the visitor experience, aiming to reduce pressure on already popular natural attractions and encourage extended visits to the region, it explained.

Located not far from the Mud Volcanoes, the Beciu oil seeps rise to the surface of the ground, accompanied by natural gas. The discovery, initially reported by locals, was one step away from being fixed as a potential ecological problem. Before the classic isolation measures were implemented, the geopark team intervened and proposed transforming the site into a tourist and educational destination.

Now, the area is set up for tourist visits, and interpretation panels have been added to explain the geological process by which oil reaches the surface, as well as the historical context of oil exploitation in the region.

In addition to Beciu, two other sites have been set up for visitors: Odăile Mushrooms - geological formations developed through natural cementation processes and exposed by the weather, and Lopătari Living Fire - gas burning directly from the ground, similar to Terca Eternal Flames.

These destinations offer alternatives to already established objectives, such as the Mud Volcanoes or the Ulmet Concretions, encouraging visitors to explore the region in depth, representatives of the geopark explained.

As the region of Buzău attracts tens of thousands of tourists every season, the geopark's strategy focuses on decentralized tourism, experiences as diverse as possible, and longer stays.

"We want to avoid concentrating tourists in just two or three popular places and offer attractive alternatives, with an infrastructure designed to be friendly to nature and local communities," Răzvan-Gabriel Popa, manager of the UNESCO Geopark Buzău Land, explains.

"A visit to Buzău Land should mean more than a stop at the Mud Volcanoes. We want to establish a network of points of interest that will encourage visitors to stay for several days, give up their cars in favor of walking or cycling, and interact with local producers, artisans, and local stories. Only in this way can tourism development become sustainable and bring real benefits to the people of the area," he added.

In recent years, the team of the geopark has identified, developed and promoted several sites, from the Ulmet Concretions to the GeoGate visitor center or the upcoming centers 25 Million and Story of Concretions in Bozioru, which tell the geological story of the region and of the prehistoric life through an immersive experience.