We are taking trip to Hungary in August, 2014 and since this is a family history trip along with pleasure my husbands grandparents were from Botfalva which was at one time part of Hungary. It is now part of Ukraine more specificly Transkarpata province in a district of Ujhorodo. He would like to go see the village but would like to have a personal tour guide take him. Any suggestions if anyone has had experience with a tourguide we can contact.
Posted by
Magyarország / Rep of Texas
20301 posts
I believe you can get a train from Budapest to Chop which is very near where you want to go. I looked into a similar trip earlier this year to do a little fishing in the Carpathians. I got the impression at the time that crossing the border was no easy thing. We would have gone direct to Lviv, Ukraine and then would have hired a guide in Lviv to take us to our destinations. You might think of this too. Then have the guide drop you a rail point for the train to Hungary. That way you only have to deal with the border crossing once. We had decided we would cross the border to Slovakia on foot and have another car pick us up on the other side as the car checks at the time took the better part of a day. Again if you do it that way you can see Lviv on the way in which is supposed to be lovely, and Kosice, SK on the way out which is lovely. Then there is a direct train to Budapest from Kosice.
I never did the trip so I cant recommend a guide in the Ukraine. You might contact Andrew ILLES who is a guide we have used and who we have recommended in Hungary with good results for over a decade now. He might have some better insight on your trip. http://www.guideinbudapest.com/contactme.php
Because we will make this trip possibly next year (we went fishing in Bulgaria this year instead of Ukraine) please stay in touch and let me know how it worked out.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
Sorry, we don't have any specific advice for the Ukraine, and I wasn't too impressed with the web sites I found for "Ukraine Tourist Office."