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March 10, 2010 | |
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Travel Traveling to Other Parts of Ukraine In the early 2000s, domestic airlines started discounting plane tickets,
making flying a better option than trains for long distance trips. If
you are planning a Crimea or Donetsk trip, consider flying. A round-trip
ticket could be under $100. |
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It’s
a great idea to see some other places in Ukraine if you can, like Crimea
on the Black Sea shown here. Most Ukrainians travel by train or bus. The
train to Crimea takes about 12 hours. Buses are best for shorter distances.
Trains have sleeping cars but the sometimes rustic conditions—especially
the bathrooms—usually shock Western visitors. Besides buying your ticket,
if you are in a sleeper car, you are also required to pay for sheet rental.
There are different classes of sleeper cars. Some are large open areas
and the higher class is four-beds per compartment. Some cities are beginning
to be serviced by express trains which take about half the time and are
much more modern. Buy tickets early for any summer travel. A passport
is normally required to buy train tickets.
All trains leave from the central train station, Vokzal. Other popular
destinations are Lviv (Lvov in Russian), which is a Unesco World Heritage
Site and shown here,and Odesa (Odessa in Russian) on the Black Sea. Many
Ukrainians simply take a night train to these cities one evening, spend
a day walking and touring the city, and then return to Kyiv on a train
the next evening. A true "day trip" for the hard core traveller.
A
nice break from post-Soviet life is a trip to Europe. The most popular
weekend trips are to Budapest (shown here), Prague, or Krakow, Poland.
Trains take 28-32 hours since the train underpinnings have to be changed
at the border. By plane, the trip is less than 2 hours. Round-trip tickets
in the off season are about $200. Though Eastern European nations do not
require a visa for US citizens to enter, Ukraine does require an exit
and re-entry visa. If you are traveling to Europe from Ukraine, make sure
you have at least a Ukrainian double-entry visa so you can re-enter Ukraine.
Moscow
is about 18 hours away by train (St. Petersburg, 20 hours) and less than
$40, but a Russian visa is required; they are about $120 and can be applied
for in the USA or in Ukraine. To visit Russia, an official organization
must provide a letter of invitation and you must register with government
authorities once you arrive. These bureaucratic necessities can be taken
care of quite easily if you rmake reservations with a hostel or hotel
in Russia. Most (all international hostels) will then send you a letter
of invitation and register your visa upon arrival. Travel agencies in
Kyiv or America can also make these arrangements for a hefty fee of several
hundred dollars. A good website to check out is 
