Ukraine Solo Female Travel Safety Tips and Advice

This post may contain affiliate links. For full information, please see our disclaimer here and our Privacy Policy here.

Welcome to the Solo Female Travel Safety Tips and Advice page for Ukraine!

This page is brought to you by Solo Female Travelers Tours, our curated small group trips for women, by women.

On this page you will find first-hand, unbiased, and real safety tips, advice and reviews from women traveling solo, submitted directly from their personal experiences in the country.

Their opinions are unfiltered and submitted independently as part of the Solo Female Travel Safety Index, a ranking of 210 countries and regions based on how safe they are for women traveling solo.

The safety scores range from 1 to 4 with 1 being the safest and 4 being the most dangerous for solo female travelers.

You don’t need to login to read the below reviews. But do sign up or login to share your solo travel experiences, country safety rating and comments.

Jump straight to: Travel Tips | About the Index | Resources I Leave a Review


MAKE A DIFFERENCE – LEAVE YOUR SAFETY REVIEWS!
We can make the world a safer place for women traveling solo together. Sign up to our portal and leave your reviews NOW. Share your experience with other solo female travelers and help us empower more women through travel.


Ukraine Country data

We have compiled a few data points below that can help you better understand Ukraine and have more context when thinking about travel safety.

Official country name: Ukraine.

Etymology: The name derives from the Old East Slavic word "ukraina" meaning "borderland or march (militarized border region)" and began to be used extensively in the 19th century. Originally, Ukrainians referred to themselves as Rusyny (Rusyns, Ruthenians, or Ruthenes), an endonym derived from the medieval Rus state (Kyivan Rus).

Country map

Locator map

Flag

Capital: Kyiv (Kiev).

Independence / foundation: Following the collapse of czarist Russia in 1917, Ukraine achieved a short-lived period of independence, but was reconquered and endured a brutal Soviet rule that engineered two forced famines in which over 8 million died.

In World War II, German and Soviet armies were responsible for 7 to 8 million more deaths. Although Ukraine achieved independence in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, democracy and prosperity remained elusive as the legacy of state control and endemic corruption stalled efforts at economic reform, privatization, and civil liberties.

Population: 43 million.

Currency: Ukrainian Hryvnia (UAH)
1 USD = 38.18 - 39.33 UAH
1 EUR = 41.79 - 42.58 UAH

Time zone: UTC+2

Languages spoken: Ukrainian (official) 67%, Russian (regional language) 30%, other (includes small Crimean Tatar-, Moldovan/Romanian-, and Hungarian-speaking minorities) 3%. Note - in February 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that 2012 language legislation entitling a language spoken by at least 10% of an oblast's population to be given the status of "regional language" - allowing for its use in courts, schools, and other government institutions - was unconstitutional, thus making the law invalid; Ukrainian remains the country's only official nationwide language.

Religions: Orthodox (includes the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), and the Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP)), Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish.

Climate: Temperate continental weather, Mediterranean only on the southern Crimean coast. Precipitation is disproportionately distributed; it falls highest in the west and north, and lesser in the east and southeast. Winters vary from cool along the Black Sea to cold farther inland. Summers are warm across the greater part of the country, and hot in the south.

Real GDP (ppp – purchasing power parity): $379.89 billion.

Real GDP per capita (ppp): $10,700.

Main airports: Boryspil International Airport, Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany), Lviv Danylo Halytskyi International Airport.

World heritage sites in Ukraine

Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora
Kyiv: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings
L’viv – the Ensemble of the Historic Centre

There are over 1,100 world heritage sites spread across more than 165 countries. New ones are added every year, and some may be removed from the list for various reasons.

Number of UNESCO listed sites: 8.

