r/chernobyl • u/mattsparkes • 1d ago
News What's the situation with visiting Chernobyl currently?
I see videos of people visiting, apparently illicitly, but they also seem to talk about hiding from legitimate groups of visitors - which suggests that there are legal ways of going there. Can people visit?
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u/Playful_Hair1528 1d ago
Sign up to the Ukrainian war effort and I’m sure you can visit for free 🤷♂️
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u/BrickEnvironmental37 1d ago
The tours stopped around 2019. Then COVID hit and Ukraine may have not accepted visitors. There may have been a few tours in late 2021 but they ended when the war began.
I went in September 2019. They do not do many tours in winter as the place is very remote and the route up there from Kyiv has a lot of dirt roads.
When I did go, the tour guides were saying that they were clamping down on groups as too many people were veering off the tour routes and into places where they shouldn't be.
I can't see there being tours for a very long time, if ever again. Especially into Pripyat.
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u/chameloon 1d ago
Went in 2020 in the middle of Covid. 6 visitors on the zone at this time. My greatest visit
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u/Ok-Show4985 1d ago
Not true.
Was there last year, there’s plenty of tours still available. Both private tours and companies.
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u/altatoro123 1d ago
In addition to everyone's comments, it was mined and booby trapped by ruzzians on the way out.
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u/GhostRiders 1d ago
Yeah it easy.
Just go to any country that borders Ukraine as you can't fly there, enter via the many Land entry points making sure you have your passport, visa if applicable and details of your reason to visit, (document confirming family ties, invitation from a citizen of Ukraine, invitation to participate in conferences or other events, booked tour, hotel reservation, etc).
Once there you can either sign up with the Ukraine Army or travel to Slavutych (Town was purpose built for the staff and their families from Chernobyl) and with enough money I am sure you will find somebody who will help get you killed.. sorry I mean get you your visit to Chernobyl :)
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u/Ok-Show4985 1d ago
It’s a lot easier to fly into Poland and then take any bus to Kiev. That’s what I did.
But hey, you do you.
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u/Dapper-Tomatillo-875 1d ago
You want to play tourist in a war zone?
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u/monkeybawz 1d ago
Only going to a melting down nuclear reactor is for pussies. You need to be hunted by drones and avoid artillery and mines or it doesn't count.
Next year its volcano surfing.
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u/starbolin 1d ago
Yacht tours in the Gulf of Aden.
Hiking tours through the Darien Gap.
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u/WeldinMike27 1d ago
Visit America....
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u/starbolin 1d ago
Could you be more specific? The continent of America is a pretty big place. I was born and raised in the USA, which I assume is what you meant, and I still consider it paradise. I've traveled the world. Found some pretty nice places to visit. Everywhere I went, however, I ended up wishing I was back in the US.
Having done my time in the city, I now live in rural US, cattle country. There is no better place to be. Great people, hard working people, and neighbors that watch out for you. Clean streets, clean air, and clean water. Here BLM means the good people that manage the vast public lands and not that group of communist thugs that made the news last year.
That other group tried to come by last year and stir up some trouble. They were met with the "You got till sundown, then you best be gone." Now, watching the news I thought maybe that bunch suffered from a lacking of brains. It seems they at least had enough brains not to get caught out after sundown in cattle country when told they weren't welcome here. So. I'll give them that.
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u/didabled 1h ago
It has been declared a genocide risk. Not only that, people who travel to the US have had their phones searched. if they have anything anti-t rump they’ve been detained or deported. It’s getting worse everyday. Shootings are rampant. ICE is kidnapping people off the streets. Children are returning home from school to find their parents have been disappeared. The original commenter is getting downvoted for suggesting America is dangerous but the president just made the “department of war” invade its own city. Then shared a meme saying Chicago is going to find out what the department of WAR means. War, against its own people. The US is a nightmare rn and believing anything else is an uneducated and privileged point of view.
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u/Ok-Show4985 1d ago
Kiev was nice last year.
Not really a warzone, except for the occasional missile strike at night.
In the daytime, it’s just like Warsaw.
Shit, I met plenty of both foreigners and Ukrainian expatriates/refugees coming home for holidays.
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u/RealIsaiahLevi 22h ago
It's a lot different now far more drones than ever. During the day sometimes too.
