Extreme Tourism – Chernobyl

Visit to Chermobyl

There are plenty of ghost towns to visit all over the world. From abandoned mining towns in the United States to abandoned whaling stations on remote islands in the South Atlantic, nothing quite rivals the sheer scale of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

On April 26th, 1986, in the small hours of the morning, the most devastating nuclear accident ever to occur happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine, During a routine safety test, Reactor Number 4 exploded, wreaking untold devastation on the surrounding area in the form of a nuclear fallout that could be felt as far away as the United Kingdom. plant. This is an area that will never again be inhabited by humans.

It is an area in which the soil will remain too severely tainted for farming for millions of years. Some 350,000 people were evacuated, including 51,000 from the city of Pripyat and 16,000 from the town of Chernobyl itself. To this day, birth defects and higher occurrences of cancer remain a serious problem among many of the survivors and their descendants of this devastating tragedy.

For anyone who wants to witness the reality of nuclear technology gone horribly wrong, it is possible to visit the Exclusion Zone and see exactly what a world suddenly empty of people would be like. Unsurprisingly, the main concern that most people have about visiting this place is the high radiation levels and the potential risk to their health.

The reality is somewhat different, however. Radiation levels in most areas of the Exclusion Zone, including the city of Pripyat, are not anything near dangerous levels and a day trip to the area generally gives you the same dosage of radiation as a transatlantic flight.

The reasons why the area will forever remain uninhabitable are simple. The abandoned city of Pripyat and the many abandoned villages are falling down beyond repair - the infrastructure is crumbling, leaving less and less every year to rebuild upon.

There is also the fact that the land will never again be farmable due to dangerously high levels of radiation in the soil. As a visitor to the Exclusion Zone, you'll be spending your time walking around on concrete laid down after the disaster. The air you will breathe is no different from the air in Kyiv or any other city.

What should be avoided are the grasslands and forests which remain severely contaminated. Radiation warning signs are everywhere, but so long as you stick with your tour group, the only real dangers are chunks of falling masonry, potholes and collapsing buildings. This is the main reason why you are required to sign a personal liability document and take out travel insurance.

Book the Tour

A visit to Chernobyl is a highly rewarding trip. Organizing it can be challenging and it's not exactly a cheap day out either. Day trips cost around $150, plus the mandatory fee for a translator (if you are not a Russian speaker), but the price varies considerably depending on the size of the group. It is usually necessary to book the tour a week or two in advance and the easiest way to do it is through a travel agency. If your are in UAE, you can find many travel agencies in Dubai in our directory from where you can get your tickets.

A travel agency will organize all of the necessary documents and passes that you will need to take with you. The tours always begin early in the morning, departing by bus from Kiev. During the one-and-a-half-hour drive to the first checkpoint on the edge of the Exclusion Zone, you'll be able to watch a documentary on the bus about the disaster and life in the Atomic City of Pripyat before 1986. Reaching the checkpoint at the village of Dytyatky is rather like crossing a land border between two countries.

Everyone will have to get off the bus and display their insurance papers and passports before they can continue. As the trip continues, the landscape steadily becomes more and more like a scene of post-Armageddon. There are abandoned farm buildings, overgrown farmland and radiation warning signs sticking out of manmade hills covering severely contaminated soil and ruins.

There are various small villages along the way, of which only a few buildings remain. The rest of them were bulldozed and their remains buried due to extreme levels of radiation. After a few stops for photo opportunities, usually including a brief stop on the bridge over the Pripyat River, the bus will arrive in the town of Chernobyl. The town of Chernobyl itself is not completely abandoned.