If you plan to make multiple stops around Baikal, or if you want to visit several sites along the way, then you might want to work through a local tour operator. There are a number of tour businesses that can help you travel from one place to another, whether it is by bus, ferry, taxi, etc. And if there is a problem along the way, it will be no hassle for your tour operators to fix it themselves.

Of course many of you might like to travel solo, and take care of your own trip planning. Needless to say, you can find almost everything in the way of tour services over the internet these days. There are daily schedules for local buses and shuttles, as well as for the hydrofoil ferries and regional airlines. You can even find web-pages where you can arrange for dog-sled tours during the winter season.

Please remember that most of these web-sites will be in Russian only. But you can probably use an electronic translator to understand these sites, and still reserve tickets for local trips. It is important to keep in mind how big the Baikal region is! If you take a small shuttle-bus to Olkhon Island from Irkutsk, it should take at least 5-6 hours to get there. And from Ulan-Ude up to Ust-Barguzin and Zabaikalski National Park will take some 4 hours by shuttle-bus.

We don't always recommend renting a car for travel out into the countryside. In many places the roads are not paved; and you won't always find good cell phone connections—which would be important if you somehow take a wrong turn here in Siberia. Plus the road signs are all in Russian. So unless you have a lot of courage, and want to risk a mis-adventure or two, we would recommend that you hire a car with a local driver.

One last thing to mention: public transport within the big cities in Siberia is quite reliable. There's a key bus stop that is only a 2-minute-walk from the Irkutsk airport exit, for example. For 15-25 rubles you can get straight into the city center within half an hour. If you want to hire a taxi, it usually would cost 200-300 rubles to go across the city. All of our cities are worth exploring: there are numerous historical sites near to our downtown areas, with old wooden Siberian houses, city parks, and many scenic walks.