You're reading: 25 interesting places to visit across Ukraine

Ukraine’s marvelous and varied landscapes range from the lofty Carpathian Mountains in the west, the beautiful forestland of the north and the immense wheat fields and picturesque sandy beaches of the east and south.

But there is even more to Ukraine than the vistas found in tourist brochures: numerous picturesque lakes of pure, clear water; huge, mysterious caves; and even one of Europe’s largest deserts can be all be found within the borders of this vast country of nearly 604,000 square kilometers.

1. City of Lviv (Lviv Oblast)
2. City of Odesa (Odesa Oblast)
3. City of Chernivtsi (Chernivtsi Oblast)
4. Oleshkivski Sands (desert in Kherson Oblast)
5. The Tunnel of Love (Klevan – Orzhiv, Rivne Oblast)
6. Mukacheve (Zarkarpatia Oblast)
7. Oleksandriivsky Park (Bila Tserkva, Kyiv Oblast)
8. Senyvyr Lake (Zarkarpatia Oblast)
9. Kolomyya (Museum of Pysankas, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast)
10. Sophia Park (Uman, Cherkasy Oblast)
11. Kamyanets-Podilsky Castle (Khmelnytskiy Oblast)
12. Khotyn Fortress (Chernivtsi Oblast)
13. Askania-Nova (Kherson Oblast)
14. Antoniyevi Pechery (St. Antony’s Caves, Chernihiv Oblast)
15. Hoverla (Ukraine’s highest mountain, on border of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast and Zarkarpatia Oblast)
16. Podilsky Tovtry (Khmelnytskiy Oblast)
17. Kyrylo Rozymovsky Palace (Chernihiv Oblast)
18. Dniester Canyon (Ternopil Oblast)
19. Khortystya Island (Zaporizhia Oblast)
20. Dolyna Nartsysiv (Valley of daffodils, Zarkarpatia Oblast)
21. Shatsky Lakes (Volynska Oblast)
22. Svityaz Lake (Volynska Oblast)
23. Zatoka (Odesa Oblast)
24. Dzharylhach Island (Kherson Oblast)
25. Prypyat (Chornobyl Exclusion Zone)

Apart from stunning countryside, Ukraine is dotted with dozens of attractive old cities boasting architecture from a wide range of times and cultures.

The Kyiv Post has compiled a list of the top 25 tourist destinations in Ukraine, and describes here a few of the less well-known ones

The Tunnel of Love

The Tunnel of Love is a four-kilometer, leafy, natural passageway formed by trees and bushes located on the railway line between the towns of Klevan and Orzhiv in Rivne Oblast in the northwestern Ukraine.

The Tunnel of Love near Klevan in Rivne Oblast. The picturesque private railway line is popular with couples from Ukraine and beyond as the perfect place for a romantic walk. (Dmytro Chapman)

The tunnel became a must-see attraction for couples in love, not just for its beauty, but for the story behind its construction: According to local legend, the railway line across the forest was built by a man who was looking for a shortest path to visit his beloved. Less romantically, the 6.4 kilometer line, 4.9 kilometers of which is covered by a roof of vegetation, is a private railway line, still in use, that serves a fiberboard factory.

How to get there: Take a train to Rivne and then take a local bus to Klevan.

Dolyna Nartsysiv (The Valley of Daffodils)

Dolyna Nartsysiv is a broad valley carpeted with millions of daffodils in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, located four kilometers from Khust in Zakarpattya Oblast in western Ukraine. The valley is included in UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves. The valley formed about 2.6 million years ago during the late Pliocene epoch, as an Ice Age began to grip Europe. The valley’s unique species of daffodil, Narcissus angustifolius, grows there over an area of 256 square kilometers.

Every March tourists from all over Ukraine come to see the daffodils flower across the whole valley.

How to get there: Take the Kyiv-Mykacheve train, then a bus to Khust, and walk three kilometers to the valley, or take a taxi from Khust.