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u/Hourslikeminutes47 1d ago
Why would anyone go visit Chernobyl (unless there is a pressing need) while a war is ongoing is beyond me.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/chernobyl-ModTeam 1d ago
Nothing that encourages trespassing is allowed, including known sites chernobylexplorer.com. Period.
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u/TechnologyFamiliar20 1d ago
If you want to get hit by a machine gun in the neck, go there. Very unstable area. https://liveuamap.com/
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u/Ok-Show4985 1d ago edited 1d ago
You can visit no problem.
Fly into for example Warsaw and take a bus to Kiev. There are no planes and can’t recommend the train.
Was in Kiev a year ago, and there are plenty of tour companies and private people who organize tours. Price is around 100$ and it’s with transportion, lunch included. It’s about an all day thing.
Yeah there’s a war going on, but frankly you don’t see it in the daytime. Heard a few air alarms when I was there last year, and the locals didn’t pay attention.
In the night time there’s the occasional missile attack, but as long as you’re not like next to a military target you’ll be fine.
Most hotels have a bomb shelter anyways.
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u/Annual_Criticism8660 1d ago
Man I was going to go this week, via train. But they bombed the shit out of Kyiv last night. Now is not the time, and this is coming from someone who was almost in the door.
Also Chernobyl and surrounds are inaccessible, it’s land mined
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u/RealIsaiahLevi 22h ago
I'm living in Kyiv. Just come honestly. Drones strikes are bad and that but it's pretty unlikely anything will happen to you.
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u/cecefefefefegrggrg 18h ago
After radiation treatment for grade iii brain cancer and the pending prognosis i really wanted to go there during the crimea war.
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u/Mindless-Duck857 1d ago
It's an active war zone. For some time it was even occupied by Russians. They even did some shelling around Chernobyl a while back, trying to blame Ukraine for this. You most probably saw old videos, indeed it was possible to visit it, if you'd stay in the less radioactive areas where tourists were allowed. Still, the whole area is somewhat radioactive, especially because there is still a leak, so don't plan to have kids a while after visiting such a place. Most probably after the war the tourists will resume visiting.
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u/Extreme-Book4730 1d ago
This is just loaded with misinformation.
Leak? Are you talking about Russia hitting the NSC dome with a drone during the war? Not really a leak since they haven't opened the sarcophagus yes.
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u/Ok_Spread_9847 1d ago
'don't plan to have kids a while after visiting such a place.'
what do you mean? in many places chernobyl is only a few times above background radiation. if it were above civilian limits (1mSv) no-one would be allowed anywhere near it, and even then it'd be safe- the lowest level proven to have adverse effects in adults is 100mSv. for children it's lower, but taking a tour in chernobyl would still be fine provided you have a good tour guide as the levels would barely be higher than background
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u/hoela4075 1d ago
I have been to Chernobyl several times and I have 3 biological kids, all born after I stopped traveling there, all 3 completely normal. We also have an adopted daughter who was born in the region in 2007. No radiation related health issues with her either.
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u/tacularia 1d ago
You can have guided tours of Chernobyl that are planned in advance, but since the shield over the reactor was hit recently by a missile I think the tours were suspended for a bit. The people that go there illegally and wander around are called "stalkers". You can see them on YouTube camping out.
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u/Shalrak 1d ago
Not a missile, just a drone, and the NSC that was hit isn't the primary protection layer between the world and the reactor, so it's not that dramatic. But it is scary that Russia would dare hit the power plant at all.
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u/tacularia 12h ago
How do you know it was Russia? Could've been Ukraine themselves.
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u/alkoralkor 9m ago
Because the russia already attacked several Ukrainian nuclear power plants, temporarily occupied the Chornobyl NPP before fleeing back to their swamps, and is still clinging to the Zaporizhzhya NPP. That looks like a consistent modus operandi.
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15h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/chernobyl-ModTeam 15m ago
Nothing that encourages trespassing is allowed, including known sites chernobylexplorer.com. Period.
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59m ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/chernobyl-ModTeam 15m ago
Nothing that encourages trespassing is allowed, including known sites chernobylexplorer.com. Period.
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u/Kaggles_N533PA 1d ago
Idk what you saw. Scattered radioactive materials isn't even the most dangerous thing in Chernobyl right now. I mean it's an active warzone