This post is harder to write than most. Not because we don’t know what to say — we have plenty to say — but because Ukraine is a country that deserves honesty, and too many travel posts about it are either breathlessly positive marketing pieces or outdated warnings that tell you nothing useful. We want to do better than both.

Alla was born in Ukraine. She moved to Finland as an adult, built a life in Rovaniemi, and still has family there. Joona visited Ukraine before 2022, and again more recently for a family trip that took careful planning. What follows is our personal, honest travel experience — the human side that logistics guides tend to skip.

Why Ukraine is not just a news story

When we talk about Ukraine at home in Rovaniemi, people often respond with one of two reactions: concern (“is it safe?”) or curiosity (“what’s it really like?”). Both are fair. But what both reactions have in common is that they frame Ukraine primarily through the lens of the war — as a place defined by conflict rather than as a country with its own distinct culture, architecture, food traditions, landscape, and 44 million people who are getting on with their lives.

A country with deep roots

Before 2022 reshaped how the world sees Ukraine, it was known among travelers — mostly European ones who had actually been — as one of the most underrated countries on the continent. Lviv in particular had a reputation as a rival to Prague or Kraków for medieval beauty, with a fraction of the crowds and about a third of the prices. Kyiv was known for its dramatic hilltop monasteries, its enormous central boulevard, and a food and coffee scene that had quietly become one of the best in eastern Europe by the late 2010s.

None of that has disappeared. The culture, the architecture, the people — they are all still there. What has changed is the context in which you visit, and the emotional weight that comes with it.

Alla’s perspective

For Alla, this is not travel in the ordinary sense. Every visit to Ukraine — before 2022 and especially since — involves a layer of emotion that doesn’t exist when we go to Iceland or the Faroe Islands. There is family there. There are streets where she grew up, restaurants she remembers from childhood, a language she still dreams in. Traveling to Ukraine, for her, is a form of continuity — a refusal to let the relationship with a country become purely abstract, purely a news feed.

That personal dimension shapes how we write about it. We are not neutral observers. We are people with skin in the game, and we think that’s worth naming.

What Lviv actually felt like to visit

Lviv sits in western Ukraine, about 70 kilometres from the Polish border, and has been the main entry point for visitors since 2022. It is a city of around 700,000 people — though that number has swelled significantly with internally displaced Ukrainians from the east and south — and it sits in one of the most architecturally intact old towns in eastern Europe.

The old town

The historic centre of Lviv is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and walking through it feels like walking through a city that has simply refused to stop. The cobblestone streets, the Austro-Hungarian apartment buildings, the Orthodox and Catholic churches packed within a few blocks of each other — it is genuinely beautiful in a way that photographs underprepare you for. During our visit, the central market square had outdoor cafés with people sitting in the sun. There were street musicians. There were children. Life, stubbornly and defiantly, was happening.

The contrast between the physical beauty of the old city and the context of the war creates a feeling that is hard to name — something between relief and sadness. We were glad it was intact. We were aware that other cities in Ukraine were not.

The coffee culture

Lviv has a specific and slightly obsessive coffee culture that predates the war and has, if anything, intensified since — coffee as a small act of normalcy. The city claims to have introduced coffee to Europe (a contested claim, but Lvivians tell it with conviction), and there are independent coffee houses on almost every street in the centre. We spent several mornings just sitting in them, watching the city, and not really needing to be anywhere in particular.

Quick reference: what to know before you go

If you are considering visiting western Ukraine, here are the eight things we wish someone had told us clearly before our first trip:

• Air raid alerts are part of daily life. An app called Air Alarm Ukraine (Повітряна тривога) is used by everyone. When an alert sounds, you go to a shelter — usually a basement or metro station. It becomes almost routine. Follow local cues.
• Lviv is significantly safer than eastern regions. It has not experienced the strikes that Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa have. This does not mean zero risk, but it is categorically different from eastern Ukraine.
• Cash in hryvnia is essential. Many smaller businesses, especially outside the city centre, do not reliably take cards. Get cash from an ATM on arrival — they work normally.
• Ukrainian language is increasingly the norm. The shift away from Russian, accelerated since 2022, is real and genuine. Learning even a few words of Ukrainian goes a very long way. English is spoken well in the tourist areas of Lviv.
• Your Finnish or EU travel insurance almost certainly excludes Ukraine. Research specialist coverage before you go. World Nomads offers conflict-zone riders. Do not skip this step.
• Check your government’s travel advisory the week before you leave. Finland’s UM.fi is authoritative and updated regularly. Conditions change.
• Respect the blackout curtains. Some cities still observe light discipline at night. Close the curtains in your accommodation after dark — it’s a small thing that matters locally.
• Do not photograph military infrastructure. This is a legal requirement, not a suggestion. Military checkpoints, equipment, and personnel are all off-limits for photography.

