UPDATED IN 2025
What are the best free walking tours in Budapest?
Budapest has some great, tourist-friendly free tours. Take them to get to know the city while saving money and getting local tips from your guide.
I had a chance to take free walking tours in Budapest on my recent visit to the city, and in this guide I’ll share my reviews of each tour so you can pick the ones you want to book.
Table of contents
Top 3 free walking tours in Budapest
When you visit Budapest, I recommend you take at least one of these free tours. If you have time, do take all of them.
I didn’t know much about the history and culture of Budapest or Hungary before this trip. The tours put a lot of the places I saw around the city in context.
Free walking tours in Budapest reviewed
On my recent visit to Budapest, I took four free walking tours, as well as some paid tours. Here’s my impression of each tour.
Free walking tour of Budapest
This was the first Budapest free walking tour I took, and I recommend you take it on your first or second day in the city.
Budapest is divided by the Danube River into two parts that make up the name of the city: Buda and Pest.
This introductory tour takes place in Pest. It makes sense because, for most visitors and tourists, Pest is where they’d spend most of their time in the city.
Buda has its own attractions, but they are covered by a different tour that I’ll review later in this post.
The Pest free tour was a fun tour with a guide who obviously loves what he does.
We learnt the essential history of Budapest, and saw some of its Main landmarks, like St. Stephen’s Basilica and the Parliament.
It was also a good introduction to local culture: Our guide taught us some useful words in Hungarian, told us about unique Hungarian food and share a lot of local tips.
On free tours, you can always ask the guide for local tips and they usually spend some time at the end of the tour to answer your questions.
Find out more about what’s included in this tour here.
Jewish Quarter free tour
This tour is essential to understand local history. The history of Jews in Budapest is quite an important part of the local heritage.
The Jewish Quarter is a very touristy area, and one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions is the Great Synagogue. I wrote a full review about my visit the the Great Synaguge with all the details on how to visit it and the interesting story behind its unique architecutre.
I thought a Jewish history tour might be a bit too depressing, but it was actually quite well balanced and not focused only on tragic stories from WWII.
The tour started with the early history of Jews in Buda, 80 years before Hungary was established.
Our guide was very knowledgeable and explained how the Jewish Quarter was created when Jews were forced outside the city walls under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
We learnt about the synagogue triangle in the Jewish Quarter, build when Jews received more equal rights, and about the differences between the liberal and orthodox communities in the city.
We also heard the stories of WWII and the Budapest ghetto and learnt about the various Holocaust memorials in the city.
Throughout the tour, I enjoyed the guide’s clear explanations about the history and its many complexities, with just the right amount of information and sensitivity.
You can find out more about this tour by signing up here.
Buda Castle free tour
The title of the tour is Buda Castle Free Tour, but it is actually a tour covering the most significant places of interest in Buda.
The Buda side of the River is a little less frequented by visitors but has quite a few attractions.
When you cross the river to Buda, you’ll notice right away that it is more relaxed than the Pest side.
The tour starts in a square outside a metro station, a convenient meeting point.
From there we had to start climbing uphill, so come prepared!
We visited the Fisherman’s Bastion, a super popular spot and an excellent viewing point on the Danube river and the city. We had some spare time to take pictures there.
Buda Castle is on a hill called Castle Hill and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is well worth a visit. The tour guide told us historical stories and anecdotes and did his best to keep us entertained.
As with the other tours, the group was big and there were plenty of opportunities to chat with other travellers.
I think that even if you spend your entire time in Budapest on the Pest side, you definitely want to take this tour and cover all the main Buda sightseeing spots in just a couple of hours.
Find more details about this tour here.
Historic Budapest free tour
I recommend this tour if you really want to dive even deeper into Hungary’s history and culture.
This tour is a mix of historical events and stories about the recent past (the 19th and 20th centuries) and present-day Hungary.
It covers some of the city’s main landmarks, like St. Stephen’s Basilica and the Parliament and many others.
Our guide also shared local knowledge about Hungarian traditions, food and culture.
Find out more and book your place here.
Why take free walking tours in Budapest?
Pay what you want
The concept of a free tour is smart and simple. Free tours are free because there is no fee to pay in advance, but you pay the guide as much as you want at the end of the tour.
In big and popular tourist destinations like Budapest, it’s best to book a place on a free tour in advance (without charge).
When you book, you both reserve a spot on the tour and let the guide know how many people are going to show up.
I’ve been on free tours, including one in Budapest, where so many people turned up that we had to be divided into two groups with a separate guide for each.
Get to know the city in a couple of hours
Free tours are great for getting to know a new city quickly. They normally last about 2-3 hours. You get a condensed history lesson and a lot of local tips, anecdotes, interesting stories and cultural knowledge.
Great guides
Free tours are led by professional guides who do this for a living. Their earnings depend on your impression of the tour, so they will do their best to keep you engaged.
Your tips at the end of the tour should reflect how much you enjoyed it and learnt from it.
Connect with people
If you travel solo, these walking tours are also an effortless way to meet other people.
Starting a spontaneous chat with other members of the group is pretty normal on these tours.
Other recommended tours in Budapest
Sometimes free walking tours are not the best solution, especially if you can’t find a free tour about your interests or if the free tour schedule doesn’t match yours.
Because Budapest is a tourist-friendly city, it has a very good selection of private tours and group tours.
Most of them are quite affordable, so even when you travel on a budget you can enjoy some paid tours.
Tours of Budapest’s most impressive and iconic buildings and institutions are paid. I would certainly recommend the opera house tour and the great synagogue tour, which I took and enjoyed. I wrote a full review of the Budapest opera tour.
You can also take a tour of the Hungarian Parliament and the Market Hall.
Some of these paid tours include skip-the-line tickets, which are helpful when you’re short on time or if you’re visiting the city during high season.
I also took a small group street art tour in Budapest that I recommend. You can read my full review here.
More free walking tours in Europe
If you like this kind of content, I publish a lot more on my socials @BrightNomad
Bluesky | Instagram | Twitter-X | Pinterest | Facebook
Share this guide to free walking tours in Budapest on Pinterest
