Is Moldova safe for tourists?

Very comfortable. Across 3 guides Moldova averages 4.2 out of 5; Orheiul Vechi, Chișinău are rated safe or very safe. Every guide names the comfortable areas and the ones that want care, with the reason.

Which parts of Moldova need the most care?

None of the 3 guides in Moldova is rated below 3: the usual big-city attention — bags in front on transit, phones away at the kerb — is the whole of it.

Moldova travel tips

Is Moldova safe?

3 guides, each rated 1 to 5 with the reason — and two lists per place, where you are comfortable and where to pay attention. Nowhere is called dangerous; the specific thing is what helps.

4.2 average across 3 guides · Safe

Orheiul Vechi Very safe

Very comfortable. The cliff path has drops and no rail; the monastery is entered by a hole in the rock. That is the whole list.

Comfortable: Butuceni · the gorge paths

the cliff path — drops and no rail

Chișinău Safe

Very comfortable, and the centre is walked late. Taxi overcharging off the app, and the usual care with the Central Market crowds. The pavements are broken; look down. Transnistria is a separate matter with its own card.

Comfortable: the centre · the parks · Botanica

the Central Market crowds — pickpockets
taxis off the app — overcharging
the pavements — broken; look down

Tiraspol Reasonably safe

Comfortable in the daytime in the centre and treated as a curiosity by the locals. The region is a frozen conflict with Russian troops in it; the entry slip has a time limit and is checked on the way out; photographing anything military or the checkpoints is a bad idea; cards and phones barely work. Go for the day, stay on the main street, and keep the slip.

Comfortable: 25 October street · the centre in daylight

the checkpoints and anything military with a camera — do not
the entry slip — it has a time limit and is checked on the way out
the outskirts after dark — not for wandering; go for the day

The ratings are this site's own, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in; they are not an index. Read the general advice in travel safety tips.

The guides in Moldova

The Nativity cathedral in the Cathedral park, Chișinău

ChișinăuMoldovaThe least-visited capital in Europe, a city of parks and Soviet concrete, with the biggest wine cellars in the world under the hills outside it and a country that wants you to come

The church on the cliff at Orheiul Vechi above the loop of the Răut river

Orheiul VechiMoldovaA limestone gorge an hour from the capital with a monastery cut into the cliff, a village of whitewashed houses, and two thousand years of layers under the grass

The Supreme Soviet building and the Lenin statue on 25 October street, Tiraspol

TiraspolMoldovaThe capital of a country that does not exist: Lenin still standing, a currency nobody else takes, a Soviet main street kept as it was, and a day trip from Chișinău that is stranger than anywhere else in Europe