The emotional side of traveling to Ukraine right now

We want to be honest about something that most travel guides skip: visiting Ukraine in 2026 is emotionally demanding in a way that has nothing to do with personal safety. It demands a certain kind of attention — a willingness to sit with discomfort, to not immediately resolve the tension between “this is beautiful” and “this country is at war.”

• You will meet people who have lost family members. Not as an exception — as a near-certainty if you spend more than a few days there. Ukrainians are not defined by their grief, but it is present, and acknowledging it rather than skirting around it matters.
• Volunteering tourism is real and welcome. Many visitors combine their trip with volunteering — delivering supplies, helping with logistics, working with organizations that support displaced families. If you’re going anyway, it’s worth looking into.
• You may feel guilty about enjoying yourself. We did, sometimes. Sitting at a café in the Lviv sunshine while knowing what is happening 400 kilometres east produces a specific, uncomfortable feeling. We didn’t resolve it. We sat with it.
• The Ukrainians we met did not want our pity. This is important. They wanted to be seen as themselves — as a country, not as a cause. That meant talking about normal things too: food, travel, music, the absurdity of daily life. Be a person first, a visitor second.

How Ukrainian hospitality compares to anywhere we’ve been

We have traveled to 25 countries, and we are careful about sweeping claims. But we will say this: the hospitality we have experienced in Ukraine — across multiple visits, across different cities and different contexts — is among the most genuine we have encountered anywhere.

• It is not performative. Ukrainian warmth toward guests is not the hospitality-industry kind — it is old, culturally deep, and shows up in unexpected ways. A stranger who overhears you looking for something will often walk you to the door rather than pointing vaguely down the street.
• Food is central and generous. A meal in a Ukrainian home involves more food than you thought possible, offered with a kind of insistence that is both overwhelming and deeply touching. Refusing seconds is a minor social failure.
• The younger generation is extraordinary. The Ukrainians in their 20s and 30s we have met during and after 2022 have a particular quality — a combination of clarity, pragmatism, and dark humor — that is unlike any cohort we have met anywhere else. Their ability to function normally, plan for the future, and remain funny about it all is something we find genuinely humbling.
• They are curious about visitors. Why are you here? Where are you from? What do you think of Ukraine? These questions come with real interest, not suspicion. Finns traveling to Ukraine are rare enough to be genuinely interesting to people there.
• Small businesses are fighting to survive. Every coffee, every dinner, every hotel night in a locally owned place is meaningful right now in a way it usually isn’t. Spend your money in Ukraine and spend it locally.

What we got wrong before we went

In the interest of honest travel writing, here is what we misunderstood before we actually went:

• We underestimated how normal life would look. We arrived braced for visible devastation and found a city getting on with things — traffic, markets, school runs, people arguing about football. The normality was, in its own way, more affecting than destruction would have been.
• We thought language would be harder. Ukraine is not Russia. The languages are related but distinct, and Ukrainians noticed — and appreciated — that we tried to use Ukrainian words rather than defaulting to Russian. In Lviv especially, Ukrainian is everywhere now.
• We assumed the food would be heavy and simple. It can be — traditional Ukrainian food leans into hearty, warming dishes like borshch, varenyky (dumplings), and slow-cooked meats. But the restaurant scene in Lviv specifically is sophisticated, creative, and worth seeking out beyond the tourist-facing places.
• We thought it would feel like a grim duty rather than a trip. It did not. There were difficult moments and real weight. But there were also long evenings, good wine, streets we wanted to walk again, conversations we still think about. Ukraine gave us more than we gave it.

Frequently asked questions

A final word from Rovaniemi

We started this post by saying it was harder to write than most. Having written it, we think what we meant was that it required a different kind of honesty — not just the practical kind (here are the routes, here are the costs) but the human kind.

Ukraine is Alla’s home country. That means we can’t write about it with the detached enthusiasm we might bring to, say, a guide to the Faroe Islands. We have opinions. We have emotion. We have years of visits and family dinners and conversations in kitchens that shape how we see the place.

What we want to leave you with is this: Ukraine is not just a crisis. It is a country — one with golden-domed churches and an obsessive coffee culture and dumplings that require a second helping and people who will walk you to the door rather than point down the street. It deserves to be known on its own terms, even now. Особливо зараз. Especially now.