How to Come to Belarus on a Budget?

28.07.2023 - 19:45 / 34travel.me

How to Come to Belarus on a Budget?

Basic Info

7380

Here is some good news: thanks to the European Games and Slavianski Bazaar Festival, you can enter Belarus without a visa through any border crossing. It means that if you have a ticket to any competition or concert, you don’t have to land at the Minsk airport –so you can save money flying to the neighboring capitals with low-cost airlines. The new rules are valid from June 10 to July 20, 2019.

* Even when the generous visa-free rules won't be valid anymore, all these routes will remain relevant. However, you will have to apply for a visa to Belarus to use them. Here we explain how to get a Belerusian visa. Visa-free entry will work for those who land at the Minsk airport or travel through certain border crossings (find all the details here).

Fly to Vilnius

If the prices for direct flights to Minsk don’t seem reasonable, consider the neighboring airport. Belarusians sometimes dare to call Vilnius Oro Uostas “Minsk-3 Airport”, because it’s just 180 km away. There is a bunch of low-cost airlines flying to Vilnius, including Ryanair & Wizz Air.

By train

There are three trains from Vilnius to Minsk every day (at 7.15 a.m., 7.30 p.m. & 8.03 p.m.), another one on Saturday & Sunday (at 9.15 p.m.) and some others that run not that often – here is the full timetable. Pay attention to the travel time: it varies from 2.5 to almost 5 hours on the road. The faster options are nice and new Lithuanian or Belarusian trains, and the unhurried ones are economy class sleeping cars.

The normal price is about € 17, you can buy tickets online here. Do not forget to print out your e-ticket. And come to the station about half an hour in advance, so as to have enough time to pass through the border control.

By bus

Traveling by bus is a little cheaper (€ 10-13) and slower (3-5 hours) than by train. Be ready that in this case the border control can turn into an unpredictable adventure and take an indefinite amount of time (because of the queues). Several companies offer bus rides from Vilnius to Minsk: it’s easy to find all of them out here.

If you aren’t going to stay in Vilnius for a long time, take into account that Ecolines and a couple of small companies (for example, this one and this one) have routes directly from the Vilnius airport to Minsk.

Fly to Warsaw

Another way to come to Belarus on a budget is to choose Warsaw as a transfer city. A lot of low-cost carriers fly there: Ryanair, Wizz Air, easyJet, Alitalia, etc. But remember that it's about 550 km between the capitals, so the trip will take much more time and energy.

By train

The easiest and the most comfortable option is the train Warsaw-Brest-Minsk (you'll have to change in Brest). It leaves every