How to Travel to Kamchatka

Author: Dimitry Paranyushkin (on 09 Aug 2020)

 

Kamchatka has no ground connection with the mainland. No railways or roads lead to Kamchatka from the rest of Eurasia. The Navy and fishermen mainly use the seaport of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. There are no regular passenger ferries to anywhere from this port. The only possibility to get to Kamchatka or leave it is the air flight.

The airport is located in 20 km from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the village called Elyzovo. So the airport called “Elyzovo” airport. There are daily flights to Moscow, several flights a week to Siberia, Saint Petersburg and Alaska. To book your flight, you can use WayToRussia.Net Airline Tickets reservation service. Note, that if you buy your plane ticket beforehand it's going to cost about 2 times less, so it's better to plan your trip beforehand.

How to Get Around:
It is hard to get around Kamchatka by yourself. There are two reasons – permissions required and the lack of public transport.
Most of the area of Kamchatka is the closed and secured area. Some of it

Road to Kamchatka
Road to Kamchatka


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by the military reasons, some by the ecological ones. So, to move around you need to obtain special permissions. There are just several locations, which can be reached by the independent traveler without permissions. Most of the volcanoes and geysers are in the nature reserves, so you will not be able to get there without the permissions. The local tourist agencies provide the permissions for their clients. Usually you just buy the tour and don’t bother with the permissions.
The system of public transport is poor. There are just several regular buses, which operate at the routes from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the nearest villages.
The hitchhiking seems to be a hard activity at Kamchatka. There are few cars moving by the few roads of the peninsula.
The cycling and trekking without the guide is hard cause there are lack of proper maps of Kamchatka and dangerous due to the wild animals living in the area.
There are no companies which rent the cars in the city, however there are taxies which can get you to the villages around the city (using the inDriver or Yandex.Taxi apps to order it using your phone).
The most of the tourists use travel agencies to get around Kamchatka and they book the tours before. The rest come to Kamchatka independently hoping to travel by themselves but in the few days they also buy the tours, as they can’t reach anything on their own. 
If you don't like travel agencies, you can try the so-called "adventure clubs", which are usually ran by young people who create really cool itineraries. One that we recommend is called Sila Territorii (The Power of Territory) — they can also provide the equipment for your travel.

   

Practical Advices
There is a short high season at Kamchatka: from July to September only. This means that thousands of the tourists rush at Kamchatka at this time. During the high season it is hard to get the plane ticket to Kamchatka, find the room in the hotel in the city or package tour available – so, reserve the tour beforehand! You have to be equipped well to travel round Kamchatka. You should discuss with the travel agency the list of equipment they will provide and bring the rest by yourself.
 




 

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