by In Lviv Tours

It's easier to write about tours in Lviv than in wider Ukraine. As you will know, the farther south and east one travels, the closer one gets to russia, and that's not a good scenario for anyone, let alone tourists.

While tourism in Lviv is as normal as can be, the reverse is true in UNESCO World Heritage city Odesa. In the case of Kyiv, our capital is the apple of putin's eye and shall forever be in his sights. Only pity for Kyiv tour operators, the only ones surviving there are reliant on "war tours" and there is a glut of ethical questions about that.

BBC Ukraine contacted In Lviv Tours in February about war tours, even though this type of activity was never our remit. We eventually curated one in Kyiv, one in Odesa, and another to Kharkiv as an understandable reaction against profiteering Ukrainian war tour operators. Many of them sprang up out of nowhere when the detritus of war in Ukraine began to attract the attention of "dark tourism" watchers.

When the BBC interview was published, we decided to pull the tours. Reason being the article mixed up interviews with several self-styled war tour operator owners with whom we'd rather not be associated with. They claim to educate, but one look at their prices, and knowing the cheap cost of moving around Kyiv and the average cost of living in Ukraine, everything became clear soon enough. Tourism is education, but before that it's about respect. War tours in Ukraine, especially those conducted around Kyiv, represent the antithesis of what tourism should look like.

When russia leaves Ukraine alone and understands the meaning of the word border (is it so difficult?), tourism in Ukraine will bounce back, but not immediately. While some tours in Lviv have continued since 2022, the traveller demographic has been domestic, ergo next to no inbound tourism bar a few hardy souls.

Lviv during the day in 2025 is almost the same as Lviv pre-2022, but news reports in Europe don't report the reality hence the most foreigners in Lviv now are volunteers. Next to no one is coming here for tourism.

Despite this, we are curating new tours and creating new content for In Lviv Tours during this extended and somewhat miserable "low season". The scope for new tours and activities in Lviv is endless but we don't want to end up with too many. Even now, we offer more Lviv tours than anyone else.

Day trips from Lviv to regional castles are on hold. The overriding reason for this is high prices demanded by private car drivers who are absolutely hell-bent on making as much money as possible from foreigners in wartime, or indeed at any time. Since 2022, taxi costs from Lviv to anywhere outside the city have spiralled.

There's a potential tour from Lviv to the Carpathians that will roam around our highest peak, Hoverla, and perhaps ascend it. This excursion from Lviv would be by train then on foot. In this way, a new category entitled UKRAINIAN CARPATHIANS, or a variant thereof, is not beyond the realms of possibility.

Curating tours (excursions) from Lviv to the Carpathians would be a significant diversion for us as they'd not be guided in Lviv as our brand name sets out. We don't have time to develop a new website for day trips from Lviv so just adding a new category makes perfect sense.

Another subset of tours in Lviv that appears to be missing from In Lviv Tours is "Lviv underground". Many of our iconic food and drink establishments are found underground and most of these spaces were used as bomb shelters in the 1940s. All have history dating back long before then. An underground tour could really be just eating and drinking in cellars! We already take care of this as most of our tours spend several hours beneath Lviv, such is the nature of our otherworldly old town.

A covered consideration concerns the catacombs beneath churches in Lviv. Yes, they exist, but all are in a state of disrepair and in dire need of funding. The underground space of SS Peter and Paul Garrison (Jesuit) church is not worth visiting so we don't include it, the experience being profoundly underwhelming, as it were. Half a dozen dismal alcoves and plenty of chances to crack skulls on low ceilings.

It's impossible for us to turn our back on the impact of war as we are living through the stupidity of putin every day. You may have noticed that we don't offer a tour of places in Lviv that were bombed by russia, places where civilians were killed in their homes. By the same token, we don't offer a tour to the Field of Mars where several of our friends are buried. It's important for us to draw a line under and distinguish between what can be called tourism and what is de facto tragedy.

However, when we are asked about general orientation tours of Lviv rather than specific tours, we may visit such places to pay respects, only if requested.

UPDATE (06.09.26): Lviv War Tour operates as a contribution-based donation model. We place flowers on memorial spaces that are visited and call in at veteran startups in Lviv old town that support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Lviv tours in Ukraine will never be quite like anywhere else, that in itself is motivation enough to keep writing and talking about In Lviv Tours until peace prevails and forever thereafter.

✍ October 24th, 2025.