Travel from Kiev to Crimea

hello!
of course it's better to fly, but u should order tickets now, prices will be much bigger from 1 till 9 may beacose it's holidays and a lot of people going in crimea. in kiev you must see kievopecherskaya lavra, caves in there, independence squre,main street kreshatik, odl district podil, actuly in kiev a lot of interesting places. in crimia it much harder cose intresting plases in different cities
if u will have some other questions write me on kn1983@ukr.net
kostya

Thanks, have you every flown BizzAir? Also, once we get to Simferopol, we'll still need to take a train down to Sevastopol. Do those tickets also need to be bought in advance? Or are trains generally less congested? Thanks.

Once you are in Simferopol you can take a local suburban train ("elektrichka") or a bus. In either case, the route Simferopol-Sevastopol' takes about 2-2.5 hrs and costs about 10-20grn (<$3). You can buy tickets right there at the station before departure, trains are a bit cheaper and therefore more congested. But for a such short trip it doesn't really matter.
As for route from Kiev to Crimea I'd advise to take any of overnight trains. In my opinion it's much more cheaper and convenient - you need not to go to the airport which is 40-50km outside the city. However, you didn't tell how you're going to get to Kiev - by air or by land. In former case, probably the option of taking WizzAir to Crimea seems reasonable. But you should book and buy the tickets in advance.
The main sights of Kiev you can easily find on the web, as well as city maps. As for Crimea, the itinerary there depends on what you like more - the historical sites, cities, seaside or mountain trekking all suggest a different approaches. So please tell what do you want in more details.

To me, taking a bus to the airport an hour a way for a 1.5 hour flight is still more convenient than sitting on a train for 15 hours. At 15 hours, it doesn't really qualify as an "overnight" train to me, since I'll wake up and still have another 8 hours of travelling left. Is there something I'm missing?

Hi Jordan, I live here in Ukraine and the best way of going around I would say it's by train, the prices are fair enough and they are not bad, rather say even comfortable, with exception of toilets. The price will be around 14EU for 2nd class, cabins for 4 people and door or around 9EU for open cabin, 6 people sleeping - be prepared to interact with people and vodka...

You can catch flights, with Aerosvit, ukrainian airlines that sometimes make promotional prices.

Must see in Crimea I would say that you need some time over there, Sevastopol and the nuclear submarine base as well as the landscape are nice, just beaten by Sudak, check images over internet, is a really beautiful rest place with old ruins, canyons, nice beaches, calm with tourists but not as packed as Yalta, Alushta or others. But Yalta has a really nice landscape and hiking as well.

Staying in Ukraine is the tricky thing, plan a little in advance, check hostels and in Crimea hostels open only around may so you can basically book only around may, other options might be over priced with bad service/information/quality. Check tiu hostels, a bunch of foreigners running fun places in different cities, i staid with them and worth, even more near train station, amazing cheap places to eat and hang out, with the same walking distance from any sight seeing.

Just forgot to say that no, you don't have to buy so much in advance and there's no good service online to do so, you at most loose one day, and prices change but not double, maybe 20-30% more at most !

Все сказанное выше верно. Поезд лучше. сайт http://www.uz.gov.ua/?m=services.transppl&lng=uk В Киеве обратитесь помогу m_serg64@mail.com Бронировать что либо нет необходимости. Лучше искать на месте. Крым основные достопримечательности в городах Бахчисарай Севастополь с пригородом Ялта с пригородом Феодосия Много маленьких городков в стороне от основных маршрутов. Путешествовать лучше в мае (сухо нет дождей) В мае могут быть проблемы с покупкой бюджетных билетов на поезд Киев-Севастополь (много туристов) По интернету бронировать билеты не рекомендую.

Russian. Nice. Very helpful.

Sure, only railway.