Travel help Ukraine

[sailor291]

Due to an emergency situation in Western Ukraine, it may be necessary for my wife and I to travel to Chernivtsi Ukraine.  Does anybody have any information about transportation from the Romanian or Polish border crossings to Chernivtsi?  We can fly to  either Bucharest or Warsaw from the U.S. no problem, its how do we get from the border to Chernivtsi.  Just don't want to get robbed on the way. 

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

[AvHdB]

Fly to Chopin (Warsaw), train to the border, by bus further to destination (was Kiev.) This was Yuliya, cats and her mother. I have heard of transiting via Chop.

[Markje]

I don't have any travel info, I just wanted to say: Good wishes in these difficult times. Hopefully all what you're aiming for in Tsern is going to be succesful

The border posts with Chelm (poland) is also operational I hear.

[AvHdB]

Yes Mark is correct, Warsaw > Lublin > Chelm and you cross the frontier. Let your better half do the negotiating and Gods Speed.

[B.B.]

Any help is greatly appreciated.

You can do it via bus etc.  I use a transfer service for a few hundred bucks R/T from Warsaw to Lvov and then a buddy picks me up in Lvov and takes me wherever I want to go from there.  My driver's oldest kid aged out, though - Ukr men who have 3 children under 18 can leave the country - so haven't used him since then. Another time a buddy of mine dropped me at the border and a friend of his picked me up on the other side - you have to check which border crossing you use because not all of them allow pedestrian crossings.  Ex.  Rava-Ruska – Hrebenne does not, but Medyka - Shehyni does.

I prefer to us Chopin (WAW) because it's clean, modern (for EE) well run and there is a Renaissance literally across the street (also a Courtyard, but I have never stayed there) if you have to do a layover.  If you have status with Marriott (or if you get a room with Club access) then there will be a hot breakfast and a hot supper with 3 choices of entree.  When I travel for work we are basically required to use Marriott so I am sitting on thousands of points.  Because of the location - 5 min walk - if I have a checked bag, I go check it early, get my ticket and then come back to the hotel and relax for a couple of more hours. 

You can also fly into Košice, Slovakia (KSC), which is close to the Uzhgorod crossing and take a bus.  Košice is a nice little tourist town with a lot of parks, cafes and English spoken.  Decent Indian food also.  Ukrainians can typically easily understand Slovak and vice versa, and when I was there Google Translate worked just fine when I was on my own.

You might consider flying to Chișinău (KIV) which would be a much shorter driving distance, but I have never been there so no information I can share. 

I hope everything goes the right way for you.

B/B