A visit to Chernobyl is something a lot of people want to do, and when I say A LOT is a really huge amount of people. The tourist flow to Chernobyl Exclusion Zone from 2017 to 2019 peaked at 124,423. Based on the statistics in 2020 only 36,450 people made a visit to Chernobyl. For obvious reasons.Chernobyl is getting a lot of attention lately. With 124,4 thousand tourist in 2019, you must be thinking, can Chernobyl be visited?
Chernobyl is seen as a tourist attraction by many people. Most of them have in common a love for mystery. The city of Chernobyl is full of mystery like it was frozen in time. The almost untouched things people left there. The buildings and the feel of danger made a visit to Chernobyl great for anyone that loves adventure.
Many urban exploration lovers see Chernobyl as the biggest and most important site to explore. Leaving beside the romanticism that has grown around the city of Chernobyl. It is good to remember that Chernobyl is famous for a sad reason, a nuclear catastrophe.
Can Chernobyl be visited?
For many reasons, people want to visit to Chernobyl. And the most common question is “can Chernobyl be visited?” While the short answer is “yes with a tour guide” there’s a lot more you need to know.
Note: You can’t, and you should not visit Chernobyl on your own.
More than 30 years have passed since the explosion at the nuclear plant in Chernobyl. The exclusion zone has radiation levels, but it’s safe to visit with a tour. This zone covers an area of 2,600 km2, surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The area closest to the plant is restricted to the public.
Chernobyl is located 2 hours from the city of Kyiv in Ukraine. As I mentioned before, you need to book a tour in order to visit Chernobyl and the ghost town of Pripyat.
The best time to visit Chernobyl is summer, from August to September, the flow of tourists is high.
Is Chernobyl safe to visit?
Yes, it’s safe to visit Chernobyl.
Chernobyl has some radiation left, yes, but radiation is not the most dangerous thing about the abandoned place. More than 35 years have passed, and the Exclusion Zone is less radioactive than it was in the past years. Those many years are significant to materials like Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 which lifetime is somewhere about half of 30 years.
To make it a bit safer, if you are still concerned about radiation levels, you can use hazmat gloves which are designed for practical long-term use in a wide variety of hazardous situations.
But the same 30 years have passed to the buildings. They are abandoned and nobody is doing reparation over there, so, you should be careful. The structure can collapse.
Wrapping everything
Chernobyl is open to the tourist, and it’s possible to visit Chernobyl, but you only can visit it with a tour guide. If you love abandoned places, historic places that froze in time with a touch of mystery, then a visit to Chernobyl is well suited for you. Don’t worry about the radiation, be careful of the old buildings, and don’t try to visit Chernobyl power plant on your own.
