Site of the world's worst nuclear power-plant disaster, Chernobyl has become a tourist destination 60 mi/100 km north of Kyiv. Although the last working reactor was shut down in December 2000, the tourist office in Kyiv can arrange tours of the site. Visitors travel from Kyiv to a checkpoint about 11 mi/18 km from the power plant, where they change to another bus (which never leaves the contaminated zone).
Among the stops on the tour is Pripyat, a ghost town left exactly as it was when the residents were evacuated in 1986. The culmination of the tour is the cement- and lead-encased nuclear reactor No. 4, known as the Sarcophagus. The casing is so corroded now that you could actually put an arm through the lead and concrete at some points. After a final radiation check, visitors switch back to their original buses for the return to Kyiv.
For those who don't insist on seeing the real thing, we recommend skipping the tour and visiting Kyiv's Chernobyl museum instead—the displays there are powerful enough.
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