Are you planning a trip to Kiev, Ukraine? If so, you may be
wondering whether it is better to stay in a Kiev hotel or rent
an apartment in Kiev. The purpose of this brief article is to
list here some of the factors that will hopefully help you take
the decision right for you.

Staying in Kiev hotels

Kiev hotels vary in quality and prices. Daily rates for some of
them start from around USD50 per night, but usually hotels
within this price category are located outside Kiev downtown and
have pretty Soviet-like style. The average hotel rooms cost
about USD100 per night and provide major amenities that you may
need while in Kiev – room with a bathroom and hot water,
telephone line, satellite or cable TV. More expensive hotels can
provide high speed Internet and other nice amenities like hotel
gym or nice swimming pool. Charge for some Kiev hotels includes
breakfasts that may be pretty convenient way to start your day.
The daily rates for some of the most expensive Kiev hotels are
around USD500 per night.

Advantage of staying in a Kiev hotel is the ability to check-out
any day you wish or extend your stay for as long as you want.
Also, every-day cleaning, room service, some in-house
restaurants, cafés, gyms, swimming pools can be a nice thing to
have around. Disadvantages include relatively high price for a
small space you are getting, and low privacy.

Staying in Kiev apartments

Renting an apartment in Kiev is becoming increasingly popular
among foreign guests to Kiev. Kiev apartments provide a lot of
space (one-bedroom, two-bedroom or even three-bedroom
apartments), excellent western-standard renovation, variety of
amenities. All of Kiev apartments have telephone lines, cable
TV, fridge, oven, kitchen with everything you may need to avoid
expensive Kiev restaurants. Many apartments have satellite TV
with numerous international channels, air-conditioning,
CD-players, DVD-players. Some apartments have high-speed
Internet or Jacuzzi.

Prices for Kiev apartments vary depending on the amenities and
the exact location of any specific apartment. In particular,
apartments in the very center of Kiev near Khreshatik St. and
Independence Square are much more expensive than those further
from Khreshatik or in other areas of Kiev. Accordingly, rates
for the apartments vary considerably depending on those factors.
The least expensive one-room apartments outside Kiev center can
be available at the rates starting around USD30 per night, the
most expensive luxury apartments can cost up to USD300 per
night. The average rates are around USD60 for a studio,
USD80-100 for a one-bedroom apartment, USD120-130 for a
two-bedroom apartment. The above rates tend to change and may be
different at the time you are reading this article.

There are no two Kiev apartments alike. It is not a hotel where
you book one of the rooms which are all nearly the same. All of
Kiev apartments are unique. Though, it is obviously an asset of
apartments, it has also some downsides. In particular, it may be
hard (if not impossible at all) to change the dates of your
stay. For example, if you want to extend your stay in the
apartment for a few days more, the apartment may already be
booked by someone else. On the other hand, if you want to leave
the apartment earlier, you will be required to cover for the
whole period of your booking anyway, since the apartment was
kept for you, and all other clients interested in the same dates
were refused. The above disadvantages can be easily eliminated
by more careful and thorough planning of the exact dates of
stay.

The same uniqueness of the apartments causes another
inconvenience. Landlords of good apartments are reluctant to
commit to bookings shorter than five nights. If someone agrees
to book an apartment for a shorter period, it often means that
they will accommodate you in any apartment available at the date
of your arrival. One-three night stays are not attractive for
apartment landlords and agencies at all, so they will hardly be
able to book anything specific. Exception is the situation when
there is a few day opening between other bookings that fits the
dates you are interested in. Four-night stays are somewhere on
the edge. The agencies may book a specific apartment, but there
is always a chance that its landlord will let the agency down
and do not keep the apartment for such a short period.

In order to book a Kiev apartment, you will be required to
provide a booking deposit in the amount equal to a one-night
stay or a higher amount depending on each particular apartment
and the length of your stay.

Availability of specific apartments is changing very fast, and
some agencies have availability calendar with bookings a few
months in advance. So, it is always good idea to book an
apartment well in advance, at least three or four weeks before
your trip.

Those are basically the major things to keep in mind when
choosing between a stay in Kiev apartments or Kiev hotels.
Regardless of what kind of accommodation you choose, you will
enjoy your stay in this beautiful European city with so many
things to offer to its visitors.