Ukraine

Know before you go

• safety

  Check your government's travel advisory before any trip — curfews and air-raid alerts may apply. Download the Air Alert app and learn where the nearest shelter or deep metro station is.

• money

  Ukraine is heavily cashless — hryvnia by card or phone almost everywhere — but keep some cash for markets and any power-outage moments.

• transport

  Ukrzaliznytsia trains are reliable and book out fast — buy tickets in the official app. Kyiv's metro is deep, cheap, and doubles as shelter.

• etiquette

  Remove shoes in homes, bring flowers in odd numbers only (even numbers are for funerals), and don't shake hands or pass things across a doorway threshold.