I visited all 8 locations of this WHS in 2023. Unlike the Painted Churches of Moldavia, the 8 locations are not that easy to cover as a loop. I used Desesti and Baia Mare as my base and covered Ieud, Poienile Izei, Barsana, Budesti and Desesti (in that order) after an early departure from Suceava, and Rogoz and the 2 wooden churches of Sisesti the following day from Baia Mare. Make sure to save the churches' names and locations on Google Maps as finding their entrances and/or small parking spaces/lots sometimes can be quite challenging and not always that obvious due to similar but newer churches built close to them. Data roaming or a Romanian sim is a must to be able to contact the "holders of the key" in most locations. Try to time your visits around the 10:00-15:00 timeframe (some close on Mondays) but I would suggest trying your luck by calling the numbers provided just the same, as more often than not, the caretakers are the closest neighbors and will still come to open with a smile on their faces and collect a token fee if they are around.

The 8 wooden churches are quite similar to some of the wooden churches of the Southern Malapolska in Poland or the wooden churches of the Slovak Carpatians as an experience. The wooden churches of Maramures in northern Transylvania are a group of almost one hundred Orthodox churches, and occasionally Greek-Catholic ones, of different architectural solutions from different periods and areas. The architecture of all the 8 inscribed wooden churches is very similar with tall wooden towers, although they are quite plain when compared to the nearby Wooden Towers of eastern Hungary (tWHS). The small decorative details and the wooden mostly nail-less constuction techniques are evident in some and less evident in others. One of the top tourist attractions of the Maramures region is the Barsana Monastery (not the wooden one which is part of the UNESCO WHS) and it is like an open air museum. It is worth visiting if you're not pressed for time but shouldn't be confused with the WHS. Like all the Moldavian Churches, all the wooden churches locations proudly display their UNESCO WHS status with brown UNESCO symbol signs and some old information boards which need to be replaced. In Sisesti I also noticed a UNESCO WHS inscription sign in Braille!

As in most serial WHS, sometimes a positive experience heavily depends on the location you pick. In my case, having visited all 8 locations, I can safely say that the most impressive interior for its paintings is the one in Ieud, so if you were to choose only one of them to visit their interior make sure it is this one.