Oleshkivski Sands

The Oleshkivski Sands is a largest expanse of sand in Ukraine, located in southern Kherson Oblast. The desert features crescent-shaped dunes that rise to heights of five meters high, covering an area of 161,200 hectares. The Oleshkivski Sands are undeveloped as a tourist destination, so visitors will need to stock up on food and water when making a trip to the area. There is sparse vegetation among the dunes, and the area is surrounded by trees planted to prevent the dunes creeping further over the land. The sand is light and dusty, so sandstorms also sometimes occur, though the winds in the area tend not to be strong.

How to get there: Take a train from Kyiv to Kherson, then a bus to Radensk, a small town on the western edge of the desert.

Kolomyya (Museum of pysankas)

The Museum of Pysankas, or traditional Ukrainian painted eggs, in Kolomya, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. (Ukrafoto)

Kolomyya, a city of 60,000 people in Ivano-Frankivska Oblast of western Ukraine, is home to Ukraine’s largest museum of pysankas — traditional Easter eggs decorated with folk designs. The museum’s collection includes more than 6,000 unique pysankas collected from various regions of Ukraine. The museum building, located at 43 Vyacheslav Chornovil Ave. in Kolomyya, is made in the shape of a giant pysanka some 13.5 meters (about 45 feet) high.

How to get there: Take a train from Kyiv to Ivano-Frankivsk, and then a local bus to Kolomya.

Podilsky Tovtry

The Podilski Tovtry National Environmental Park is a 2,600-square-kilometer area of limestone ridges, formed from ancient coral beds that have been cut through by the Dnister River in Khmelnytsky Oblast. The area has rich and unique biodiversity, with more than 1,700 types of plants growing in the reserve, 60 of which are listed in Ukraine’s Red Book of endangered species. Forests cover 3,015 hectares of the reserve land.

Hoverla, Ukraine’s highest mountain, rises to a height of 2,061 meters in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains. The mountain sits on the border of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast and Zakarpatiya Oblast. (Ukrinform)

How to get there: Take a train to Khmelnytsky or Chernivtsi, then a local bus to the Podilski Tovtry reserve.

Askania-Nova

Askania-Nova is a biosphere reserve in Kherson Oblast that includes a 170-hectare botanical garden and open steppe land inhabited by wild animals. Founded in 1874, the reserve has more than 30 rare types of plants and mammals, 270 types of birds, and around 2,000 types of insects. The list of rare animals include antelopes, Przewalski’s horse, bison and deer. Askania-Nova is open to visitors from the spring to fall, from April 1 to Nov. 10.

Bison graze on steppeland in the Askania-Nova bioreserve in Kherson Oblast. The reserve is home to a range of rare animals that are native to Ukraine (UNIAN)

How to get there: Take a train to Kherson and then a local bus to the reserve.

Baturyn (Kyrylo Rozumovsky’s Palace)

The palace of Kyrylo Rozumovsky, Ukraine’s last hetman, or military commander of the Zaporizhian Host (a medieval Cossack political institution), nestles in the historic town Batyryn in Chernihiv Oblast in northern Ukraine. The spectacular three-floor palace with white columns was a present from Empress of Russia Elizabeth to Rozumovsky, and was designed by the Scottish architect Charles Cameron, and is considered a masterpiece. Batyryn Palace served as the seat of government of the hetmanate until 1764, when the office of Hetman of the Zaporizhian Host held by Rozumovsky was abolished by Russian Empress Catherine the Great, and the Russian empire absorbed the territories of Ukraine.

How to get there: Take a train to Bakhmach, and then a local bus to Baturyn.

Sophia Park in Uman

Sofiyivsky Park is an arboretum 179.2 hectares in area in the city of Uman in Cherkaska Oblast in central Ukraine. The park belongs to Ukraine’s Academy of Science, an organization that unites researchers from all over Ukraine. It has around 500,000 visitors a year according to its website. The park was created in 1796 by a rich Polish magnate, Stanislav Schensny Pototsky, in as a birthday present for his beautiful Greek wife, Sophia.

How to get there: Take a bus from Kyiv to Uman, or if traveling by car take the E-95 highway south from Kyiv. Uman is about 180 kilometers from the Ukrainian capital. n