ChernobylX
x.tours About us
Founding of Xtours
THE TRIP THAT
CHANGED MY LIFE
My journey started, back in 2008, as your journey did. I was just a tourist, a number, a statistic. Visiting the Chernobyl zone for 2 days was a life-changing experience for me. And it was not as easy as it sounds. My fear was slightly greater than the initial excitement – and for my protection I packed some extra stuff: a respirator and a lead-covered jockey strap. I have to laugh when I mention this to people.
From the moment I got off the tourist-packed bus in the ghost town of Pripyat, smelled the winter breeze and felt the atmosphere, I immediately told myself that I need to get back here again and again and again. Establishing a specialized Chernobyl tour company was a dream come true – in order for me to continue to visit the zone and to show it’s true beauty, untold stories, and unseen legacy to others.
Xtours core values
PASSION
We want our customers to fall in love with the NO-GO places as we did, and we share the same level of passion for them
SOFT HEART, SHARP MIND
We treat customers like a part of our family and we are not just helpful, we always treat them with love and we try not to take things personally
HELPFULNESS
We like to share our success with people who had less luck in their lives as us – for example Chernobyl babushkas and families in Ukraine
CREATIVITY
We love what we do, we have fun, we find new creative ways to serve more people
GROWTH MINDSET
We treat all the obstacles and issues as lessons that help us to be better than yesterday
From Chernobyl to the World
After 15 years and with over 25,000 delighted customers, it looks like we at ChernobylX did a better than average job. We grew both in quantity and more importantly, in quality, it helped us become the no.1 attraction in the Kyiv region on TripAdvisor in 2018.
The lust for adventure and exploring took me to new NO-GO places like the Fukushima disaster area in Japan, suburbs of North Korea, the largest underground military airbase in Croatia, or a tank driving and shooting experience in Belarus. In time, I understood that the feeling of traveling is possible in all these dark tourism places when you have the right guide and the right story.
Leaving a legacy in Chernobyl
When the war in Ukraine started, we, together with our dear customers, took care of our colleagues and Chernobyl inhabitants. After a few weeks we started to open the gates to new NO-GO places. This is how Xtours came to life – taking the hidden gems of the toughest lessons of mankind to the sun, letting YOU immerse into the world of the past. To become a bit better today. And in the hope of making this world a better place to live tomorrow.
Just as I experienced back in 2008, this time we can make a bigger difference together by helping Chernobyl babushkas and the people in Ukraine with lives shattered by the war in their neighbourhoods will stay alive, and now we are creating charity initiatives around the destinations we serve. For a sustainable adventure tourism. Thank you for being part of this X story, and letting us be a part of your (adventurous) life.