Top world heritage sites:

- Ancient City of Tauric Chersonese and its Chora.
- Kyiv: Saint-Sophia Cathedral and Related Monastic Buildings.
- L'viv – the Ensemble of the Historic Centre.
- Struve Geodetic Arc.
- Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe.
- Residence of Bukovinian and Dalmatian Metropolitans.
- Wooden Tserkvas of the Carpathian Region in Poland and Ukraine.
- The Historic Centre of Odesa.

Interesting facts about Ukraine

- Ukraine is the biggest country in Europe by land area.

- Arsenalna station on Kiev city metro line is the deepest metro station in the world at 105.5 below the ground. Ukraine is also home of the Tunnel of Love, a semi-abandoned railway line in Klaven, North-Western Ukraine that has been overtaken by nature.

- The national Ukrainian dish is borscht, a red soup made from beetroot and beef that is also common in other ex-Soviet countries but generally agreed to originate in the country.

- Ukraine is the largest producer of sunflower seeds in the world. It is often referred to as the "Breadbasket of Europe” because it supplies a lot of produce such as wheat, of which it is one of the largest producers.

- Chernobyl is in Ukraine. The 1986 nuclear disaster resulted in 30 deaths and more than 350,000 people being evacuated from the disaster zone.

Further reading: N/A.


Ukraine Travel tips

Socket type: C / F. Guide to socket types.

Weekend days: Saturday and Sunday.

Driving: Cars drive on the Right.

Local taxi apps: Uber, Uklon.

Travel Guides: Lonely Planet, Bradt Guide.

Languages spoken: Ukrainian (official) 67%, Russian (regional language) 30%, other (includes small Crimean Tatar-, Moldovan/Romanian-, and Hungarian-speaking minorities) 3%. Note - in February 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that 2012 language legislation entitling a language spoken by at least 10% of an oblast's population to be given the status of "regional language" - allowing for its use in courts, schools, and other government institutions - was unconstitutional, thus making the law invalid; Ukrainian remains the country's only official nationwide language.

Basic words and phrases in the main language:

Hello: Добрий день (dobri den)
Please: Будь ласка (book laska)
Thank you: Дякую (dyakuyu)
Help: Допоможіть! (dopomozit)


Learn more with our favorite learning app Mondly.

Find a hotel in Ukraine

Booking.com

Book tours and activities:

Not available.

More about Ukraine on Solo Female Travelers

Coming soon.

Did you spot any errors? We do our best to keep this information updated and accurate, but things change. If you saw anything that is not right, let us know so we can fix it: [email protected].


About the Solo Female Travel Safety Index

Safety matters to solo female travelers, you told us so in our annual Solo Female Travel Survey, where year after year, women prove that this is their most important concern when traveling solo.

We wanted to do something about it, so we built these country-specific pages where you can find reviews and scores for 7 key variables affecting the safety of women traveling solo.

Variables

  • Risk of scam
  • Risk of theft
  • Risk of harassment
  • Attitudes towards women
  • UK Travel Advisory
  • US Travel advisory
  • Global Peace Index (GPI)

Informing OSAC

The Solo Female Travel Safety Score is used by the Overseas Security Advisory Council for including safety concerns for women travelers in their country security reports; OSAC is a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and private-sector security community.

How to use the Safety Index

On this page, you will find the country score and the personal opinions on safety of other women traveling solo.

You can sort the comments by:

  • The level of experience traveling solo of the reviewer (beginner = <5 trips solo, Intermediate = 5 to 10 trips solo, Experienced = >10 trips solo).
  • The age of the traveler.
  • Whether they are a visitor or local.
  • The date they were posted.

The safety scores range from 1 to 4 with 1 being the safest and 4 being the most dangerous for solo female travelers. 

Thus, the lower the score, the safer the country.


Looking for more safety resources?

This entire website is devoted to helping women travel solo. Check out the links below to learn more:

Solo Female Travel Stats: Results from the the largest, most comprehensive and only global research study on solo female travel trends, preferences and behaviors published.

Thanks to Jacobo Vilella for creating the Solo Female Travelers Safety Index ❤️