In the next travel, we ´ll go from Spain arround all east Europe. I would like to know the best places to cross from Bucarest (Romania) to Odessa (Ukraine), I think we should cross from Moldova, but I´m not sure, and later from L´viv (Ukraine) to Budapest (hungary), and places that I should "must" see in Ukraine, thanks in advance.

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6 months ago we travelled from Sweden to Turkey in a 4x4. Going through Poland, Slovania, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.

Very beautiful nature i southern Poland(around Zakopane) and the mountains in Romania and Bulgaria.

But we didn't like Ukraine.
Going in to Ukraine went smooth from booth directions.
The bordercrossing out of Ukraine was a lot worse... From Ukraine to Romania took 7 hours! I don't remember the name og the village where we passed the border but it was very close to Hungary.
On the way home we crossed west of L'viv and it took only 2-3 hours. The customs personell went from car to car in the queue to collect bribes but because we couldn't speak russian and they couldn't speak english they never asked us. I think 90% of the rest payed but I'm not sure how much faster they got through, not much.

Don't expect them to speak english. We meet only one person in Ukraine who understood a few english words. It was very difficult to find the right way because they have the russian alphabet they can't understand the names on our map and we coludn't understand the signs.
The people was friendly apart from people at the borders who laughed at us for not speaking russian.

There was very cheap fuel in Ukarine 0,4-0,5€. I remeber noticing very low octan petrol, maybe you should look that up.

How long are you planing to stay in Ukraine?

I was there in summer 2003 and 2004.

It is a very beautiful country with very friendly people. Wild camping is possible where ever you find a nice place including campfires. Every other person doing this as well, and they are leaving all their rubbish there. But this is the only disadvantage we noticed.
The russian alphabet is not that difficult as it seemed to be. If you are practicing on every sign, you will realise that there are a lot of similar words, which are just written with different characters.

Regards Peter

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the worse things I listened about this country is the time you need to lose in customs, it´s so bad still?

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I've been only at the new post near L'viv. I've never needed more than 1h.

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hi, i was in ukraine in last 2 years about 10times. there eill be little problems on boerders, but last i was on border Berehove about 20min. ukraine is very friendly country, with nice peoples. the best of ukraine are mountanis in Zakarpatia, its near slovak border, the rest of ukraien is lowland (opposite of highland) :-)) sorry fora my bad english. if you have any questions, please ask

last october we did london-nordkapp-crimea-london.the krakow/lyviv border took less than an hour.loved ukraine.kyev very busy and suprisingly expensive but dont miss it.and then there is the crimea.ukraine-moldova border took about 1hr,moldova-romania 2hrs and wanted a bung.transylvania is stunning and the grooves in the polish tarmac are the worst weve seen in 85 countries but what a country.
trust me,you have a fantastic trip ahead.all the best.
dave and sam

thanks for all, my travel will begin on 2nd of June and we want to stay 5-7 days in Ukraine, here is the route:


if someboby thinks that I should must know something about any of the countries (and on the way), please tell me, all your coments will be wellcome.

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Hi fernan_ci,

To help answer your questions about border crossings, you may like to view the following posts:

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...e-border-30529

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...-romania-27618

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...crossing-27801

Odessa is simply great - you'll love it!

We had mixed results with the border crossings with Ukraine (July last year)....it took about 5 hours (and alot of being shouted at) to get in.....

.....then on leaving, we tried to get through the border into Romania but were told the Romanians had "closed the border" (the queues were a sight to behold!).....so we turned around and headed back to the Hungarian border - only two cars in front of us in the queue and we were out in under 10 minutes with lots of nice smiley officers.......a very distinct change to the guys further north on the Polish/Ukraine border!

I know this may sound obvious (but we got it wrong!) - get a map with the places labelled in Cyrillic and English.....I know with time you may be able to identify what it is saying, but with only 5-7 days, you won't have that long to get used to it - and as the "nominated navigator" I know how difficult it is when travelling at speed, to work out what the signs say, before you're long passed the junction!.....plus the chances are, you GPS won't cover it...(you might want to check this).

On this issue of what might not be covered, AA european cover doesn't cover it - and if you go into the Ukraine and come back out again, any problems after Ukraine - even if you are in a country which is covered - won't be because you've invalidated your cover..........and plus your bike/vehicle insurance may not cover it - according to the Lonely Planet, the insurance you can buy at the border is not worth the paper it's written on!

On the positive side, we'd seen reports of Police stopping you to fleece you for money......we did get stopped, they were writing out a ticket and we did ask them if we should give them money - and they said no!.....but we couldn't understand who were were supposed to pay so the Policeman gave up on us, ripped up the ticket and sent us on our way

Very sound advice. I can really recommend the Ukraine map from Reise Know-how

http://www.reise-know-how.de/icons/k...aine-gross.jpg


I also got stopped, but they still had my speed locked into their radar gun. Still, it only cost me a b0ll0ckng and €10.

Hi,

Are you still on your trip? If so be sure to visit the medieval Saxon town of Sighisoara. If you want to see real wild country with hills and forests try the Vrancea mountains. This area has one of the largest populations of wild bears and wolves in Europe.

Cheers, Paul

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Wild Transylvania

http://www.thebrightstuff.com/romania2008overview.htm

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