LVIV TOURS UKRAINE
It's easier to write about tours in Lviv than in wider Ukraine. As you will know, the further south and east one travels, the closer russia comes, and that's not a good scenario for anyone, let alone tourists. It's been like this since the 1990s, not 2014 or 2022.
While tourism in Lviv is as normal as can be, the reverse is true in our 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.
I pity Kyiv tour operators, decades may pass before tourism normalizes there. The only tour operators in Kyiv making money now are leading "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 curated one in Kyiv, one in Odesa, and another to Kharkiv as a reaction against Ukrainian war tour operators. Many of these 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 that the article mixed up interviews with several self-styled war tour operator owners who we do not want to 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 and sustaining local communites. 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 most 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 this reality, hence the majority of 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 likely endless, but we don't want to end up with too many tours. Even now, we offer more Lviv tours than anyone else.
Our graphic designer created 27 Lviv lions in various black, white, blue and yellow colour combinations that we use at the footer of each page. In this way, we ought to have 27 tours and that will become our lot.
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 Ukrainian Carpathians that will roam around our highest peak, Hoverla, and perhaps ascend it.
This excursion from Lviv would be by train then on foot, so perhaps expect a new category entitled UKRAINIAN CARPATHIANS or a variant thereof in the near future.
Curating tours and activities from Lviv to the Ukrainian Carpathians would be a significant diversion for us as they'd not actually be guided "in Lviv", as our website address sets out.
Developing a brand new website for trips from Lviv to the mountains would be overdoing it, so the idea of a new category already looks interesting.
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. 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.
Another 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 on Lviv and Ukraine 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" around the Field of Mars, where several of our friends are buried. It's very 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 contacted by people who have scheduled a trip to Lviv, some of them request a general orientation tour of Lviv over one or more days rather than booking specific tours. In such cases, we do visit these places to pay our respects, only if requested.
Lviv tours Ukraine will never be quite like anywhere else. That is motivation enough to keep writing and talking about In Lviv Tours until peace prevails and forever thereafter.
✍ by ICON on October 24th, 2025.