Service 05 · priced for your family · planned months ahead
You land in Poland. A few days later you are standing at the gate.
This is where everything else on this site leads, and the step most families take last — after the village is found, after the records are read, after they know whose gate they will be standing at. It is not a package with a price tag. It is built around one village and one family.
What it can include
Every journey is shaped around your village and the people travelling, so the list below is what a journey is built from rather than a fixed package.
- The research done first: the village confirmed, the records read, the grave located, and relatives approached where they exist
- A route and a day-by-day plan built around your village, with a spare day for the border
- The village days with me: the house or its site, the church, the cemetery, and relatives at a set table where they exist
- Interpreting at every conversation — the archive, the village council, the woman at the gate
- Photographs and film of the village days
- Help with the rest — the border crossing, a driver, hotels and insurance with war-risk cover — arranged with you, so you know exactly what each part costs
How the journey is built
- The research comes first
- We do not plan journeys to villages that have not been identified. The ground is prepared months ahead, through the same steps as everything else on this site: the records check, the day in the archive, the day in the village.
- Then the days are shaped around you
- Plans are built to the slowest member of the party, not to a template. Shorter days, fewer transfers, a car that reaches the cemetery gate, and one unhurried afternoon in the village rather than a schedule to keep.
- Then you come home with it in your hands
- You leave with the photographs, the documents and the addresses of people who now know you exist. If you want the family grave kept afterwards, it simply continues.
Price: in writing, for your family
- How many of you travel, and for how many days
- How far apart the villages are — some are an hour from Lviv, some a day
- Hotel standard, which is genuinely your choice and the largest single variable
- How much research still has to be done before you arrive
The price is set in writing once the research is done and the days are planned, and each part is paid before it is booked. Journeys run in the warmer months, and planning starts four to six months ahead. If the security picture worsens before you travel, your dates move or your money for unbooked parts returns — your choice.
This is right for you if
- You want to stand in the village yourself, not only see it in photographs
- You would rather one person be responsible for the village days than assemble them from a forum
- You are travelling with family across two or three generations
- You have already found the village, or are ready to start with the research that finds it
It is not right if
- Your village lies east or south of our western perimeter — we will not go, and we say so before taking money
- Health or mobility makes the roads unwise: we will tell you honestly and suggest a day in the village done for you instead
- You hold Ukrainian citizenship and are a man aged 18 to 60 — the exit rules under martial law come first, and we check this in writing before anything is planned
Questions about the journey
How much does a roots trip to Ukraine cost?
It depends too much on the family to publish one figure honestly: how many of you travel, for how many days, how far apart the villages are and which hotels you choose. The price is set in writing once the research is done and the days are planned. Most families start with a $140 records check or a $290 day in the village, which is also how the journey itself is prepared.
Is it safe to travel to western Ukraine?
Nobody honest answers that with a plain yes. We work only in the western regions, hundreds of kilometres from the fighting, with a written protocol and a shelter plan for every day — and every government advisory still tells you not to come. Read our full safety protocol and decide for yourself; some families read it and ask for the village day to be done for them instead.
How far ahead do I need to plan?
Four to six months, and for a summer journey that means writing to us the previous autumn or winter. Research comes first, then dates, then logistics.
Can my children and grandchildren come?
Please bring them. The village day lands differently when three generations stand at the same gate, and we shape the days so that the oldest and the youngest can both manage them.
What if the situation changes before we travel?
Your dates move or the money for everything not yet booked returns — your choice. If a journey must shorten while underway, the plan pulls westward or ends early.
The rest of the ladder
You can start anywhere on it, and stop after any step.
The village is still there. The people who remember your name are in their eighties.
Tell us the family name and where you are travelling from. We will tell you what would need to happen first, and how the journey would be built.